To feel restaurants are a waste of time and money

[worldly123]

Have been on holiday this week here in the UK. Have eaten at quite a few restaurants, including one recommended, a top hotel, a teashop and a foodie deli.

It all reminded me why I rarely or never eat at restaurants. I splashed out on this trip but usually only cook at home. Without exception they were pretty awful and I ended up leaving most of it. The tough, stringey steak. The pre-cooked roast beef (ordered in like school dinners but presented as a fresh roast I guessed?). The tiny salads totally drenched in dressings. The cheapest, fattiest sausages you ever tasted - at an exclusive hotel! Teashop scones - tasteless dough and water. I felt like crying. Yet all around me people laughed and joked and seem to enjoy their food .

When I got home I made my own bacon and salad sandwich on white bloomer, and it was to die for. It probably cost £1, and was the most delicious thing I'd all week .

I know overheads are high in restaurants, its labour intensive and so forth. And I've had one or two excellent meals in the last 10 years. But honestly why would anyone eat out at a restaurant when so often it feels like an ordeal from beginning to end. And this at a time when we are bombarded on TV with cookery programmes ...

AIBU?

YANBU, if you do not like restaurants then don't go to them.

In London, we have a fantastic selection of restaurants. I tend to eat out, more for not having to cook at home if I am tired.

No one apart from me likes fish at home, DH hates the smell. So when out I can eat things the others don't like and I don't cook at home.

Came on to say the same as Laurie - I also remember the 1970's - eating out for a "treat" and choking down bloody awful food! Food today is SO good in comparison even at chain restaurants!

I have to check the ingredients of food that i eat due to an allergy and I reckon that a lot of restaurants and pubs buy ready made food and sauces. Just go to Cost co and look at all the food they sell there for the catering trade.

I have the same experience OP.
The food is usually nowhere near as good as what you cook at home. Even the really expensive stuff around here is usually just OK.

The only places I am happy to eat out are restaurants that cook a cuisine I really don't know/cook. Think Vietnamese, Greek, etc... None of which we have where we live.

If we do et out, it's usually at a 'cheap' pub, where the food isn't expensive, the food is simple and at least cooked on the premises. At least, there are no plans to wash. But I wouldn't go there for the food iyswim.

I think very touristy areas can be lower quality. The pool of potential customers refreshes all the time so they don't need to rely on repeat business in the way that a non-tourist area does.

I eat out for breakfast quite often and there are quite a few cafes in residential areas near me that are very high quality. The chefs (usually a part owner) make the sort of food that they would want to eat and are picky about the quality of their ingredients. I can make perfect poached or scrambled eggs, but so can my favourite cafes and they also home-make soda bread or spelt bread which I can't do. And I don't need to wash up afterwards.

Blue London is one of the few places where I have been eating relatively good food (well because it's something I don't cook).
But not everyone lives in London or anywhere close to it!! And it's certainly not representative of what happens in the country either.

I love eating out, make DH take me every two weeks when we get a babysitter and it's great being on a little holiday eating out every night. I enjoy trying new foods and getting ideas to cook at home.

Sometimes in big tourist places, you do find the quality of the food isn't as good so we normally find somewhere away from the part of the place all the tourists go.

I remember good restaurant experiences in the 70s. Great roast dinners out with my nan at modest places. Really nice Italian trattorias - probably the first foreign food we had. Probably nothing fancy but generally good quality and reasonable price. Might have been different in the sticks, I don't know.

I love to cook, but love a fabulous restaurant. I think its all about being organised and doing your research. I certainly would never visit a chain restaurant, and generally never have a bad meal out,but it is down to research. Yes, you get the odd one not to your taste but there are some Amazing quality restaurants out there.

Serves you right for eating anywhere except a curry house; and I will say no more because it will make me hungry.

