Sick of eatting out and it’s not that good!

We eat out quite a bit, and usually, not always, the food is good, but you just get a bit sick of it all don’t you? Sometimes a home made fish pie or stew and dumplings just hits the spot and is far preferable to eating out.

I'm feeling like that right now, in fact all I fancy for dinner is a grated cheese salad sandwich in very fresh bread and salad cream. I’m a cheap date.

Absolutely. It’s one of the reasons we go self catering on holiday now. Then we can just choose a couple of the better places. Pubs are all very samey and expensive. I still like a good pizza (usually from a chain restaurant with an offer on) or Indian,

The only exception is brunch. It’s my favourite thing to eat out (if they do the eggs well).

My DH was a chef until he retired - he does 80% of the cooking, we rarely eat out as we can have MUCH better food at home- except when I cook of course! 😉He's having to suffer my spag bol tonight, but is very supportive saying a meal cooked by someone else with love always tastes better than something you've cooked.

In addition anything suggesting ‘the government hates x group’ is generally bollocks. It’s not personal.

Must be lucky here, since we’ve had 3 lunches out with different old friends recently, all fine. We do avoid chains though, and re Sunday roasts, I’ve always thought home-cooked is better. Roast potatoes and green veg in particular need to go more or less straight from oven or pan to plates. Not to mention proper gravy, made in the roasting tin.

But at least someone else cooks it and does the clearing up - that’s surely the main advantage of a Sunday roast out.

One of the worst meals I had was in a famous pub in Ireland. The menu looked great - the kind of Irish things you might expect - prawns, leek and potato soup, rashers and liver...

The prawn tempura was the strangest thing I've ever seen. Each prawn was identical, and looked like it had been made in an old fashioned crimping iron, they were straight and rippled, like an crinckle cut chip. I ate one - the batter was thick and greasy, and not really quite cooked in the middle. The rest I cut the batter off and only ate the 'prawns'. Honestly they were more like skinny pink worms.

The waiting staff asked if there was a problem when they came to take my plate "A bit too much batter" (me)
"Would you like me to say something to the chef?" (staff)
"No, it's fine" (me) I mean that chef had not been any part of the process except chucking the factory produced items into the deep fat frier, nothing they could do about it.

Where we live we aren't usually disappointed but we were away last weekend so booked into an Indian Cafe for an evening meal on Friday.
The app took our booking but when we got there it wasn't even open, it's closed on Fridays!!!
Found another Indian in the centre, 3 of us, Bill was £110 and honestly it was the worst Indian food I'd ever tasted, get better from the supermarket.
Next night we ordered a Chinese takeaway, via Deliveroo, food was very nice tbh but they missed one of the main courses. When we called them they said they couldn't do anything about it as ordered via Deliveroo so they couldn't send the missing meal.
Tunbridge Wells.... avoid !

I honestly don't see this.

DD and I eat out once a month or so, and although I spent most of my early adult live in the city- decades ago- she is the one who knows where the good places are.

I have honestly been blown away by the standard of food these days compared to when I was a city dweller.

No chains of course, but in the past few months she has taken me to several places in the city centre- an amazing french bistro- lunch 2 courses for £12.95, including steak. Incredible Thai place that serves very authentic food, large portions, again £14-16 a head. ditto with spanish tapas place and a roasted sea bass the size of my arm. An amazing mexican place food full of fire and zing.

None of these places cost more than £20 a head including drinks.

I have cut down almost completely this year.

Silly prices for crappy food and noisy atmosphere. No thanks.

I understand that costs for restaurateurs are rising, as is everything else. But inferior offerings won’t encourage people to spend their hard earned cash.

The style over substance I mentioned, referred specifically to The Ivy. The place looks very high end. The uniforms are smart and the decoration over the top and flamboyant. The service is sub optimal and the food mediocre.

It’s disappointing when restaurants where you’ve enjoyed meals previously, become sub standard. We eat out rarely now, but the last time we met up with friends for a meal, there was limited choice and it was average.

But the tax regime hasn't changed enormously in the last 5 years - consumers have been paying VAT at 20% everywhere (not just the food industry) for ages, and the NI changes are very recent. Every employer has to deal with premises costs and increases in minimum wage and energy prices, not just restaurants. I think everyone understands that.

