Eating out is always an expensive let down.

Post Covid I’ve noticed this and I think it’s because the price of everything has gone up so much that places I used to go to for cheap eats aren’t cheap anymore but the quality has remained the same or got worse so I’ve started to begrudge it.

For example pub grub is just pub grub and when it was a tenner I didn’t mind but when the same meal is now £20 it feels a bit… Meh.

I’ve also always been a Nando’s fan and whilst I still like Nando’s, my rice bowl and chips with a drink came to £25 in there recently. Their Caesar salad alone is £16! When I was first going there my whole meal with a drink used to come to £14 so it felt like you were getting great value for money, but it’s losing its appeal now.

Set meals At set meal times sounds deadly dull to me and I’m 60.

We discovered that cafés on larger business parks (intended, I assume, for the business park staff) tend to be subsidised in some way, perhaps on reduced rent? Found a café (Park Kitchen on Thames Valley Park if you're passing) charging about £6.50 for a full English. Amazing value and delicious. Could pay more than double that in eg Henley on Thames for the same thing. Only downside is they stop serving breakfasts at 10.

I do think a lot of places are overpriced for what they are. I’ve had some amazing meals in restaurants in the past. So many places are just reheating bits. A lot of the talent/ expertise has gone out of kitchens in favour of a standardised approach which is cheap/ easy to prepare.

I worked in a hotel for a while. None of the deserts were prepared in house they were bought in frozen from a supplier then defrosted and plated up with a bit of sauce. On the menu for £9. I think you could probably just buy an equivalent desert for a quid or two tbh.

I don’t mind paying for really nice food/ skill involved. However really object to paying £££s for slightly rubbish, I could do that better myself at home.

I'm in my 50s and tend to agree, I used to love going out to eat, but now unless I spend £££ it's meh.

As previously said wagamama is ok (my teens love it and it is fresh and tasty), but most of the other mid-range places are disappointing.

Just reading some of the local restaurant offerings for valentines and the prices are a joke. Being a lot more selective about eating out these days , we are (well mainly husband) quite adventurous home cooks so really look for something we wouldn’t be able to replicate easily at home.

We actually went out lastnight , £14.50 set menu at a local Indian and it was great value for starter , main , veggies and rice or side

If they'd bought you smoked salmon and a sprinkle of capers on bread instead of eggs and avocado, the ingredients would have cost them maybe a pound more, at wholesale prices; but the salmon option would have used significantly less prep time, and all the other costs of providing you somewhere to sit down and eat would have been exactly the same.
It's not very reasonable to focus on the ingredients as a measure of whether you're getting value from a restaurant or cafe.

We are fortunate to have some very nice pub/cafe eateries around our area. We go out with friends, choosing a different place once a month, and also sometimes on our own. We tend to study menus carefully (pescatarians) as sometimes there won’t be much that we fancy, and, because I can cook some decent food, I want to think I am getting value for money, but tempered with the understanding it is being cooked for me. We tend to do independent pubs rather than chains, last thing we want to eat is a microwaved offering of any kind, but don’t mind paying a bit more for freshly cooked stuff, even if we have to wait a bit longer for it. I have on occasion sent things back, usually if it is not hot. Another tip is to take your time ordering, have a look at what other folks are having delivered to their table, does it look nice, are the portions ok for you, I have asked someone if they could recommend what they are eating, if it’s an appropriate moment.
Somewhat surprisingly, a couple of the nicest and best value meals we have had recently were in a Leeds hospital restaurant. Totally different, very tasty, and I have even adapted one dish to make at home. Decent price as well.

If you know that you are the sort of person that likes a place which sells hotpot for £5.99, why did you order avocado on sourdough for £13?

There was no way you were ever going to like it. It's aimed at a completely different market of people who like the 'gentrified' experience.

Local to me I can go to a pub that serves good quality gastropub food or a pub serving ginormous pies. One caters for people who want to know where the ingredients came from and serves small portions, the other caters for people who think it was a rip off if the portion size isn't a feat of endurance. Both businesses doing well but they mainly are not catering to the same people.

Agree - the roast potatoes are nearly always a huge letdown. Though I’m far more lenient about the yorkshires. V fussy about the potatoes. It’s a shame because the rest of it is often pretty good!

Agree. I stick to one or two places that never disappoint when I want a meal I know I'll enjoy ( treat meal out with dh). When I have to eat out elsewhere I'll always pick the same one or two cheap things, because every time I try something else I'm disappointed and think what a waste of money! People sneer at chain pubs like Weatherspoons but at least you know what you're getting.

I feel like this too, I stick to my local Chinese where you can get all you can eat for £25 and it’s soo good!

