Quality and price of takeaway/restaurant food

[KenAdams]

We used to eat out quite a bit - 2/3 times a week. Combination of busy lives and medical conditions.

For that we used to get reasonably fresh, good quality meals and decent sized portions (reasonably healthy stuff rather than a fried Chinese meal or burger for example).

Over the last two years, we've noticed a reduction in the quality and price increases in such meals.

Sushi has massively gone up in price and other meals that used to be healthy have reduced their quality of ingredients and now seem full of oil etc.

I know prices have gone up but as an example, last weekend my friend ordered a chicken supreme for £22 in a local pub in the East Midlands. She got a piece of chicken which was about 10cm across (not a breast), about two tablespoons of potato and some pea shoots. Another friend ordered a risotto and wanted to add a salmon fillet, but it was an extra £10 for the salmon!

This wasn't anywhere fancy, just an average pub but the prices now are such that it's pricing us out, even taking into account the convenience factor.

I work in an industry where I know the price of ingredients and I feel like places are just taking the piss a little bit now. I'm also aware of the on costs but I can't really make them add up to the astronomical prices I see now.

The solution for us has been to move to low prep style meals so I can still manage to make these when I'm having a bad day with my conditions, but it's such a shame as it used to be something to look forward to and a bit of a relief that I didn't have to cook on a flare up day.

Has anyone else noticed the same?

Slightly off topic but any healthy, filling, low prep meal ideas would be welcome please!

I don't eat takeaways because they are always shite, use zero welfare standard meat and make me feel ill afterwards (I'm assuming this is salt levels/msg).

I eat out a lot and crap quality and portion sizes is not my experience at all. Prices are higher, but wages, power, wholesale prices etc are all higher too. Its called inflation and is a direct result of brexit.

I haven't noticed quality dropping but prices are definitely on the up!
a bag of ready chopped stir fry veg, a protein source (tofu, ready cooked prawns, chicken etc) and rice noodles or microwave rice - no prep and ready in 5minutes. add chilli / garlic / ginger / soy sauce etc

I think that the restaurant era is over, it no longer provides what people expect.

For example, prior to Covid (and I can't believe that word now represents a "before" and "after" period of change) you could get a McDonald's breakfast wrap and a coffee for £3.70, that same meal is now almost £7 and is smaller than the original. It simply isn't worth the cost anymore.

Same with 99% of all restaurants and cafes, I went to Nandos recently, half the menu was unavailable and what was there was very poor quality with smaller portions than before. The coleslaw was literally three spoons and the chicken portions were tiny. It still cost £36 for Two people.

I absolutely understand why so many restaurants are going bankrupt, their service simply isn't worth the money they have to charge to make it viable.

Subway used to sell a 6" sub with a drink for £3.50, now its £6.80. Again, no longer worth the money.

Another example, which I would like anybody in the trade to explain. A pint of Stella and a Malibu and coke in Las Iguanas cost over £12, the same drinks in Wetherspoons just across the street cost £6.80 WTF?

I can see many more going to the wall this year.

We used to eat out more than we do now- instead I now often have breakfast out as can get a nice sausage on a brioche roll with a good coffee for £8 in giraffe or mushrooms on toast with a coffee for around the same at our local Italian - I appreciate it's cheaper to do at home but for me it replaces evening meals out at much better cost and value - feels fun to do and I'm not paying the stupid prices for booze either.

We don't eat out much anymore, it just isn't worth it. Service has decline, the food quality has gone down. It's £25 for a roast at my local pub. The portions are small, the kids eat adult portions so we are £100 down before you even add drinks / starter / desert.

As for Zizzi, I do not want to order on an app, wait an hour for food and then get charged a service charge.

Saying that we were down on the south coast last week and brunch, lunch and dinner out over the weekend, all in local independent places and the food was fantastic.

Judging by the absurd queues for the local McDonald's drive thru and the flock of deliveroo drivers outside. they are doing ok.

For real restaurant meals, rather than fast food, places near us are choosing ingredients carefully, cheaper cuts, carefully prepared, seasonal veg to keep costs as low as they can.
But in the end, the main costs are power (huge increases for businesses), rent, insurance and staff salaries. All are up.

Our local pub is lovely, not ostentatious at all but two plates of decent food with two halves of cider is £50.

I think pubs are often poor quality food.
We go to an independent Indian and Turkish place. Prices low, healthy food and very tasty. But both are in streets where the rents are lower.

I used to eat out frequently or order in, now I only really eat out at McDonalds, and even that is becoming to costly now.

I took a pic of the serving containers from our local India restaurant when we used to get home delivery. Over the space of a year, the same dish had gone from a main sized container, to an entree to one with sloped edges and held ever more. The prices also rose. I understand ingredients and electric etc have gone up, but we might only have a home delivery once a month now.