But in the same period there's been a noticeable drop in quality together with price hikes in places that previously offered good food at competitive prices. It's thag double whammy that people are on about. I don't think people mind paying more for good food. It's the overpriced crap that puts people off.

A minority of restaurants seem to manage to keep serving good food so it seems that it can be done.

I feel like the mid range is absolutely not worth it these days. We either tend to go to a very small local independent Chinese, Turkish etc which is super casual and under £30 a head, or save somewhere nice (£90/£150 a head) for treats. Everything in between feels like a rip off.

Many pubs near me (south UK) are still lost in the 1970s and 80s but with 2025 prices.
Usual stuff like lasagne, curry, steak, chili, pies etc.
Or 'dirty burgers' - give it a rest!

We used to have lots of great chinese, vietnamese, japanese, indian, nepalese restaurants. Now so many of them are just an Asian mish-mash where you can get thai green curry, samosas, chicken korma, sushi, vietnamese rolls, all on the same menu. There's unlikely to be some super-chef in the kitchen making all those from scratch so they are all just look-alike / taste-alike freezer packs.

We never eat out now other than a very special meal at a very posh place for celebrations.

I find most places are too £££ and I'm not paying £20 on average for a main course that isn't half as good as home cooking.

I really like eating out because for me it isn't just the food itself its the whole experience.

But it's just so expensive nowadays I feel it has to be really superlative to justify the cost and it usually isn't.

What annoys me is that places will say that they don’t get much call for vegetarian food. Well that’s because we generally check the menu online beforehand and if it’s the ‘fuck you’ risotto then we don’t go.

Yes exactly that - sprinkle salt all over and leave on a grill rack overnight im the fridge. Next day wash off and leave it to get to room temperature before cooking and cook on high. Go for rib eye or sirloin

https://jesspryles.com/how-to-make-your-steak-even-tastier-use-the-dry-brining-method/

We are away for a few days next week and looked at a few local pubs with a view to eating out most nights. £17 for chilli! Stuff that. Got some steaks and salad/ batch cooked curry and boil in bag rice etc to self cater.

Completely agree. A few years ago DH and I went on a walk which had a lovely pub with a nice view half way through. We had a smashing ploughman’s lunch. Big bits of local cheese, bread, pickled onion all that kind of thing. Just what you want in a country pub.
We fancied doing the same again but this time but it’s changed hands and it’s all heritage carrots and confit pork.

edit:
that was meant to be a reply to an earlier post about pubs wanting to be gastro pubs.

DS took me and DH to a restaurant near where he lives that was Michelin starred , my Yorkshire puddings were inedible rock solid and burnt, the roast beef was very tasteless too( heaven only knows what it cost!)
Conversely DH and I did a stadium tour of Tottenham Hotspur and decided to eat at the cafe there, okay it was served on recyclable plates and cutlery, but we had a beautifully cooked delicious meal £19 for 2 mains.
I'm really fed up of going out for overpriced food that is badly prepared, we've stopped going out to eat, and only go with friends to be sociable.

Mass produced microwaved crap is right.

Lately I can't eat out without getting ill afterwards and the quality and quantity has been shaved down endlessly. The joy has gone.

I don't blame you. At least if you take your own lunch, it will be exactly how you like it!

There was a thread about first world problems this would fit with. I do understand fully though so not a dig. It's so frustrating to spend our limited means on crap food.

I am always am very polite but send something back after I've had one bite and looked at it if it doesn't pass muster.

That way they'll change it immediately. Though I have sometimes had a feeling the second meal won't be any better so just nurse my drink.

Write an honest TripAdvisor and don't go again.

There are plenty of decent places who struggle which is sad really. It feels like good restaurants don't survive while mediocre chains thrive.

Came here to say exactly the same thing, one of the things I loved about going out to eat was having food that it was beyond my ability to make at home. These days the stuff that gets served up is no different and often less appealing and tasty my own cooking. The only new places that seem to open up where I live tend to be pizza restaurants and think that this is because they don't take a huge level of skill to make and probably have a reasonable profit margin