Eating out is always an expensive let down.

[istheheatingonyet]

I'm just not doing it any more. Granted I am "older" but the last offering was bread, mashed acocado, feta and some sort of sauce. Is it a meal, is it brunch nobody knows?
Cheap ingredients, silly price.
What a waste of money.

I don't understand the point of this post at all! So you ordered the food, you must have known how much it was? Are you saying parts of it were missing? In that case, why didn't you mention it at the time? I wouldn't have paid full price for half a meal!

We eat out somewhere nice once a month as a rule, my personal favourite is Syrian, not cheap, but always tasty and always consistent. And we're lucky that we live not that far from a host of beautiful Indian restaurants. If I go over to my friends and we eat out, it's the Chinese buffet near her. It's clean, tidy and so much choice! The food is actually how I remember proper Chinese food to be. Chinese buffets are sadly few and far between these days.
I find takeaways have really dropped in quality and service and are definitely overpriced and inconsistent!

Trust me there is no extrapolation going on. If there was I would ring 111.

The avo experience wasn't great.
I don't think eating out in this part of the the UK is great. it's gentrified and so what's on offer is gentrified.
I can point anybody who cares to ask in the direction of a hearty hotpot and red cabbage for £6.99.

Over and out, time to run round the block to keep warm

We've got some fantastic restaurants in my area. Especially family owned Italians and Indians. You're clearly going to the wrong places.

Op, you’ve mentioned cost and money no less than 5 times now. It is very clearly the issue.

if you cannot afford to eat out, or resent the money, do not do it. No one is frog march in you into cafes and demanding you order avocado on toast for 13 pounds at 3 pm, if was a proactive choice you made.

I'm afraid I can't think of many less appealing meals than hotpot with red cabbage! 🤢

Ok 6 times.

Ah well, you've given me a laugh.

It is expensive to eat out and like many others here, I try to avoid ordering things I could make myself for a fraction of the price. For instance, I always used to order pasta but I don't now, as some places charge up to £20 for a plate of pasta and tomato sauce that you could make at home for about £2.00 and feed the whole family with. I love eating out though purely because someone else cooks it, brings it to the table and washes up afterwards! If I was a rich, I would employ someone to do this for me every day. My very own Jeeves. 😀

all of my local restaurants disappoint me with the food they service, with the exception of a very cheap pub where you get what you pay for it and it does what it says on the tin, so to speak. All other restaurants I can make better at home. Total waste of money, certainly not value for money or worth the money.

Don’t agree OP, sorry! I live in Italy though so the scene is a bit different. I can take dinner out to for €20 here and eat pretty well. That said, I got a SLICE of pizza in Dublin recently with my sister and it was the same price as a whole pizza in Rome 😳

and takeaways are a total waste of money.

Avo toast is brunch out rather than going out for an evening meal. If you are veggie/vegan a lot of meals out can be a bit of a compromise which is sad given how many people are vegetarian or vegan.

I don't understand those talking about wanting to eat healthy when going out. It's a non diet day/treat food if going out for a meal.

I'm confused. If you didn't want ingredients such as eggs and bread, why would you order eggs on toast?

Yes! And do you often find that the Yorkshire puddings are rock hard?!

I agree. Nine times out of ten I'd rather just make food at home.

Me and DH rarely eat out now and, when we do, it is almost always at an indian restaurant.

We are vegetarian and so many restaurants offer such boring veggie food. Also many now just offer vegan food which means no butter, fake cheese, often fake meat. I don't eat that at home and don't want to eat it out either.

We both like cooking and are good cooks so can cook a lot of things that restaurants offer much better ourselves. I make great veggie lasagne - a roast veg one, a lentil and mushroom one, a mushroom, spinach and walnut one. Never had a decent one in a restaurant.

We make better pizzas than Pizza Express ones and don't scrimp on the toppings like they do.

We do make good curries but it's nice to sometimes eat in an indian and have naan bread cooked in a tandoor

I agree with PP, it's often such bad value for money that I'll only order something that I couldn't make well myself. Pizza is the least worst, I suspect because you can get away with cheap ingredients if you're reasonably skilled at making them.

I agree OP! I think lots of chain restaurants use pre-prepared food made in dark kitchens which is then re-heated. Never very nice but ok if you need to buy something quick and easy. I try to go to support local restaurants run by owners themselves who want to provide a decent service rather than being focussed on saving money and using the cheapest ingredients.

OP, I think I understand. Something I've noticed in my 20 years in the UK is that when i arrived here, there seemed to be a huge difference in price and quality so you sort of knew what you were getting - right, we're off to the cheap and cheerful cafe, it will be a basic, but perfectly yummy bacon sandwich. OR, I'm going to have a lovely gastro pub meal and it will be expensive btu the quality will be notably fantastic. Or I'm off for a slap up meal at some pricey cheffy place where I'm expecting to be wined, dined and generally experience the good life.

And each was priced accordingly.

Nowdays, the super super expensive placse are still crazily more expensive BUT everything else seems to have melded together into the rougly same cost even though the quality still varies massively.

Our local pub (Surrey) likes to think of itself as gastro.... and charges accordingly. But the problem is that it's not. It's part of a bigger group so it might have its own name etc, but the menu is basically identical to other pubs and the food is NOT cooked from scratch in its kitchen with a fully trained chef. And yet, a burger is £18 and, at best, average. If I go to a "proper" gastro pub down the road, I'll pay £18 for a burger too but it will be a really really fantastic burger.

And that annoys me intensely.

Never had a decent roast dinner out. The roast potatoes are never good (think they often use frozen) and the yorkshires are usually awful.

A roast has to be freshly cooked with home made yorkshires and roasties

I don’t eat out in restaurants anymore. Perhaps once a year I do. One too many let downs. Last time, we had food that had gone cold and just wasn’t enjoyable. Time before that, got a parking ticket - city centre, hadn’t realised that the ticketing was different from a place that I regularly parked nearby. There was no pressure on spaces, it was an evening and still about a mile from the restaurant, so not like I dumped it on yellow lines outside the restaurant or anything. It was just a money grab by the council. Time before that, food was average and service was painfully slow and I just felt like the evening was wasted. 20 mins just to get the bill. Other times, the sheer cost just means that reasonable food/service is not worth it. All these places are city centre and I have just decided not to go there anymore.

I do eat out at places where you grab stuff like subway, pret and McDonald’s. You know what you’re getting so it never disappointed, the price is reasonable enough for what it is, it’s quick and convenient.

Yes, it's bothersome to complain and they are largely taking the piss.
I'm due to visit my elderly Mother in another country, she goes on about eating out.
Cringing already, they are as ridiculous there as in Britain.

Why did you order it? My last two meals out (for which I did not pay as part of Christmas treats from DD and her DP for in-laws) were superb. One was a taster menu which was huge fun and included really nice food and was filling (7 courses); the other was a visit to a Keralan restaurant where I had dosa, which was lovely. Not cheap, I guess, but very nice.
I have had 'off' experiences but not very often.

This is why I never go Italian. Cheap ingredients, not so cheap cost 😁

I think it can be expensive but I just take care choosing restaurants to make sure it’ll be worth it!