To think my home cooking is better than a lot of restaurants?

[penpotdot]

I'm a fairly decent cook and do make an effort to make something nice from scratch most days and will experiment with new recipes and techniques weekly. I am not masterchef level or professional but I obviously cook to my own taste and I mostly really enjoy what I make.

I do like eating out as well but as my own cooking improves eating out is less satisfying and I often find the food bland or too salty, one thing is over cooked another under or it is just generally underwhelming.

We ate out at an Italian place well regarded locally and it was just meh, the pasta with roast veg and tomato sauce I make at home is much nicer. The focaccia I make is better. There is a very cool Korean place in my town, run by brits not Koreans and everyone raves about it but the food was just so so, the Korean food I make at home is better. There is an actual Korean place in town run by Koreans and the food their is amazing. I tend to find Asian places do have really nice food and while I make decent stuff at home which is better than Wagamama's it isn't as good as proper Asian restaurant food.

Do other keen home cooks feel like this about eating out now, does good food at home spoil some of the pleasure of eating out or am I being unreasonable?

I suppose I least I don't have to wash up and it can provide the odd bit of inspiration!

I often think I could do better, with just a small aubergine......

I generally agree with you OP, bit it is a lovely treat to just be fed, without having to think, plan, shop, cook, wash up.....
Tbh, egg and chips at the local cafe does it for me😅

I’d be happy to comment if you send me some of your food.

There’s been a few threads recently where people have been underwhelmed by restaurants and think that they no longer offer value for money. You probably do better than many restaurants - especially if you’re cooking sauces from scratch rather than processed out of a packet.

My partner had veal at a Italian (chain I think) restaurant in Kensington and was asked how he enjoyed it

It didn't ho down well when he said he preferred my veal liver at home

I know what you mean — there are so many mediocre restaurants out there serving up bland and boring food. I love eating out at fancy restaurants because I’m not cooking at that level in my home, but basic Italian restaurants, chains, or cafes are often so underwhelming.

Yes-I know what you mean. Both DP and I can produce meals as good as most mid range restaurants. Nowadays we go out to eat much less often but much more expensively.

My 22 yr old DS cooks better than most restaurants I have been to! Only the really posh ones beat his food. I’m not s bad cook myself & when I eat out I order dishes that I wouldn’t make at home. So yeah I get you op! It’s disappointing paying a lot for something you could make similar or better yourself!

I'm a good cook but there is no way I could produce an authentic Thai/Indian/Mexican meal as good as a decent restaurant would - experts just have skills and nuances that make the difference.

I think because it's so expensive to eat out now that we tend to think that we could do the same at home, for basic meals.

My local gastropub charges:

£28 for sirloin steak - I could do that at home just as well

£18 for fish & chips - I don't have a deep fat fryer for the fish so it's not something I do at home

£15 bean burger - that takes a lot of effort to achieve a decent taste! So wouldn't make at home

I dabble in various cuisines and do make great roasts, tagines, etc but complicated stuff I leave to the professionals!

YANBU. I go out for preference to ethnic restaurants or things I want deep fried. Most other things I can do at home.

I spent £34 last night on a glass of wine and a sodding flatbread. Out with friends at a lovely pub but the veggie options were either a bean and courgette casserole or a flatbread. Flatbread was literally a flatbread with artichoke hearts and hummus then put in the oven-who the heck bakes hummus? No option as part of this group.

Yanbu but I dont really go to restaurants because the foods better I go because it means I dont have to cook and wash up.

Sorry, not the point of this thread I know, but £10 for 5 of you??? What are you ordering?

You could be a very good cook. I guess that's partly reliant on time and money as well as skill.

Or the restaurants you've been to in your area are very sub-par.

I would never order pasta with roasted veg, or any pasta in a restaurant as I know how to cook it well.

I feel that about roast dinner. Pub or restaurant never as good as home cooked.

For Korean food, I don't know how to cook anything Korean, especially fried chicken at all. So I'm impressed that yours is better than a restaurant.

