Going away for 1 night - food ideas

[JustPassingThruHere]

Hi all,

DH is taking me away overnight and wants to eat dinner at a restaurant.

However, I've suggested making a meal at home and taking it or using the kitchen where we're staying to make something there.

To be honest, I find restaurant prices extortionate for carb loaded, inferior food and would rather our money was spent getting good quality wine or visiting an attraction as part of our day.

Any recipes which commute well or aren't too much trouble to cook in a strange kitchen?

We like all foods just not oven chips, white potato, pasta or deep fried people.

Thanks!

I think so - near the White Swan? The White Swan is nice for a drink.

Go to a restaurant that doesnt do carb loaded infererior food then??

Who on earth takes a meal along to an overnight stay.

I'd probs go to m&s or wairtose and pick up some nice easy bits. Plus nice wine

I think our idea of restaurants to visit must be very different, and possibly I am biased as I live in London, but all the meals I tend to have out are very light on the carbohydrate front.

The work that goes into these dishes takes time to prepare, with thought regarding local ingredients and what’s in season. If I try and copy some of my favourite restaurant dishes, I can’t make them significantly cheaper. Wine bumps it up a lot (and that’s where they make their money).

We dont live in London, I think thats nothing to do with it, its just the sort of place that people go. We eat out a lot but neither of us eat many/any carbs of the starchy or refined type, so no potatoes, pasta, bread sort of thing. Some rice

We use ME or Turkish restaurants, tapas bars, bistros etc etc. Or if we are in a non specialist place we tend to share some starters which tend to be more veg/protein based.

It sounds like you are eating in crap restaurants. Surely just read some reviews and pick a good one. There must be a Michelin starred or even better a Michelin bib gourmand, which is specifically for good value restaurants. You can have a fantastic meal that you couldn’t cook yourself and it’s easy to find meals that are high in protein and veg in those sorts of restaurants.

I would do this as well ^
i will go for a fancy bread something with cheese or olives, sliced meat and cheese, olives, the most fanciest M&S prepared salad and depending on your preferences wine or beer. M&S and Waitrose have usually some sort of summer snacks 3 for £8 or similar. And they are really great fun to choose.
I had yesterday for dinner: bread roll with mixed olives, half avocado, piece of cheddar and some hummus. It wasn’t deliberate just leftovers I had. I would happily add a glass of wine to it for a more special occasion.

I would go to Waitrose or M&S and buy some nice cheeses, antipasta , dips and crackers

True enough. We mostly go on holiday based around the location of restaurants.

I think the trick is to choose something on a menu that you never eat at home or couldn't cook. I would never order a filet steak because I can and do cook a brilliant one at home. On the other hand I'm no good at curry or Thai food so happy to pay an extortionate price for one.

There's a difference between frugality and miserly.
I think I would rather stay at home than go to a s/c place for one night and eat leftovers.

I only mentioned the London part as we have such an abundance of restaurants, yet I’ve not been to one that is heavy on the carbs. All the steak type places have lots of different side dishes so you can pick your preference, Italian restaurants tend to have smaller pasta portions as a starter. Yes, a lot of the Middle Eastern, Turkish, and Spanish places can be bread/rice heavy, but I’ve not found it overly so. It just sounded like the OP chose restaurants that specialise in beige fried food and that’s why they didn’t like them.

I’ve just not been to a restaurant where all the choices are carb-based, hence I said we obviously just pick different places.

Exactly, this is the point I was trying and failing to make!!

Im saying that ME, Turkish, tapas etc are not bread or carb heavy. We have whole meals without starchy carbs or refined carbs. We dont eat bread.

Anyway this is the sort of thing OP needs really

I used to love buying a fancy slice of cake even if in my eyes they were waaaay overpriced. It’s a treat, right?!

But lately (and I don’t know if it’s a hormonal thing as almost 50 now) I’ve notice that lots of food outdoor vendors and cafes serving cakes have a weird sickly sweet cooking oil smell about them (we really noticed this now when going past those cheap but designed to look like cute-little- cabin type food stalls on the riverside in London last year ). We went to a cafe in Derbyshire recently and I orderd a piece of lemon drizzle and when it came it had The Smell. There is a Churros van in our city centre that reeks of it!

So now not so much cake is being enjoyed 😳