'Costco' thing interesting sofasetteecouch

You are being unreasonable for saying this

"When I got home I made my own bacon and salad sandwich on white bloomer, and it was to die for. It probably cost £1"

When will people stop saying "to die for" unless they really mean it?

its called hyperbole :)

I get sick of pub/chain food very fast but I enjoy Pizza Hut even when I'm in the mood. We are spoilt here in Plymouth for eating out I love it :-) yanbu but maybe just unlucky this week. I rarely order something I can make at home though

It's also influenced by what you have locally too of course, I live in a small Scottish town so no such thing as Dim Sum, or Korean, or Sushi here, I'd eat that out to try, and also because the first two are many small fiddly things to make at home. (I have tried it all btw, and love it, but had to go to a city)
We have great seafood, we also have a great fishmonger who sells it without the restaurant price tag and I can cook it better at home.

In a new place it's hard to know where to choose, and even TripAdvisor reviews aren't very reliable, I look at places local to me on there and am boggled.

And as I say all this, I have a crisp addiction and eat tinned pies, I just don't expect to pay more than they are worth.
It's more about the value for money rather than the price.

I live in Northern Ireland- pub and restaurant food here 30 years was often unimaginative and really not great. Now it's almost always good or excellent in the big majority of places, sometimes sublime. Rarely poor/ not worth the money. I haven't been given truly awful food for years.

NAtional Trust cream teas are usually a disappointment

Yabu and clearly eating in the wrong places.

Couldn't agree more, Op.

I'm fed up with going places with my friends for 'a light lunch' after an exhibition or something and getting ripped off. We're not looking for a foodie experience. Just a sit-down and a chat over a decent pub lunch or cafe meal. Prices in London have shot up over the last year or so with a routine £2 added across the board.

Yesterday, I was looking after 4 gcs aged from 5-12. I costed a trip to a middle range chain and it would have been £60. Instead, I roasted a chicken and it went down a storm.

I'm pretty impressed if your bog standard Tuesday dinner tastes as good as a good restaurant that starts prep at 10am each day with fresh ingredients. I've got family in agriculture and know that good restaurants also get the best soft fruit and veg so if your dinners are always better you must have amazing suppliers.
Either that or you just picked very mediocre places to eat out.

That's not been my experience at all. Rather the occasions of poor food or poor service have been the exceptions. It's certainly never been 'an ordeal from beginning to end'

Try different places, don't write off the entire British restaurant trade because you've had some bad experiences!

sofasettee is right about Costco... A certain restaurant that was very popular with the lawyers and barristers where I worked was getting all its puddings from Costco (family member worked there in uni hols!)

I'm a pretty rubbish cook and get stressed cooking, so I do enjoy eating out. I also like the social element and the change of scenery.

I've eaten at some amazing Michelin starred places and had some beautiful food, but am just as happy to nip out for a cheap and cheerful pizza somewhere.

Eating out all the time does get boring. I'm very picky about restaurants and don't really want to go and eat something I could have done better at home for less and so unless it's a 'can't be bothered to cook' or 'need to eat out but on a strict budget' scenario, we usually put a lot of thought into where we go to eat.

You are in the wrong restaurants. Also never go out for Sunday lunch. And never ever have the steak unless you are positively certain about the place you are eating in Hawksmoor Seven Dials

I regularly go out to places friends rave about and think they are crap or average - I just accept I'm fussy. DH loves it as he eats really well when he's out with me!

Maybe the problem was that as you were staying in a hotel you were effectively forced to eat out all the time.

I enjoy eating out, but find that if I have to do it for all 3 meals a day then I get bored very quickly and become very fussy about what I want.

I'm also quite selective about where I'll go for a meal, thankfully DH is very accommodating as I like to have a look at a place and the menu before I decide if I'm going to go in. If we go out for a pub type dinner and it doesn't look like the foods going to be brilliant, then I'll stick to safer choices like a burger or fish and chips rather than anything more adventurous.

The two of us tend to go out once a week whilst DS is at cubs and as our local pubs/restaurants are ok but not amazing, I've worked out which menu choices are going to be the best for me.

I find the most disappointing meals are the very expensive ones. When a steak costs £25+ I expect it to be cooked perfectly and how I have requested it ( incidentally restaurants much better than they used to be about actually knowing how long to cook a rare steak for) and to be a really good cut. Sadly I'd say about 50% of the time it doesn't live up to my expectations.