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

[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!

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.

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]

... 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.

 

[jollystomper]

For DW and I, eating out is less about the food and more about having a date. We try to do this 2-3 times a month. Sometimes with ourselves, sometimes with a like-minded couple or couples. We can both cook, and DW is an excellent cook. But a change of pace is good, and it is one way to now "blow that dough".

More and more restaurants - at least the ones we frequent - are making healthier offerings. Also, it does not hurt us to indulge in a "guilty pleasure" once a month - for example, I permit myself a couple of donuts or a piece of cake once a month... and having a thick, gooey piece of chocolate mousse cake once a month for dessert is a nice treat.

The portions are huge - but to us that just means we can get multiple meals out of it. Eat a proper portion amount, and bag the rest and bring it home. Eating out can provide dinner for us for another 1-3 days. We also find that drinking nothing but water during dinner helps - those unlimited refills can make a healthy meal bad, and an unhealthy meal worse.

Noise has not been an issue unless we got to a sports oriented place... but since we know it will be noisy, we can deal with it (and depending on the sport and the teams, we may be contributing to the noise ).

When I worked and traveled I did not mind eating out by myself - I'd just bring along something to read. If someone thought that looked strange, that is their problem, not mine (I do have a few good memories of female strangers inviting me to share dinner, when they saw I was alone ).

In general, eating out is more about dating and socialization, the food is secondary.

 

[DFDubb]

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.

I've tried and while the food is good as is the experience of cooking things outside of your wheelhouse, they generate a ton of plastic waste and garbage. They always take longer to prepare than what they advertise.

 

[Midpack]

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.

I've tried and while the food is good as is the experience of cooking things outside of your wheelhouse, they generate a ton of plastic waste and garbage. They always take longer to prepare than what they advertise.

I haven't/don't plan to use a recipe/prepacked ingredient service like homechef, but I assumed they'd also be costly compared to just buying your own ingredients. Were they also expensive?

 

[Philliefan33]

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

The choice of who cooks seems to determine who enjoys going out to eat the most.

Since I cook nearly ALL meals, I like to skip cooking lunch as much as possible, so we eat simple at lunch (sandwich, tv dinner, leftovers) and go out for lunch up to twice a week.

+1

A friend of mine rarely gets to eat out, because her husband’s attitude is “why should we pay extra for food when we have groceries at home?” It’s lost on him that his wife does all the grocery shopping and cooking, and once in a while she’d like to eat something that she didn’t have to cook.

 

[DFDubb]

I haven't/don't plan to use a recipe/prepacked ingredient service like homechef, but I assumed they'd also be costly compared to just buying your own ingredients. Were they also expensive?

I think it is amazingly overpriced for what it is which is one of many reasons why it's not for me. I was given a gift card which is why I tried it. I quit as soon as I used the card up.

 

[ABQ2015]

Sort of bumping this thread because after coming back from a trip, I have more empathy for ShokWaveRider. Ate two dinners at high end restaurants during my travels. One of the meals took 90 minutes. It was a small resort town and the waiter was slow and the kitchen may have failed to see my main course as it took so long that the waiter checked on it. I was getting antsy by the end of that meal but the food was good.

While I enjoy eating out, I am not an early riser or a morning person (am grumpy in am) or a big breakfast eater. So I dislike having to sit down and be served breakfast and I avoid B&B places. However many hotels offer free continental/buffet breakfasts and I like to grab coffee and some food items and eat it later - often I make it my lunch as I am usually busy sightseeing and don't want to stop for a meal. One of the more expensive hotels I stayed at during my recent trip served a free but formal and EARLY breakfast. Their omelets and baked goods were reported to be delicious. Long story short, it annoyed me that I was paying for this meal but not able/willing to partake.

 

[W2R]

More and more restaurants - at least the ones we frequent - are making healthier offerings.

+1, and if they don't, we don't eat there!

We eat lunch out every day, and choose restaurants with inexpensive, healthy home cooked meals.

Many people assume that if you are eating out and not paying much, that you are eating at McDonald's. I'd weigh 65 tons if we did that, not to mention dying from lack of hedonic satisfaction. Besides, McDonald's is expensive compared with the cheaper mom'n'pop restaurants (at least around here).

Another thing that gripes me is that some people think they can order anything on the menu regardless of what is in it. WRONG!!! Not if you are eating out every day and care about your health. Most of those meals on the menu are for people celebrating something, or eating there after doing hard manual labor all day. You have to be very choosy even at restaurants offering healthy options, if you are eating out every day like we do.

As for the time consumed, it takes about 30-45 minutes from the time we walk in, to the time we walk out. They usually have our order before we have even selected a table (which I find annoying, but tolerate). We enjoy the conversations there, and often stay 5-10 minutes after we could leave.

 

[LOL!]

I'm laughing at the list that the OP made of why they don't like to eat out. The takeaway I got from that list is that his/her wife does all the planning, shopping, cooking, and cleaning up. She probably even loads the dirty dishes into the dishwasher and unloads them as well --- or heaven forbid washes everything by hand.

We cook at home, do take-out, and eat out, but it is about evenly split into thirds. And leftovers come from all 3 places, too. I cook my own breakfast and clean up every single morning.

