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

[unclemick]

30 years in New Orleans and a 5 plus in Kansas City.

Eat Out! H-ll Yeah or Ya You Right.

" Some people eat to live and others live to eat."



heh heh heh - BP and cholesterol pills and No Salt at home. My blood panel per my 6 months physical(two weeks ago) is still acceptable. Party on.

 

[LakeRat1]

May 7, 2018 we DW and I started on the Keto Diet, our dining out cost went from an average of $850 per month, to an average of $250 per month. Food cost dining at home, went from $850 per month, to an average of $650

 

[Jerry1]

You must be one hell of a chef, or you don't have any decent high end restaurants nearby. We're decent cooks - above average according to our friends, but we don't have the skills, ingredients and/or equipment to recreate what's served at the high end restaurants we like.

No right or wrong - some of us enjoy good restaurants, and others enjoy other ways of spending their time and money.

It has more to do with the limited things that DW and I like. Then, once I find something I want to cook, I practice until I get it the way we like it. A lot of times it has a lot to do with getting the best available ingredients. When you’re not paying someone else to prepare it, the cost for top quality ingredients is still way less than going out. A prime steak at the butcher can be $25-$30 per pound, but go to a steakhouse and their basic, non aged steak is going to run $40-$50 each. So I can do a nice steak dinner with salad and a potato and a veg. for about $50 bucks. And, it will be better than most.

Sure, there’s some top notch steakhouses with dry aged prime or even wygu beef that do better than me. That’s anniversary dinner.

My best food is BBQ. I can beat just about any BBQ joint including the sides. It’s a lot of work, but I can do it. That’s summer food. Usually Fourth of July.

 

[always_learning]

We mostly eat at home and prefer to do so.

We are both homebodies, introverts, and don't like how much it costs to eat out.

We eat out every Friday, preferably take-out from a drive through (Panera, a local BBQ place, etc.), or pick up and go home if the place doesn't have a drive through. Occasionally, we'll feel social and will eat there, but it's not a pricey place. More like Cracker Barrel, Applebee's, Chili's, etc.

I'm off to read everyone's responses now.

 

[Teacher Terry]

Here we can get a really good filet mignon dinner for between 36-42. We cannot cook it like a good restaurant.

 

[audreyh1]

Here we can get a really good filet mignon dinner for between 36-42. We cannot cook it like a good restaurant.

We find filet mignon (well, beef tenderloin) very easy to prepare at home the way we like it: pan seared and roasted in cast iron. Accompaniments are easy too.

We don’t order steaks at restaurants because we find them easy to prepare at home.

 

[always_learning]

Now that I've read the responses thus far, I can say, SWR, that I agree/identify with all of your numbered items. We don't care one way or the other, though, about being waited on but absolutely detest having to flag down a missing server for either refills or our bill. Other than that, we don't have an issue with being waited on.

and Number 8, I really don't want to worry about bumping elbows with the party sitting next to me or hear every word of conversation from complete strangers.

Us, too. Also, sometimes we like to actually converse about things/people and one just never knows when the ears at the next table know who we are talking about. Six Degrees of Separation is real, even in our metro area of several hundred thousand people. We've had some very interesting revelations that have made us believers of that.

Some of you are not qualified to comment on restaurants if you consider going "out to eat" at an Applebee's, Red Lobster, Captain D's, Panera, etc....

I found this comment interesting. I guess there are two ways to think of 'going out to eat". For us, it's simply eating food cooked by others at a location that is not our home, and seems to be how most of us answered the poll.

The other way, the way you are describing is, to me, *dining* out. We generally don't dine out because of the reasons in SWR's OP.

I find I like eating at home, when the OTHER person cooks !!

So true! Just last night, we were eating a salad that I had prepared. The previous week, DH had prepared the exact same salad with the exact same ingredients. He commented that mine tasted so much better and I told him it was simply because he didn't have to make it and just had to eat it and that, really, it didn't have anything at all to do with the way I cut the cucumbers.

 

[RunningBum]

Mostly eat at home. My main issue is that I'm a picky eater, and also I have a medical condition and it's much better if I avoid certain types of foods. In more and more restaurants they seem to go out of their way to include obscure ingredients that I have no idea if I'll like or should avoid them. Of course I can ask but I might have to ask about half the menu before I find something I can and want to eat, so I'd rather just avoid those places. I tend to stick to a few favorites locally, mostly not chains.

 

[ExFlyBoy5]

We used to eat out quite a bit, but the "farm to table" and "fusion" and "were soooo different than every other restaurant!" grew tiresome. Also, it was a convenience factor. Since we have moved and the DW is w*rking from home exclusively, we have been eating at home for almost all our meals. I would say we go out to eat once every couple of weeks...and it's usually pretty "meh." Instead, we have made some fantastic dishes at home and have been experimenting on new things.

As an added bonus, my weight it down and for the first time in several years *all* my blood tests are completely normal.

 

[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.

 

[ExFlyBoy5]

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]

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.

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]

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.