for me?
sushi. i don’t want to be arsed to acquire the rolling and slicing skills, plus it’s not practical to buy the tiny amounts of the assorted fish i’d enjoy at a meal in a restaurant.
southeast asian. my neighborhood has an embarrassment of riches in this department and it makes for VERY cheap eats that are outside my usual cooking wheelhouse.
what about you?
Wings. We have a wingsover in town, and their wings are massive and always good. Awesome selection of flavors, too.
Sichuan food. We have several very good restaurants to choose from, and I eat it at least once a week. No way I could make it even half as good as any of them.
rotisserie chicken, roasted saddle of veal, and just about anything that tastes better if it comes from a wood-burning oven. Also, if I am in the mood for a great fish dinner, I tend to go out to an excellent restaurant for it rather than risk buying expensive fish and overcooking it – I’ve not got a lot of practice cooking fish.
I also don’t deep fry anything.
Mexican food .
Pho.
Sushi.
Anything deep-fried.
Fried chicken. Pastries. Neither is worth the mess or time for a solo cook.
As already mentioned, anything fried. Hate the smell of fried foods!
duck confit - because I never have that much duck fat around
steak tartare - for some reason I never want to eat it after going to all the trouble of chopping it
anything with morels - because I don’t want to see the worms
cassoulet - seems like too much effort
raw oysters - I’m a terrible shucker, I always end up with an injury that is borderline ER worthy.
Oysters! I live raw Oysters and will order them any chance i get at a reputable place but I have never thought to have them at home. In fact i rarely cook seafood aside from simple fish at home since i dont have access to a great market during the week yet i love it. I used to buy more seafood when i lived in NYC and commuted through Grand Central which had an excellent if pricy market but i just have a hard time feeling good about supermarket seafood counters.
I’m with everyone on the fried food piece. Hate my house smelling like a fast food restaurant.
I also agree with sushi and steak tartare.
I can’t get access to the sashimi grade fish where I live so I’d rather go for sushi than make it at home.
I’d rather not make myself sick from homemade steak tartare.
Wise words. When I was very young, my aunt took us to a restaurant where they served tartare. Loved it so much, but so few places serve it. My aunt was like my sister, but we lost her far too young. Anyway, as a tribute to her on her birthday a few years back, I made tartare at home. Was it ever delicious … and did I ever make us sick! Please add tartare to my list. 
Indian food. I can’t be bothered to make the 4-5 dishes I want. Plus naan, of course.
Many things.
Like you said, sushi. I like to try a little bit of each type of sushi and that makes it very difficult to achieve at home.
Pho. I made Pho a few times. I find the difficult part of Pho is all about the perfecting the broth/stock. Unfortunately, even when I did a very good job, I ended up with 2 liters of broth, which means I need to eat Pho for 6+ meals in that week. I suppose I can freeze the stock, but I just think it is easier to go to Vietnamese restaurant and have the Pho like once every two month.
Jook (Chinese congee). I am actually very good at it. The problem is similar to Pho, but not quiet as bad because I can easily switch different ingredients. Still, I am stuck with 6-10 meals worth of Jook.
Cantonese Dim Sum. I can actually make about 3-6 kind of Dim Sum pretty well. However, it is similar to both the sushi problem and the Pho problem. I really want to try different Dim Sum each time, not the 30+ of the same kind. Also, making Dim Sum is very laborsome. Sometime it is just not worth the effort. I think it is also because I live closed to some decent Dim Sum restaurants too.
Southern BBQ. I don’t have proper equipments. I did made it a couple of times at home and it was actually passably ok, but the entire apartment smell like BBQ for about a week. (Yes, ever ytime I came back from work, I could smell it.)
In short, many many things.
Always order out:
Baked stuffed lobster
Fried food - on the rare occasion
Sushi & sashimi
Raw oysters - G doesn’t like them
Octopus - Ditto
Seaweed salad - Ditto
[quote=“Gio, post:13, topic:1493”]
Octopus [/quote]
Although it will definitely stink up the house for 48 hours, most octopus couldn’t be simpler to cook – just stew it in wine or just water forever – and a great many classic European recipes for octopus call for frozen octopus, because the freezing breaks down the tough rubbery-ness and eliminates the need to pound it before cooking. (Some frozen octopus also comes cleaned, but it is not hard to clean anyway.) Not trying to twist your arm into cooking it but just pointing out if you like octopus, it’s a great rainy-day freezer item. Lots of low-fat protein at a cheap price. I cook mine and then chop it and pile it on top of boiled potato slices, dress it with black olives, olive oil, lemons, parsley, ground pepper. Good cold the next day too. If you have smoked pimenton from Spain, you can easily do pulpo gallego (sp?).
This is an interview with Mario Batali where he talks about using frozen octopus to make grilled octopus for his restaurants.
Thanks HT! I have cooked octopus in the past and loved it. It’s my husband who won’t go near it. Because, you know, “it’s Octopus.” That’s his reason.
I feel guilty eating it since they’re so smart, can get out of a jam like nobody’s business and can choose winning lottery numbers and teams! I’d have never opted to eat it if I didn’t have it served to me and asked, “Hey, this is good–what is it?” HA HA!
Pigs are quite smart, too… yet I don’t see people abstaining from pork because of this.
Quite frankly, because pig is that much tastier than octopus to me, personally!
It is about perception. We don’t think of pigs as very smart even though they are smart.
Except for Wilbur. He was bright, but not as bright as Charlotte, the rock star of all spiders. I’ve even held and bottle-fed baby piglets. I wish I could tell you it made them less delicious to me, but no. And I kill spiders without one microsecond of guilt, too.