And when eating out, we have a selection of restaurants that we have been going to for decades. My kid jokes that he was born in the kitchen of one of them with one of the waitresses acting as the midwife. One can surmise that the restaurants we eat in don't have some of the negatives that the OP mentioned because they are practically like family for us.

And here is a suggestion: Find restaurants that have seated dining, but you order at the counter, pay first, take your numbered flag to your table, get your food delivered, eat at your leisure, then leave whenever you want. There are many such places.

 

[foxfirev5]

Other than Mexican in our home town the only dining out we do is is fresh fish in Key West.

 

[ShokWaveRider]

I'm laughing at the list that the OP made of why they don't like to eat out. The takeaway I got from that list is that his/her wife does all the planning, shopping, cooking, and cleaning up. She probably even loads the dirty dishes into the dishwasher and unloads them as well --- or heaven forbid washes everything by hand.

You could not be more wrong! We both cook and I often do the cleaning up. Please speak for yourself.

 

[karen1972]

The biggest factor for us not eating out is that I"m a good cook and can make almost anything we want and it will taste better.

The biggest factor for eating out is me being tired/busy... but even then "eating out" is often a trip to the grocery store deli which has a $6 meal deal which includes 2 large sides (and includes anything in their wide variety of salads).

We try very hard to eat clean so eating out at restaurants tends to be a splurge for things like Sushi or if I go home I will go out of for a good Wisconsin Friday Fish fry.

 

[sengsational]

A unique problem I have when going out to eat is not enough food. I eat once a day, at dinner time, and to get enough healthy food at a restaurant is more challenging than if I were eating at home.



Food is not the center of the universe for us. Most of the time, eating is just something that's got to be done. True, we will have an occasional "dining experience", but it's really not at the top of either of our lists.


All that said, I said "yes" to the poll; we do go out to eat quite a bit, but more to prevent having to menu plan, buy groceries, clean-up, throw away old food, and all of that.



We have a few regular places where the service is excellent and the food is consistently at least "ok". Neither DW or I, since our lives don't revolve around food, have much curiosity or drive to find different places to eat. We've gone through many of the local places and decided they didn't have what it takes on the service or food or whatever, so never went back.



So we have our few places, but they're not as healthy as eating at home, so we do cook at home often too. And yes, I can run to the store, buy a couple of steaks, a bag of potatoes, and a pound of butter, and have eaten and cleaned-up before the waitress comes back and fills your water. And my steak is probably better!

 

[beppie58]

My favorite restaurant is my kitchen. I enjoy eating out too but my preference is my own cooking. And although I cook for one i find it easier than cooking for more!
Best invention ever is the toaster oven and my Black and Decker 25.00 toaster oven does miracles with left overs

 

[Dtail]

We cook at home 4 nights and eat out 3 nights a week, so more than most folks. It is an area where we have a larger budget while saving on other stuff.

 

[Kroeran]

We're so particular about the restaurants we frequent, although we eat at home often.

Panera Bread
Original Pancake House
And some local (non chain) restaurants. We're lucky to live in a University town where there are so many options. Asian restaurants (we have a big engineering program here) and Asian grocery stores are awesome. Our downtown is littered with outdoor cafes and specialty restaurants (some too expensive) but nice to bring guests.

My wife is a very critical eater but swears by Panera. Order at cash no dealing with wait staff.

Whole Foods hot bar is another option.

 

[catii]

My parents & I owned a restaurant many years ago, & I was classically trained as a chef. That place is long gone, but my love of food chemistry has been passed on to my wife, & our grandkids (our kids prefer eating out), & we built a chef's kitchen when we remodeled a few years ago.

So we have no "need" to eat out, but do when we feel like it, or are just too lazy.

 

[Retch The Grate]

My wife and I are foodies, we both love cooking food, and we both love eating out. My retirement plan has a large food budget.

 

[Kroeran]

“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. ”

When the entree is served I would often ask for bill, perhaps with an explanation that we had an appointment. This displeased DW so I discontinued the practise.

 

[Slow But Steady]

We eat out about once a week. Thursday is the day the housekeepers come, so we go out in order to avoid messing up the kitchen.

Three times out of four, we go out for biryani at a small family-owned place 5 minutes from home. They know us there, and treat us like friends.

I'm the cook in our house, and DW handles the cleanup. I'm a pretty good cook. The sous vide machine made cooking meat much easier, so we rarely go out for a steak. I can make the perfect steak at home every time. But I am just not going to do justice to tricky things like the biryani. Likewise a chile relleno or a beef wellington.

 

[zippy2020]

Neither does the sushi place know this. That is not possible. In a good US place the staff will at least wash their hands, wear gloves etc-but they cannot guarantee the microbiologic status of the fish they buy.

There's a difference between an actual sushi restaurant and the "made in bulk" rolls with fake glued-together fish scraps you get at cheap places.

If you are selling true "sashimi" - various fish cuts and fillets which are sliced in-house by a chef - ALL such fish in the U.S. is only sold frozen, with the exception of tuna. It's federal law, and has been for decades.