Do You Ever Eat Out and Wish You Hadn't Bothered?

wanting2save

I am not disagreeing with anyone here as i understand what you are all saying...but.....I really enjoy eating out with friends and family. Not only because of the fact i dont have to cook or wash up but because it is a fantastic social event which brings us all together in a relaxed atmosphere. Also my kids love being grown up and ordering their own food (aged 4 and 2).

However saying that all your foods do sound delicious and i am sure of a much better quality than i have paid for. Maybe someone could set up a chain of OS restaurants which we could all enjoy!! mmmmmm!!!:D

debtworrier

*Shrug* My friends are scattered all over the compass rose, so when I eat out I'm not there for the food anyway, but just because the place is a convenient half way point or near to where one of us works. My requirements for a good restarant experience are:
the food fills me up and doesn't actually poison me,
the music is quiet enough to talk over and bland enough to ignore,
the staff periodically show up to flog us more booze, but otherwise don't bother us,
the furniture isn't so hard it makes my bum hurt.

My budget is pretty much pizza/ pasta/ chinese, but on the few occaisions I have been out to restaurants that do 'serious' food (on someone else's treat) I've been presented with a wisp of crispy bacon on organic lettuce with a <i>jus </i>of whatever's currently fashionable. An hour into the proceedings I'm just desperate to nip over the road to the newsagent and buy a cheese sandwich to fill me up.

Penelope_Penguin

lynzpower wrote:

A few very dissapointing experiences in the form of a veggie lasagne in beefeater (very poor indeed, esp for 6.95 or whatever they charged me) Any pizza pretty much these days cant be as nice as we make, and isnt. I resent paying for pasta as we have it so rarely out, as its a cheap no effort meal I can make at home for way less. Ive had a few terrible steaks. And chinese takeaways have been thoroughly disaapointing recently too I did a msyery shop a few weeks ago and it was rubbish, the soup I can & do make from leftovers & a hndful of pasta, the main course had grit in it. And at 15 quid for a risotto or whatevr they were charging it was diabolical.

Do we take that as a resounding YES! in answer to the question, Lynz

In favour of eating out, we have very good indian and chinese buffets near us. Pizza express is great for the ambience (apart from a diabolical one in Bath :mad: ) There's a lovely cafe in a converted church in York - very child and push-chair friendly. Betty's in Yorkshire are fab for olde worlde afternoon tea. And eating out really comes into its own when there's a group (20+ often). We tend to circulate and move seats for pudding and coffee so that you get to speak to everyone. Oooh, and lots of good food from pubs.

I agree about getting children used to it, too. Mine have sat at the table from early ages, but they learn to behave *in company* when we took them out to eat. My BIL wouldn't take his children out as he was embarassed by their behaviour. I never did get him to see that he had to teach them that.

The small penguins never ate from the children's menu. They'd either share a main course, have some of ours, or have a starter (smoked salmon and pate were favourite). Restaurants were often so impressed that they didn't want *chicken nugget of the day* that they'd be especially helpful.

Penny. x

queenpig

About 3 years ago we went out for sunday lunch mother raved on about brewsters so we all met up, I'm not sure what we paid each but it was around £6-7 each all I will say is never again, 1 frozen yorkshire pudding, 2 small cold boiled poatoes, tiny bit lumpy mash, bit gravy, few peas few carrots, my LO could have cleared an "adults" meal on her own easy.......... And If this make sence it was like a "conveyor belt" meal.
My oh moaned and moaned about the meal where we we sat was freezing (next an open door) and we had a very ill mannered man sat right next to us (shouting with his mouth full so on) but this is going of the topic.
Just like any other place we have been to and as another poster said I sit and look at the meal and think I could have made this for pennys.
I would like to find a proper "pub" meal and not a chain pub meal which seem to be slowly taking over every "homely" pub in sight. I think another problem we have now and this nothing to do with quality of meals or food but i think a lot of place eating have turned very American.

Anyway hope this make sence I have a baby howling in my ear so its a tad hard to concentrate lol........Flipping colds :eek:

lynzpower

*Heads off to local moneysaving to see if anyone can recommend DECENT
places for tonight*

I think its fair to say, so seldom do you ever remember the pretty good places, the memory clings ( especialy me LOL) to the times wneh Ive felt ripped off or fleeced.