We need to go back to the days of dinner parties, so we can all cook for each other. No microwaved ready meals allowed!

100% agree its basically a mushroom/bean/soya burger or vegetable chilli. Come on people be more adventurous.

My DS (25) reckons the roast potatoes and Yorkshire Puddings I make are better than any others , but maybe he's just being a little creep

Surely it s not just about the food, it's about the labour involved as well

We rarely eat out for the food. We tend to eat out because we are going to the theatre nearby or sometimes if we are celebrating an anniversary and we want to focus on each other, not cooking. We’d choose somewhere with superb food for the latter, but not the former. I am an accomplished cook and I can cook a wide variety of different types of food suitable for both family suppers and entertaining, but top quality restaurant food is different. It’s about the presentation of individual dishes, not a Lancashire hot pot or a large family sized pie with decorated pastry (it’s a family tradition for the children to help me make pastry flower and leaves etc to go on top of the pastry lid - my mother and grandmother did the same) or a whole side of salmon or even a whole beef Wellington.

We’re all good cooks in our family. My favourite meals are when a load of us cook and bring it together for a communal feast. There are usually about ten different desserts too and my aunts apple pie would leave Mary berry for dust.

so we only go out for dinner when there’s a lot of other stuff going on (house renovations etc) or somewhere really decent for a celebration. Or to a more unusual Asian restaurant where we’re likely to get something new and interesting. Or fish and chips, because even if you cook that at home to an acceptable level, you can’t beat a chippy tea. Also it stinks the house out.

edit:spelt dessert incorrectly 😮

I get it.

And I have worked in restaurants for years!

Most UK "pub grub" is precooked frozen crap that is nuked and served with chips. Why the hell would I pay £15 for that when for less money I can make a much better meal from fresh ingredients at home? Eating out isnt cheap so when we do go out I get pissed off at being charged big money for not great food.

I think you are right about food from other countries/cultures being vastly better in places run by people from those countries/cultures. But so much stuff has been watered down by chains.....prezzo, wagamamas etc.... There is an Italian restaurant near me that is amazing, great prices (£27 for a MASSIVE fillet steak in red wine sauce for example) and is, surprise surprise....run by an Italian family!

The best-and the most expensive-meal I’ve had recently was at a Michelin starred vegan restaurant. It was amazing!

With the cost of restaurants being so high the restaurant has to be really good to make it worth it.

We are both good cooks but have a few restaurants we love going to, Italian, French, Korean, Nepalese, fancy British - they are genuinely wonderful. By contrast, a Hall & Woodhouse pub we went to yesterday was not great, steak that had clearly been cooked overlong in a pan that wasn't hot enough - disappointing as not cheap. Probably didn't help that the restaurant was boiling hot and everyone was very tetchy!

When I eat out I want someone in the kitchen to have spent at least four hours making a sauce. I won’t pay for anything that arrived in the kitchen frozen or premade. So really we eat out rarely and in restaurants we save up for.

There’s a couple of excellent local takeaways (Thai/Indian) that we sometimes use but we’re not bad at Indian so that one tends to be a ‘too knackered to cook’ option. And we have some amazing local fish and chip shops that beat anything we can make.

Otherwise we do quite well with our own cooking. We enjoy it.

I am with the person who said I can order what I want. DH and DS don't like mushrooms so I often have them in my starter and main. I really like nduja, olives, capers, anchovies, and other salty foods so love having a pizza with that sort of topping. DH likes mayonnaisey based sauces, which I don't.

I have to say I would never ever order a salad. I can chop and arrange my own on a plate.

Egg and chips done well is the best meal in the world!

This^ is exactly how I feel. I choose very carefully where to go for a meal out. I can’t claim that I’m a very good cook but I just can’t pay £14 for pasta with roasted vegetables, and it’s just ordinary dry pasta not a fresh one. And I suspect that the only reason our local Italian has warm brownie on menu because they have to heat it up from frozen . And it’s fine but their prices are ridiculous.