I agree. I've become quite a good cook over the last 15 years and I avoid restaurants - I've been disappointed too many times. It's just not worth to pay 25+ quid for cheap, tasteless ingredients from a supermarket, rubbery meatballs and premade curry sauce laden with sugar. Why pay so much for something I can do much better and cheaper at home? So we rarely eat out, unless it's Nandos or on special occassions - a buffet-style restaurant. I'd even prefer a pizza tbh. Now only eating on holidays e.g. Spain - we've rarely been disappointed, always fresh seafood.

I think it can be expensive but I just take care choosing restaurants to make sure it’ll be worth it!

This is why I never go Italian. Cheap ingredients, not so cheap cost 😁

Why did you order it? My last two meals out (for which I did not pay as part of Christmas treats from DD and her DP for in-laws) were superb. One was a taster menu which was huge fun and included really nice food and was filling (7 courses); the other was a visit to a Keralan restaurant where I had dosa, which was lovely. Not cheap, I guess, but very nice.
I have had 'off' experiences but not very often.

Yes, it's bothersome to complain and they are largely taking the piss.
I'm due to visit my elderly Mother in another country, she goes on about eating out.
Cringing already, they are as ridiculous there as in Britain.

I don’t eat out in restaurants anymore. Perhaps once a year I do. One too many let downs. Last time, we had food that had gone cold and just wasn’t enjoyable. Time before that, got a parking ticket - city centre, hadn’t realised that the ticketing was different from a place that I regularly parked nearby. There was no pressure on spaces, it was an evening and still about a mile from the restaurant, so not like I dumped it on yellow lines outside the restaurant or anything. It was just a money grab by the council. Time before that, food was average and service was painfully slow and I just felt like the evening was wasted. 20 mins just to get the bill. Other times, the sheer cost just means that reasonable food/service is not worth it. All these places are city centre and I have just decided not to go there anymore.

I do eat out at places where you grab stuff like subway, pret and McDonald’s. You know what you’re getting so it never disappointed, the price is reasonable enough for what it is, it’s quick and convenient.

Never had a decent roast dinner out. The roast potatoes are never good (think they often use frozen) and the yorkshires are usually awful.

A roast has to be freshly cooked with home made yorkshires and roasties

OP, I think I understand. Something I've noticed in my 20 years in the UK is that when i arrived here, there seemed to be a huge difference in price and quality so you sort of knew what you were getting - right, we're off to the cheap and cheerful cafe, it will be a basic, but perfectly yummy bacon sandwich. OR, I'm going to have a lovely gastro pub meal and it will be expensive btu the quality will be notably fantastic. Or I'm off for a slap up meal at some pricey cheffy place where I'm expecting to be wined, dined and generally experience the good life.

And each was priced accordingly.

Nowdays, the super super expensive placse are still crazily more expensive BUT everything else seems to have melded together into the rougly same cost even though the quality still varies massively.

Our local pub (Surrey) likes to think of itself as gastro.... and charges accordingly. But the problem is that it's not. It's part of a bigger group so it might have its own name etc, but the menu is basically identical to other pubs and the food is NOT cooked from scratch in its kitchen with a fully trained chef. And yet, a burger is £18 and, at best, average. If I go to a "proper" gastro pub down the road, I'll pay £18 for a burger too but it will be a really really fantastic burger.

And that annoys me intensely.

I agree OP! I think lots of chain restaurants use pre-prepared food made in dark kitchens which is then re-heated. Never very nice but ok if you need to buy something quick and easy. I try to go to support local restaurants run by owners themselves who want to provide a decent service rather than being focussed on saving money and using the cheapest ingredients.

I agree with PP, it's often such bad value for money that I'll only order something that I couldn't make well myself. Pizza is the least worst, I suspect because you can get away with cheap ingredients if you're reasonably skilled at making them.

Me and DH rarely eat out now and, when we do, it is almost always at an indian restaurant.

We are vegetarian and so many restaurants offer such boring veggie food. Also many now just offer vegan food which means no butter, fake cheese, often fake meat. I don't eat that at home and don't want to eat it out either.

We both like cooking and are good cooks so can cook a lot of things that restaurants offer much better ourselves. I make great veggie lasagne - a roast veg one, a lentil and mushroom one, a mushroom, spinach and walnut one. Never had a decent one in a restaurant.

We make better pizzas than Pizza Express ones and don't scrimp on the toppings like they do.

We do make good curries but it's nice to sometimes eat in an indian and have naan bread cooked in a tandoor

I agree. Nine times out of ten I'd rather just make food at home.