To feel like I cook better meals at home!

[WilsonMilson]

Went out for a bank holiday meal today with the family. Tried somewhere new. Same thing as usual happened when we go out for mid priced meals - felt disappointed and underwhelmed by the food.

It was a gastro pub. I had fish and chips - the oil it had been fried in tasted old, the batter was hard and burnt, the fish had bones and overall it was just edible but average. I cook much better and tastier food at home. I find this happens more often than not, unless we go to really expensive restaurants, which is not realistic to do all the time. The place gets great reviews on Tripadvisor too, so I was looking forward to it.

Anyone else feel the same way when eating out and think you make nicer food at home? I am a keen cook, and for the money we spent I could have cooked an absolute feast at home.

I think the point is that people are saying restaurant/takeout food just isn't that nice, hence why it's not worth it and you might as well make food at home. The balance between price, effort, and quality is different for everyone.

Happy to spend on eating out if it's actually lovely food. But so often I spend and it's shit, so then the balance tips and I wish I'd just eaten at home. I'd rather have the hassle of cooking and cleaning up and have a nice meal for less than have someone else cook and clean up but pay through the nose for something that just wasn't worth the calories.

I only choose dishes I'd never cook myself

I went out with DD for a late lunch for her birthday recently and the restaurant and food was sublime as were the staff

I can't wait to go again

That pie travesty is indeed what they are advertising

It's not a pie. It's meat with a lid ffs

Gastro pubs are the worst.

I went with DS recently and we just had burgers and chips and it was so expensive so I'll never be eating in one again.

That I can definitely cook better at home

Is it just me or has the experience of dining out gone down a lot over the last few years too?

Unless we go somewhere really quite nice, we have found ourselves sat next to a pair of diners who insist on the restaurant hearing their conversation more than once, the little one with the tablet on full volume (nothing against tablets just the loud volume in restaurants before you all start laying in! 😁), the diner loudly talking on their phone… I get really excited now though when we are going to a restaurant where I know the atmosphere and ambience is lovely.

Maybe I’m just getting more sour with age mind.

I agree. I prefer to eat out twice a year at really good restaurants rather than spend money on mediocre food. There are a couple of exceptions to this - a couple of reasonable chain restaurants that usually do good food at a fair price, and we use them when we need to eat out before a show.

We were in London recently and ate in a brilliant Lebanese and Burmese restaurant. We had average pub grub on the way to the theatre and frankly pretty poor ( but at least cheap) food at the Premier Inn we stayed at one evening.

I refuse to eat at our local pub as it's gone from well executed basics like high quality burgers and fish and chips, to the Brakes van arriving and the cheap nasty frozen produce being served up. Happy to pay more for a good meal, but not for Iceland standard rubbish.

We need to include some recommendations where you can get good food-not necessarily high end but reasonable and enjoyable. We make a trip to Small Plates in Ruthin, North Wales a lot. Independent, lovely staff and their lunch is a steal.

If I go to a pub or somewhere I only ever really order stuff we don't tend to have at home, I don't see the point otherwise as realistically it's the same food and although it might be deep fried instead of oven cooked for example I don't think that makes it necessarily nicer. Some stuff is bloody lovely though. If we go out to eat for a meal tend to go somewhere Italian or Japanese as I find the pizzas cooked in a pizza oven are way nicer than anything I do at home, same with authentic Japanese food; I don't have the ingredients in the cupboard and would find a lot complex to make.

It's also the experience/social side and outsourcing the cooking and washing up for me that adds value. Do enjoy a takeaway too if in the mood.

I much prefer to spend my money on experiences so I go on days out and to the theatre .

Restaurants sometimes appear understaffed so you spend ages trying to get someone's attention to order more drinks.
Went to a very instagramable restaurant recently and it was awful. The staff were so rude and snooty. No menus either, you had to download a QR code. Expensive too.

Final insult was 12.5% service charge.

Another recent experience was a restaurant that had a button on the table saying push for champagne. We pressed it and the waiter was very cross that we had done so.

To be fair the food was lovely and the decor too but again another hefty service charge added on.
Why are restaurants the only place to do this?

