DH loves pizza, he’s known for it! Therefore if a takeaway is ever suggested he lobbies hard for pizza. Before I met him I could happily go all year without eating pizza, but since I’ve stopped eating meat it’s one of the few takeaway options where I feel like I still get some variety and don’t miss meat at all (to be fair even before I stopped eating meat I’d always choose a vegetarian pizza if I was having one). I still find it overpriced but I enjoy it as a change, not had to cook, don’t mind it cold for lunch the next day.
The one I really enjoy is an Indian. We have some very good Indian restaurants nearby with takeaway options. I enjoy the vegetarian dishes I have from there but resent having to pay as much or nearly as much as the meat options. DH always claims not to feel like an Indian though, despite really enjoying it when we do have one.
Chinese is hugely hit and miss. There was a great one where I used to live but I’ve not found anything like as good nearby. We have an ok one, and our last takeaway was actually from there, I tend to only have vegetable fried rice, curry sauce and a few salt and pepper chips anyway so it’s hard to go too wrong. It’s a lot of money for what it is though. It scratched an itch as I was really craving it but afterwards I did think ‘huh, what a waste of money and calories’.
I really mourn an amazing Italian takeaway that used to be really local to me. Food always arrived hot and fresh and tasted like you’d get in a restaurant- they did an amazing risotto and a pasta with broccoli and dolcelatte cheese that I still dream of. Sadly they closed down. Every other Italian takeaway I’ve tried (that’s not pizza) has tasted like a reheated frozen ready meal covered in processed cheese.
I lived in the US briefly, in Boston, and the take away food there was incredible. I do miss that. Also, I frequently daydream about how nice it would be if there was somewhere locally we could get decent Greek gyros from - halloumi or feta version for me and meat for DH, which we live on when on holiday and are generally inexpensive.
If it’s about not being arsed cooking, and just fancy something different, then the disappointment factor will be lower, and really only if it does turn up cold or something.
I think this is it. I don’t expect it to taste like what I could make at home, it’s not the kind of thing I’d cook at home anyway. I don’t expect it to be great value either and on the rare occasions we have one we do it knowing it’s expensive. It’s about convenience and something a bit different to what we’d usually have, plus a load of fat and salt so it feels like an indulgence!