To think my home cooking is better than a lot of restaurants?

I’ve tried everywhere. Almost. Very expensive restaurants, Italian ones, basic ones..but no luck yet.

Same my go to is Japanese for eating out

I couldn't agree more my husband and friends often say you cook better than this or I'd rather eat yours but honestly I like to eat out. It doesn't help that we have an annoying range of allergies so I have learnt to be creative and we are a bit restricted when out. My garlic allergy is super unfuckinghelpful as is dh's dairy.

Yes me too. Last time I ordered pasta it was over cooked and had way too much sauce. Very few places seem to do it well

It is how myself and my family feel - eating out and takeaways are often very disappointing

I’ve given up ordering simple pasta dishes like carbonara or any pasta dish. I’m always very disappointed.

How nice for you and I'm sure your family love your cooking. However I'm a capable but not enthusiastic or adventurous cook so I would love to eat out much more (no budget 😭). DD and I were just saying if we lived in a bigger place with a choice of restaurants, we'd eat out loads, just work our way along the high street. We are quite rural so Deliveroo isn't an option at all.

Totally agree and if i eat out then I try as far as possible to order something that is not something I could or would make at home, whether in terms of obscure ingredients, cooking methods or amount of dishes and equipment involved.
I can't fathom going out and ordering something like a penne arrabiatta or a baked potato, for example, id be ordering veggie tempura, thali and dosa or a proper Naples style stone baked pizza etc. Although being vegan can mean i have limited menu options so sometimes just have to suck it up!

Excellent!

I have really focused on improving my cooking since the first lockdown and I also find this. I'd mostly rather eat my own cooking. Also veggie and that doesn't help as so much has become vegan that if you don't like vegan cheese, there may not be much choice.

Exceptions:
Burgers and sides (I can't do a decent burger and can't get the chips right)
Chips from the chippy
10 course tasting menus.

I feel much the same, OP. But mostly driven by the sheer cost of eating out, particularly since brexit, Covid etc.

I used enjoy Zizzi’s or Wagamama’s, even though the food wasn’t brilliant, because it gave me a break from cooking and was an affordable treat with the kids, and DH and I quite often went to really good restaurants.

Now I’d never eat in a chain because the price of the stuff they’re dishing out overrides any value or enjoyment I’d get from eating it. And you need a second bloody mortgage to eat in high end places these days, so no matter how good the food was I always feel ripped off and pissed off at how much we’ve spent, which kind of undermines the whole experience.

So yeah, with some rare exceptions, I’d almost always choose to eat at home rather than go out, because I’m not a bad cook and the food is always cheaper and often much nicer.

I agree OP. I enjoy cooking and have taught myself different techniques and cuisines over the years. I like going out for a brunch as they're reasonably priced and it's a nice start to the day.
I have an incredible Italian nearby that I don't mind paying for as the pasta is fresh, the bread made on site, the veg from their garden etc and it is absolutely delicious, and I don't mind street food / food hall type places as they're reasonable and we can all try something different.
I went to Carluccio's recently purely because I had a voucher and it was extremely average at best, I'm sure it used to be much better. It was fine as a quick dinner out shopping but if I'd paid full price I wouldn't have been happy.

I feel this way but in my case it's mostly due to declining standards in food when eating out rather than increasing standards in my own cooking. The air fryer has helped though, I'm prone to overcooking things like chicken or prawns on the hob and the air fryer takes my human error away.

My husband's food is often better than in a restaurant.

It doesn't mean the restaurant cooks aren't better - they obviously are - make many more dishes at the same time and work to our timeline rather than the other way around at home - and so on - but it does mean that I struggle to see the benefits of eating out!

I sometimes feel the same. I'm vegan so choice is often limited and I begrudge paying 20 quid for a branded burger I can buy in the supermarket and do a better job of cooking myself, followed by an afterthought of a dessert (if there even is one!).

If they have a decent menu of well thought out, well cooked vegan options though... take my money!

I'm vegetarian and also type 2 diabetic so have to go easy on starchy carbs. Eating out is an utter nightmare most of the time - and I hate to pay to eat something I could have cooked better myself. So as a result, we tend to have breakfast/brunch out as there is so little to go wrong with it.

We went to a local cafe today with our DD as she's home and I had a salad with goats cheese and roasted veg. To be fair, it tasted OK at the time but several hours later I can still taste what it was seasoned with and I've had 4 big glasses of water...

You won't be wrong, especially when you see a lot of restaurant and take away owners stocking up in Costco. When I was younger I thought dining out was special and they must get there food from somewhere better than where we shop! Also when it's microwaved.

We don't go out that often and I've become quite picky where we go.

This^ is exactly how I feel. I choose very carefully where to go for a meal out. I can’t claim that I’m a very good cook but I just can’t pay £14 for pasta with roasted vegetables, and it’s just ordinary dry pasta not a fresh one. And I suspect that the only reason our local Italian has warm brownie on menu because they have to heat it up from frozen . And it’s fine but their prices are ridiculous.

Egg and chips done well is the best meal in the world!

I am with the person who said I can order what I want. DH and DS don't like mushrooms so I often have them in my starter and main. I really like nduja, olives, capers, anchovies, and other salty foods so love having a pizza with that sort of topping. DH likes mayonnaisey based sauces, which I don't.

I have to say I would never ever order a salad. I can chop and arrange my own on a plate.

When I eat out I want someone in the kitchen to have spent at least four hours making a sauce. I won’t pay for anything that arrived in the kitchen frozen or premade. So really we eat out rarely and in restaurants we save up for.

There’s a couple of excellent local takeaways (Thai/Indian) that we sometimes use but we’re not bad at Indian so that one tends to be a ‘too knackered to cook’ option. And we have some amazing local fish and chip shops that beat anything we can make.

Otherwise we do quite well with our own cooking. We enjoy it.

With the cost of restaurants being so high the restaurant has to be really good to make it worth it.

We are both good cooks but have a few restaurants we love going to, Italian, French, Korean, Nepalese, fancy British - they are genuinely wonderful. By contrast, a Hall & Woodhouse pub we went to yesterday was not great, steak that had clearly been cooked overlong in a pan that wasn't hot enough - disappointing as not cheap. Probably didn't help that the restaurant was boiling hot and everyone was very tetchy!

The best-and the most expensive-meal I’ve had recently was at a Michelin starred vegan restaurant. It was amazing!

I get it.

And I have worked in restaurants for years!

Most UK "pub grub" is precooked frozen crap that is nuked and served with chips. Why the hell would I pay £15 for that when for less money I can make a much better meal from fresh ingredients at home? Eating out isnt cheap so when we do go out I get pissed off at being charged big money for not great food.

I think you are right about food from other countries/cultures being vastly better in places run by people from those countries/cultures. But so much stuff has been watered down by chains.....prezzo, wagamamas etc.... There is an Italian restaurant near me that is amazing, great prices (£27 for a MASSIVE fillet steak in red wine sauce for example) and is, surprise surprise....run by an Italian family!

We’re all good cooks in our family. My favourite meals are when a load of us cook and bring it together for a communal feast. There are usually about ten different desserts too and my aunts apple pie would leave Mary berry for dust.

so we only go out for dinner when there’s a lot of other stuff going on (house renovations etc) or somewhere really decent for a celebration. Or to a more unusual Asian restaurant where we’re likely to get something new and interesting. Or fish and chips, because even if you cook that at home to an acceptable level, you can’t beat a chippy tea. Also it stinks the house out.

edit:spelt dessert incorrectly 😮