Not low prep, but I make sushi from scratch at home. Mainly because there are not many good places nearby. Lots of youtube videos or yosushi used to run classes if you wanted to learn.

Can you batch cook when you are having a good day? Cottage pie, lasagne, Bolognese sauce, pasta bakes?

I love eating out, but I sign up for deals, apps etc to save where possible and check for special meal deals, pre-theatre etc.

Also use Groupon & Wowcher a lot

Tonight we're having 4 tapas dishes & a bottle of wine for £25 - Groupon

Tomorrow we're at Revolution de Cuba with all food half price voucher

Tuesday we had 3 course lunch in local pub £7.95

Definitely my experience too.
More expensive, poorer choice, poorer quality, smaller portions.
Worse service, tables not cleaned.
Drinks ridiculously overpriced.
Also, the comings and goings of delivery people in their crash helmets makes you feel like you're eating in a motorbike service station not a restaurant.

Eating out used to feel like a treat, now it's never nice enough to justify the expense.

As for Zizzi, I do not want to order on an app, wait an hour for food and then get charged a service charge.

A few years ago Zizzi felt like a really special treat. Now it's utterly lacklustre, really poor food and expensive.

Pre covid meal at our local ‘vintage inn’ ‘harvester’ type place…lasagne around £8.95, fish’s chips around £11.
Now post covid there isn’t any meals less than £16 & who-on earth pays £9 for a premade dessert?
So 2 semi palatable meals, couple of drinks each & you’re talking not short of £80! And they wonder why local restaurants are closing like never before!
And has anyone noticed the heating in restaurants has been turned down?

we have amazing options where I live, the sushi is excellent and the quality and portions are great. Often Uber Eats has a 40% off deal, so we always order from there. I love sushi, but I like a variety of fish so ordering lots of different sashimi grade fish would be wasteful and too expensive.

We are also lucky enough to live in North London where there are excellent Turkish/Kurdish restaurants, fresh salads, grilled meat etc.

I have found the quality of takeaways where we live has got much better than 10yrs ago.

It's not a result of Brexit. I'm in Spain at the moment and inflation re food is the same here. Supermarkets, eating out etc. All priced same as London. I was in The Netherlands 2 months ago - same.

energy and staffing costs and the cynic in me thinks because they can. Yet some places I go to havent made significant changes or had massive rises. One deli I go to imports from europe and their food prices have reflected brexit

@Hereyoume

The McDonald's wrap breakfast meal deal is £5.79

I think they are trying to make back pandemic losses. But they may just end up closing altogether,

You definitely need to search out more indy places. We have 4 really lovely independent restaurants/pubs within 10 mins from my front door, and within half an hour there’s at least 20 more. I eat out with Dd 2/3 times a week because the prices are cheap and the food is excellent.

Heading out to our local pasta place tonight - sausage, fennel and white wine cream gnocchi is £9 for a huge plate full. Then they do half size portions for the kiddo so Dd ends up eating for less than a fiver. Can’t complain!

Me and DP gave up restaurants a long time ago - before Covid.

I started to find that most of the items on the menu we could cook at home with basically the same results, especially in pubs.
At the same time, supermarket food seemed to improve quite dramatically both ready meals and 'raw' ingredients. We also had a lovely butchers open up near us. Both of these also meant restaurant food became easier to replicate at home.

We still have take-aways quite regularly but only from places that do particularly unusual or tasty food - basically Indian or Lebanese. We don't bother with 'standard' take-aways like pizza, burgers, or kebabs any more - they're too bland, too expensive and we could probably replicate them ourselves.

After Covid, I think service in restaurants has gone downhill dramatically too. So as well as being smaller portions for a higher price, you don't get treated all that well. Fuck that. I'd rather stay at home and shove some pizza and chips in the oven.

We live abroad and yea, it's the same here

Food is more expensive, portions are smaller and staff are ruder

Better to eat at home

I'm very choosy about restaurants when I'm eating out.
I'm perfectly happy with Maccas or 'Spoons, but the prices match the quality.
The last meal I had out was at Brasserie Zedel in London, bread, three courses and a glass of cremant each for £36 each, absolute bargain 👌

Deliveroo/Uber Eats sometimes seems to take precedence over customers who are sitting in. I can order Wagamama off Deliveroo and be eating it 35 minutes later. Last time I went to restaurant we waited ages even to put our order in, then waiting 20 mins for drinks, half hour plus for food, while Deliveroo drivers are coming in and out like a revolving door! Puts me off eating out.

Minimum wage, which most of these workers are on goes up 5-10% year on year

Uber Eats / Deliveroo take ~35% comission

Prices have gone up to pay for this not greed and not Brexit. Many restaurants are reducing quality to keep their prices competitive which stops people placing repeat orders.

Would love to see some stats on what happened in the last recession on takeouts and general "luxuries".

Not with a large latte it isn't . . . almost £7 here