No shop adds this on or airline? Why is it acceptable in a restaurant?

The money spent on service charges would fund another theatre trip so I have made the decision not to eat out.

I enjoy meals at home with wine from the supermarket, so no high mark up.

Money saved has enabled me to have lots of weekends away etc

This is why only ever order meals I would never cook at home and why I never ever order dessert.

But the people making these comments don’t value the things you value in eating &drinking away from home - that isn’t being superior or snobby - just self aware and acting on that.

@Kolakalia I think Wagamama's is an example of a decent chain at an affordable price , doing stuff I wouldn't make myself. It's one of my go to's and very occasionally I order it as a deliveroo too. It was always my sons favourite when he was little too

Agreed, I'm a good cook and I really like my food. I don't mind cooking, so we very rarely go out. Also means not having to sit through a restaurant meal with 2 children. Dh and I are going away this weekend for one of the only times together in the past decade. I'm excited for the meals we've booked out only because they are quite nice restaurants with things I wouldn't typically cook at home - raw bar, whole lobster, fancy desserts, etc. Otherwise, I usually just like to self-cater because I can't take bad food on holiday!

I love eating out but have had some poor experiences recently, one in a really pricey restaurant with a friend where we had the worst table (tiny, right next to the door and crammed in next to another couple who were having a sweary row). Politely asked if we could move and got a curt no even there were other tables free.

Waitress then spilt the wine, no apology, got the order wrong and then took my plate away before I’d finished eating. Food very average and portions were tiny. 12.5% discretionary service charge already on bill so asked for it to be removed (I’ve never done this before) and she said we had to give a reason - which we did but it was super awkward for everyone. Wouldn’t go back.

@Mimosa08 - DH calls those sorts of pies "disappointing pies"

But don't you think we're looking for that aspect as well?

You think there's no element of eating out, for "us snobs" of not having to meal plan, buy the food, prep the food, cook the food....? Of course there is.

That's just adding to the problem. Because it's supposed to be a treat, both in the sense of tasty food, and a time to relax.

It pisses you off twice as much, when the food is shit, and you've spent £150, because on top of all that, the enjoyment you would have felt from the convenience, is squashed by the overall bad feeling of the experience.

The standard of food in gastro pubs has definitely gone down since lockdown. I generally go for something simple and then I'm not too disappointed. I just focus on the fact what I don't have to cook it, serve it up or wash up.

We go out every weekend both as a couple on our own or as a family with the kids. Some places are better than others but we just love the whole thing of a bottle of wine and a candlelit meal somewhere nice. It does take away from it a bit when something goes wrong like last weekend in a newly opened place the service was shit but the food more than made up for it.

The thing is getting properly nice food, not just standard takeaway food, delivered is possible now, which is not necessarily cheap, but often quite a lot cheaper than actually eating out. Plus you don't have to move from the sofa etc and have all the additional entertainment and comfort of home. People used to go out because pubs and restaurants were nicer than their home environment. Now people have so much available at home eating/drinking out doesn't always look so desirable. Or even staying in hotels. I'd far rather be at home than in some 4* chain hotels.

I don't eat out very much (as it means not eating food that I am restricted to for health issues), but when I do, I'm doing it to socialise, be 'out' and have someone else do the grunt work.

plus chips, yeah!!

I'd still expect it to be better than the fish and chips I could cook at home.

Happy to spend on eating out if it's actually lovely food. But so often I spend and it's shit, so then the balance tips and I wish I'd just eaten at home. I'd rather have the hassle of cooking and cleaning up and have a nice meal for less than have someone else cook and clean up but pay through the nose for something that just wasn't worth the calories.

This exactly!

Have stayed at some not-cheap hotels recently. The equally not-cheap food was dispiriting and clearly bought in (frozen peppered squid, frozen mussels, frozen fish - in a place where fresh are readily available, unimaginative salads, overcooked roasts and vegetables etc etc). I can only guess that the owners/companies that own them cannot find chefs and if they do don't pay them enough. Not helped by the problems of Covid of course, but also by the fact popular areas can't pay staff enough for them to live in the places they are serving. So a lot of it is like painting by numbers for the unready and untrained cooks, poor lambs.