Anyone else sick of mediocre food when eating out?

[Fantasisa]

We had a family meal out on Friday in our local pub - nothing was terrible but no meal was great either just reheated stuff mostly.

We do have a few decent places that we frequent but I find bills for a family are £££ and still nothing beats home cooked food.

Anyone else find eating out a bit meh? DH says I need to lower my expectations.

Never had a bad Wagamama!

“Never had a bad Wagamama!“

I have! Particularly since getting the cookery book and making my own Amai Udon.......

We only eat out occasionally, but make sure we only go to really good places and sped a bit more.
I don’t enjoy eating bad food that I could cook better at home.

I was just thinking this as I have had 3 bad meals out in row. All independent places, 2 different cities and none of them cheap!

I am a good cook and I can easily knock up tastier and certainly cheaper stuff at home but the problem is I don't always want to!

We like to socialise with friends.

We were in Lisbon in December and without knowing the city at all we managed to have not a single bad meal there and FABULOUS wines! For a fraction of the price of home...

If you're talking pubs and chain "restaurants" (F&Bs etc) then DW and I have given up eating out. It's hard to pay good money for food that isn't as good as something you can make yourself at home.

The small independent places (in Birmingham, so plenty of choice for Indian ...) are good, but then you have accessibility issues.

We did try a really nice place just before Xmas (DS treat), but with tiresome predictability they closed down after a few months.

You don't need to be a rocket scientist to look at the increase in places to eat out in, and the decrease in people studying catering and come to a conclusion.

I will forever be grateful to MN for adding the term "ping and fling" to my vocabulary ...

I made the decision a few years ago not to eat out unless the food was better than I make at home. Obviously I go with the flow if someone else is arranging or the DC are deciding. I really don't like eating out on a Sunday because a roast is a fairly easy meal to make at home and always tastes better even with my limited cooking skills!

A person after my own heart cathay123

We are on holiday in wales at the moment and was hopung for a few nice meals out but have now just decided to cook ourselves for a fraction of the price. Went for a meal on monday at a local placexwith goid reviews but was not great. I ordered pue and mash but it was just a frozen pie ( not even a decent one ) and tunned peas for £12. No thanks.

I’d rather spend my money on a nice takeaway. But I’m a homebody who love nothing better than a Chinese, Netflix and a bottle of nice (not overpriced) wine preferably whist in my pjs.

We’ve “done the math” as they say about steak- and spend a wodge of money on meat and have it at home. So much cheaper and better. We still love going out for dim sum, for example, or Thai food ....

The whole point about eating out as a family is not having to cook for once and clear up at home. Pizza or a decent local Italian restaurant usually does the trick. Or an eat-in fish and chip shop. Weatherspoons and the like - just no.

Now my kids are older when I eat out am happy to spend £50 - £100 on my dinner+wine - just so long as there are no pesky kids in the restaurant.

Absolutely, bibbety. If we want really good restauranty food we have it at home. If we want to go out we go and have pizza or sit in fish and chips or Spoons.

What I find really annoying is the chefs on say Saturday Kitchen bleating on about how good British food is these days.
It isn't, there are some good places to eat I'm sure but more often than not I'm disappointed. I don't want a huge volume of food, not do I want much choice I want whatever they do, done well. The worst is the roast dinner in a pub, the meat is often OK but the roast potatoes are yuck.

It's because of the OP that we rarely eat out. When we do now it tends to be at a very well known carvery, and even then we only go when it's either kids eat for £1 or 33% off. When we last ate out somewhere else, we only waited ten minutes for our food to arrive. I'm pretty certain steak and curry takes much longer to cook! Chicken-ping springs to mind 🧐

@Blackboot1 totally agree. A lot of local restaurants in Ireland are definitely all about the portion sizes. People do prefer a "good feed". Lots of double carbs and even triple. Chips and mash with a curry anyone!?
But then you do get some amazing meals. But generally pricey, artisan locally sourced etc.

Dh loves eating out, but very rarely is there anything as nice (especially as i am veggie) as my own homemade chilli or even linda mccartney sausages, beans and oven chips!
I go for the beer and company only.

It's all very well saying we need to spend more but tbh I don't want to spend £100 on a bloody meal. Eating out in the UK is a rip off.

I've eaten out every night for a week and it's all been fab. But then, I am in France!

Agree 100% about the UK.

If I eat out, I want the food to be either better than mine or something I can't cook. I'm not paying to eat something I can make for less and make nicer.

There are lots of independents near us with nice food, they are just too expensive for us. We have to live on a tight budget.

We rarely eat out, purely because it costa so much for something I can make much better at home and because of the price of drinks.
I hate paying £15 for a £5 bottle of plonk. I can buy wonderful aged rump steak and a bottle champagne in Aldi for less than £20 for 2.
If I do eat out I'll go for pizza because its hard to get that taste without a pizza oven or the local Turkish.