To Eat out or Not to Eat out, That is the question.

[ExFlyBoy5]

Quote:

Originally Posted by MRG I've always enjoyed eating in Europe, more of a experience than a meal. Try the Chinese food in Amsterdam, best crispy duck ever. I'm not sure the what they did to the sauce, perhaps it's not legal in the rest of the world.

One of my favorite restaurants in the entire world was in Spain. The food was Italian. The owner was German...and it was FANTASTIC.

[scrabbler1]

Quote:

Originally Posted by RunningBum One trick I've learned is to read the menu online at home and lookup any terms I don't understand to find something I can/want to eat, and hopefully a backup.

I agree with both of your comments, this one and the one just before it. Even before I was diagnosed with diabetes, I was already a picky eater. And I peruse the menus on line from restaurants, even those I frequent often such as Applebee's (because they change so much).

[marko]

IMO there's a big difference between those who eat out and those who dine out. We're in the latter category.

[ckelly78z]

Maybe once a week we will grab a food truck meal, or go out for a nice Saturday evening meal, or possibly a take home pizza on Sunday.

I don't generally like most fast food items...way too much salt, so I tend to get fish, or pasta if going out, and hardly ever get steak, (we can make a killer steak at home).

[michelek]

When we go out to eat it is either A: because we are looking for an experience or B: because we are hungry and too lazy to make it at home or too far from home to drive home to eat.
A: has to be a convincingly great place with food we don’t usually or easily make at home to convince us to pony up the credit card. Or the atmosphere is a dive bar (which we love) and cool. B: just food so we aren’t hangry.

[brett]

When we eat out it is usually food that we either do not prepare for ourselves or cannot do as good a job.

Mostly Thai, Vietnamese, some Italian (if it is very good), and seafood. Sometimes prime rib.

Very seldom a chain/franchise except for lunch and never, ever fast food. We prefer smaller, family run operations

[38Chevy454]

DW and I often will eat lunch out if we are out running around mid-day. Sometimes meeting friends for lunch or dinner, trying new restaurants or going to places we like. it's the social aspect as a lot of the reason, and many times get some good food that is hard to make at home. Sometimes we just eat dinner out to avoid cooking at home.


I like trying new places, my DW jokes that I will find a coupon for BOGO or some # off, and want to go try that new place to eat. Why not save some when possible?


Don't go to real high end places that often. Cost is one big reason. But also the food is not always better than some of our more midrange type places we like.


So the short answer to the question is probably eat around 1/3 of meals out.

[audreyh1]

What is the difference between:

We mostly eat at home and prefer to do so

We enjoy an occasional meal out, but not regulary

[robnplunder]

We eat out a lot out of necessity. After playing golf, we are too tired or lazy to cook and eat out at one of our regular places. It's not healthy thing to do, I know.

[Beachgrl]

we enjoy eating out. maybe once a week. no fast food ever (it's not really food)

[YVRRocketSurgery]

We love to cook and we love to eat out. We're both still working so there are days we get lazy. Ideally, we try to go to places which have dishes that we cannot (easily) replicate at home or places that will inspire us to create new dishes at home. In trying to be adventurous and discovering new dishes or flavours, we'll obviously come across misses but try not to beat ourselves up too much for trying something new.

While it's not an absolute, we try to limit going to chains. The food can be solid but many times its kind of boring and genericized for the masses.

Ideally, we prefer eating at nice counter service type places. These places may be more casual but they can have great food.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DFDubb Actually they can and they do. They freeze it for extended periods of time (days) and at very cold (negative degrees) temperatures to kill anything that might be there. Which is why I always LOL when people tell others how "fresh" the fish is at their favorite sushi joint. I especially love it when people take it further and explain how it has definitely never been frozen.

+1. To take it further, better sushi place even age certain fish to give it more umami flavour and evolve its texture.

[HFWR]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ExFlyBoy5 One of my favorite restaurants in the entire world was in Spain. The food was Italian. The owner was German...and it was FANTASTIC.

