Food that’s better in restaurants

[BadActingParsley]

Naan bread. The stuff in packets just doesn’t cut the mustard.
Pizza.

A steak. I can't cook them for toffee.

Chips (unless you have a deep fat fryer, I guess)

Steak
restaurant chips
meat balls
salad 😂

Cabonara

Scampi - the oven cooked or air fried versions always come out with soggy coatings. It stays crispy when it's properly fried in an industrial fryer.

Similar for onion rings.

Risotto balls
Bread

Definitely naan bread and curries
Steak
Proper chips (a lot of places are doing air fried nowadays)

Most of it, really. Because restaurant food is full of butter, salt, oils & cream. And MSG in East Asian restaurants. That’s why it tastes so delicious, and you’re never, ever going to use anything like as much in your everyday cooking at home.

Pea fritters - and also they are not even available to cook at home ( unless you made from scratch and had a fryer) I mean I have never seen them in a packet.

could not agree more about Naan !

Nothing much, unless high end Michelin starred where they create and curate dishes that are beyond me. The exception is a really good Indian restaurant - the one in our village is on par with the supermarket but some are sublime.

Fish and chips. The pub kind, I mean.

Chinese and Indian food.

Rack of lamb.

I would have agreed with you before I got my air fryer.

Stuff comes out beautifully crispy now. Game changer 😁

I'd never have a steak in a restaurant now I have always found them disappointing. A good quality steak cooked at home is just as good and it's always so expensive in a restaurant.

I make my own naan bread - just a basic fried white flat bread - it’s not the same as the restaurant but it’s less greasy so I prefer it

edit to add - there are some Indian restaurants that I think are worth going to but few and far between

Curries.

Macaroni Cheese.

Garlic bread

Agree that mostly it's about them using far more butter, salt, oil etc than you would at home.

Arancini - I've tried at home and they've been like golf balls (I'm a decent cook)...little fluffy clouds of loveliness at a restaurant on Friday.

I'm a pretty decent cook, but a fat fucker. It's definitely the cream, butter etc. I even have MSG to hand.
Naan, definitely, but I don't eat much bread so that's not much use to me. I like to leave space for actual curry anyway. Though garlic bread from restaurants can be glorious if you get lucky.
Don't have any kind of fryer, so anything done in one of those, I suppose. My preference would be for deep fat, for the aforementioned crispiness, but see observation about fat-fuckeriness. Contra-indicated.

@HurdyGurdy19 ditto those mushrooms with the garlic crumb coating having said that I have not seen garlic mushrooms with an Aioli dip for years, I think you need a deep fryer for certain things, and nobody has them at home anymore.
there used to be a Portuguese run cafe near me when I lived in Bournemouth and the aioli was home made and the mushrooms were simply amazing ❤️ miss them 🍄‍🟫

whole Fish done on a bbq griddle type thing - so much nicer than a fillet done in a frying pan at home.

Chinese food - no doubt, because of the shed load of MSG, sugar and salt! DH had roast chicken in a Chinese restaurant, recommended by Michelin. He said it was the best chicken, he’d ever eaten!

Yes yes yes to Naan bread. I suspect it COULD be done at home but I've checked out recipes... it's not quick and easy. i keep meaning to experiment with the dough in my bread maker.

Disagree on many others on here. Steak is almost always better cooked at home. my garlic bread is almost-famous (but yes, the trick is, partly, a LOT of butter! And lemon juice is the secret ingredient).

Anything that has to be deep fried is better in a professional kitchen though.

Also, in fancy restaurants, sauces are almost always better than whatever I make at home.

The reason restaurant naan is better than bought or homemade isn’t the dough. It’s the tandoor.