One place which isnt exactly dining out but I do enjoy is Nandos, the foods at the least freshly cooked, and in a clean environment but the spicy rice is blatantly out of a packet

Penny-Pincher!!

Hi

Although I begrudge paying out for meals that we can make cheaper and more tastily at home, we do have an excellent value carvery around the corner.

If you go between 12-5pm its £3.25, 5pm till close £4.25 and Sunday £7.50 each. You have a choice of gammon, topside or turkey but can have all three if you want. Then you help yourself as many times to yorkshires, roasties, new pots, cauli/cheese, about 5 different veg, gravy and sauces. Even the drink prices are budget. A bottle of 1.5ltr water is just £1.75. Pints are £1.50 etc...excellent value for a roast. Just dont go on a sunday:D DD loves it and is fully wheelchair accessable;)

We have a take-away maybe 1-2 times a month and more often than not have either Indian or Chineese. We love our indian food but again we use a local one that is delicious and priced well. We normally get Chicken Byriani, Korma, Madras, mushroom rice, keema nan and onion bajis. They then throw in a free side dish of bombay spuds, poppadoms, salad and raitha. If you collect you get a further 10% off, so this lot comes to about £15.....I would rather this than a Macdonalds:D

Im feeling very hungry now:rolleyes:

PP
xx

DKLS

I understand the moneysaving point, But I love eating out, good job as I have an expenses account to entertain clients. Then again I dont cook at home, only heat M&S dinners up, Until i can cook as well as M&S do I wont.
However I do agree that you should avoid the large chains, I wouldnt eat at the ilk of brewsters.

Boatie_Bird

Pandora123 wrote:

We rarely eat out because I love cooking and vegan food in restaurants is usually far less than inspiring. An exception is a wonderful vegetarian Chinese Buddhist restaurant in Milton Keynes; if we lived close we'd be regulars there!

:A

A little off topic, but we live in MK and once went to one of our favourite restaurants - The Birch in Woburn - with a vegan friend of ours.
I phoned beforehand to check that there would be something he could eat (other than the old vegan pub standby of chips and salad!), they said it wouldn't be a problem and we could talk to the chef when we got there.

The chef came out of the kitchen, over to our table to talk to our friend and gave him loads of choices for every course. He was very, very pleased with the result and in fact said it was definitely the best meal he'd had in a restaurant since becoming vegan (at the point about 6 years or so). So in this case it was well worth the money.

But I definitely agree with all the people saying how disappointing most restaurant food is - especially places that are part of a chain.

Eating out is one of my favourite treats but I'd rather save for a couple of month and have 1 really, really nice meal where I know the food is cooked on the premises than 10 cheap microwaved meals.

MATH

After 15 years of turning out meal after meal and watching other people shovel my creations down their gullets I'm happy to eat any old crud as long as I havn't had to cook it. I've even been known to whimper with pleasure whilst chowing down a Maccy D's LOL There is a fab restaurant near us that is V expensive but superb, we save up and go once a year, but TBH a cheap and cheerful pub lunch or even a bag of chips on the prom and I'm happy. Mrs MATH says I was such a cheap date she would have been stupid not to marry me.:rotfl:

aimeelister

I think i must be soooo lucky living where i do. I adore going out for meals as there are some amazing places. Its a treat when we go out for food.

Fair enough in some of the places the prices are expensive (£11 for a main is expensive when you consider how much it would cost at home) but it is definately value for money with huge portion sizes, cooked fresh and perfectly and mainly from locally sourced ingredients. And then i dont have to think, cook and wash up after! I can reel off 6 "up market" pubs for this kind of food that are all in 10mins drive. And then there is our local, £9 for the best steak, chips, big mushroom, onoin rings and veg. Im drooling just thinking about it. I definately cant cook that well at home and then we get the fantastic atmosphere and people to go with it. Oh and i cant cook lamb at home which i adore (the smell of it cooking can make me sick!) so its an added bonus if places have that on the menu .

I will however agree with people about chain places. Thank goodness there isn't many of them about around us. I then do object to the quality of the food and the prices and then the service is normally not much better either!