I once had pizza in a German restaurant in Japan.

[daylatedollarshort]

We like to go out now and then for some kind of modestly priced ethnic food we can't easily make at home like Thai or Indian, usually with a coupon. We're not foodies so we don't really get much more enjoyment out of spending more than $20 or so. More than that and I'd rather see a play or concert instead.

We only spend more when we go out with friends or for club events, and someone one else picks the restaurant, which this month is about once each week. Our share of dinner out with friends this week will probably cost $60. Our next outing with just us will be Berkeley's Gourmet Ghetto, using a Groupon gift card I got for Christmas, so we will just have to pay for tax and tip.

I've been trying to cook more Blue Zone kind of meals at home. Tonight I made a stir fry with all sorts of veggies including asparagus and enoki mushrooms with almonds and beans over Basamati rice, with most of the ingredients from a local dollar store. I can make that for a few dollars a meal, so I don't really like paying a lot more for less healthy and to us less interesting food.

[Ally]

We eat out a couple of times a week. I hate how salty it all is and after reading the restaurant health inspections in the paper, we have fewer and fewer places we are willing to eat. Mostly we like very small, family run places, especially ethnic foods.

[Scratchy]

We cook three dinners a week at home using a meal kit delivery service, usually Plated.com or gobble.com. Very happy with the convenience, taste and variety these provide. Remainder of the dinners we eat out, usually Asian food, especially Japanese and Thai.

[Christine]

I am on a business style trip now and yesterday I arrived at my hotel about 6PM. Quite tired.


What you are saying here is so spot on!

Quote:

Originally Posted by ShokWaveRider 2) I really detest waiting after the meal for the bill and payment part. It simply takes too long, the more expensive the place the longer it takes. I typically do not like or eat many fast food items or at FF places. 3) Waiting ages for food. Again the more expensive the place the longer it seems to take, at least that is what I notice. 6) I generally do not like being waited on. It is time consuming.

I ended up crossing the street and buying a sandwich at a Deli which I brought to my room. If I had eaten in the very nice looking restaurant I would have been twice as tired before crawling into bed.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ShokWaveRider My ideal restaurant would be a pay first, order a good meal, wait a minimal amount of time and enjoy it at my leisure and leave when done.

What a fantastic idea!



When out with friends I'm OK with the time used - we are having a good time anyway. But when travelling alone I would love delicious food with the efficiency of a burger place.

[Ronstar]

DW seldom cooks, so we eat out a lot. Probably average 1 meal out per day.

[Badger]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ally ... I hate how salty it all is and after reading the restaurant health inspections in the paper, we have fewer and fewer places we are willing to eat. Mostly we like very small, family run places, especially ethnic foods.

+1
Include too much sugar in desserts. Sounds strange I know but often it is enough to make your teeth hurt. I don't bother with the newspaper here (gave up that rag decades ago) but there is a weekly restaurant report of the 20 worst restaurants that week with details on a local TV channel that is also posted on facebook. So many of them have the same infractions that are easily avoided if they wanted to. Example: storing raw chicken/meat/fish above cooked food that would later be served and rotten food in the walk-in cold storage.



Decades ago I worked part time as a server in restaurants and exclusive county clubs. Gave me a good insight to what goes on in the kitchen. I like the idea of an open kitchen so you can see the food prepared but you don't know what the walk-in cold storage looks like.



Bon appetit!

[DeborahB]

I live alone and have lost interest in cooking. So I order food delivered, usually pizza & salad or Thai/Indian/Chinese/Korean. That way I have good food at home to grab. I generally get about 3 meals’ worth delivered. I like the variety. And I don’t mind watching tv while I eat. I also get groceries delivered.

[Rianne]

This is a bit off topic, but anyone try those delivery services that put together all the ingredients (spices, meat/fish, veg) and you prepare it at home in 10 minutes following the recipe? I think you can pick a weeks worth of meals.