How many of you actually enjoy expensive restaurants?
I personally would prefer to go to a Mexican restaurant where I could get blackout drunk and eat amazing food for $50 ($15 meal + drinks).
Recently have been going out to nicer restaurants and although I get the hype, it’s personally not for me. Granted I wasn’t paying so I thoroughly enjoyed myself, but even with amazing food and drinks, I personally would prefer a more low key setting.
Throw in the actual cost of the meal (one place was $3k+ for 6 people and i just don’t see myself ever being a connoisseur of fine dining.
Agreed, would rather have a Dominoes pizza than go to some boogie Italian restaurant that put some random truffle as topping
As long as my wife is riding me forward and then reverse cowgirl after I’m not worried about it. Drink up.
Never Happened.
Doesn’t need to be fine dining, go to 4 Charles and I’d imagine you’d skip the meal at Dos Caminos
I dislike the atmosphere of a 'nice' restaurant.
I love nice restaurants and I also love cheaper places. I strongly dislike the in between options.
The places that charge you but lack any reason to charge you.
It really depends. The food still has to be a decent value proposition for me to want to do it. IE I'd rather go to a brazilian steakhouse and spend 60$ on food than a fancy restaurant that gives you tiny plates
Went to this one place that had buffalo wing sauce on carrot cake as they were trying to be revolutionary and cutting edge and it tasted so bad.
I was thinking about this recently and appreciate you bringing it up! I've traveled both abroad and within the States a fair amount and have found that I almost always regret going out to a pricey spot unless there's an element of novelty to it. I absolutely understand that I'm going to sound pretentious in place-dropping here, but the experiences that still stand out to me are those like the leg of lamb at Le Tren Bleu in Gare de Lyon, the repas complet at L'Ambroisie, octopus in some incredible spot in San Sebastian, etc. While I love a good dress code, I'm not entirely sure if any of those meals were worth $200+ more than tacos and lagers at Tacombi, but I still look back on the respective experiences fondly. I think that a great portion of the enjoyment of fine dining comes from the idea of experiencing an elite chef's performance at their very best, which isn't necessarily something that everyone has the opportunity to witness in person. In some cases with legendary chefs like Eric Ripert or Alain Ducasse, it feels like it'd be the culinary equivalent of seeing Marcus Dupree play at OU or Bo Jackson back at Auburn - just guys operating at another level.
this has got to be the biggest disappointment with business travel. I wine and dine clients all over the country and while I love the company, fancy restaurants are a gigantic waste, most of all steakhouses. I've been to 5 star restaurants in many major metros and while I've often thought "that was good," I'd much rather cook italian food with my family or just go to europe and have a better meal for 1/10th the price.
case in point, just got back from a T2 city (think dallas, but not dallas), 5 star restaurant, $150-200 a head minimum (excluding cocktails), I got a waygu filet and a nice bottle of spanish wine. underwhelmed. I cook a better steak on my grill I got from lowe's hardware with steak from my local butcher. while it was good, it wasn't great. night before, was at a michelin star italian restaurant that was slightly cheaper (probably because it was the world's smallest negroni pour), underwhelmed. had better pasta in my in laws kitchen and WAY better pasta in trastevere (iykyk) for 1/5th the price. this happens all the fucking time when I have business travel. I love the company my clients provide, it's a nice occasion for them, I just cannot help but think of what a waste all of this is for subpar food. I guess it's the experience, I guess it's getting out of the house and getting waited on like royalty, but for most, it feels like just an excuse to tell your friends your wealth manager took you out to thus-and-such a place.
EXCEPTIONS - went to this amazing thai place by myself in another T2 city (think tampa, but not tampa) and it was the best pad thai I've had in the US. granted, it was expensive, but not douchebag steakhouse expensive (my meal + cocktails wasn't even $100). also ate at a jose andres restaurant in a shopping center in a suburb around DC and it was spectacular...but not overly expensive (<$100pp). notice anything in common? BOTH ETHNIC PLACES. I think the point of diminishing return is about $100pp for food. anything above that and you're basically just paying for the restauranteur's divorce and his girlfriend's new tits, no thanks.
and I'm with you ACP, wifey and I always go for mexican on our date nights
Completely agree with you on the steakhouses. I’ve been to a few of the “best” steakhouses in my city and although they’re good, I enjoy the steaks I cook at home much better…and for a quarter of the price.
I’ve even found some of the “lower tier” steakhouses to have much better steaks. Then again, I’m not a steak connoisseur so maybe I just don’t appreciate it like I should.
I recall you making a great point on the absurdity of paying for excessively buttered steaks at spots like Ruth's Chris a little while back and that's still been some of the best advice I've ever had in terms of evaluating restaurants
The food in Trastevere will always be one of my favorites in the world. The memories I have from drowning in wines and Gin Tonics during 4-hour dinners in Trastevere will always be some of the best times of my life.
If that best Thai food you had was in Orlando, I think I've been to the same place.
I have also been to that place. Good Pad Thai, think the Drunken Noodles were too oily.
The Colombian place across the street was da bomb
Mi piace Trastevere, è il mio quartiere preferito a Roma.
anch'io
tu parli l'italiano? di dove sei?
Maybe I've gotten old, but experience is about the only reason to go out to most places nowadays. Half the new spots that are opening up are all about the experience - clearly instagrammable cocktails and menu items, see and be seen setup, glitzy, music, overpriced food across the board. How charred octopus became a generic menu item I'll never know - but it's a fail safe at $26 a plate.
I empathize with most places admittedly, especially those that aren't super high end are are largely trying to keep up - inflation costs are crushing them, leases I can't fathom are getting much better, and hiring competent staff can't be a fun experience nowadays. Even the higher end places have been disappointing - $300 a person you shouldn't really be saying 'yeah, that was fine'. Alcohol is the real killer at this point - steadily seeing cocktails and wine markups balloon at places. Which I fully expect, but when paired with just OK food - the value prop, even on an experience basis, isn't really there.
What's fascinating though is places are absolutely jammed, regardless of how the price levels. The fact that I can't even get in to spend the few hundred dollars a person... I'm not sure what it says, but really blows my mind.
there's now $1 trillion of CC debt, up >$250bn in ~2 years
that's how
Not gonna get a better hunk of beef than at an Applebees. Looking for ladies? Chilis is your answer. Next question.
Applebees and Chili’s are utterly disgusting. This has to be a joke. I’d rather eat at McDonald’s.
You genuinely believe someone on this forum thinks Chilis is a place to pick up women?
I think it’s a reference to the movie Hall Pass where Owen Wilson and Jason Sudeikes are married dudes in their 40’s that get hall passes from their wives for a weekend.
Their characters haven’t been single in like 20+ years so they go to a Chilis because it’s where they think all the hot chicks hang out. Don’t remember if Applebees was part of the joke as well.
I'm with you brother. There is enormously diminishing returns after the $50-60 per person dinners...after that point the ratio of dollars to value makes no sense. I like trying the more expensive, unique restaurants (think omakase or japanese-spanish tapas) once in a while but I only go once and that's usually only a handful of times per year. Happy as a clam sticking to that $50-60 range (or even less sometimes) 90% of the time
I’m a fan of food from both ends of the spectrum but have increasingly been branching out to some of the higher end spots in my city and have been really enjoying them lately. Inflation in my opinion is killing the restaurants in the middle and a few on the lower end of the spectrum.
Ex (California Pizza Kitchen): 2 cocktails, Pizza, and a Salad (no protein added) ($80 without tip and $96 w/tip)
1 Star Michelin Restaurant: 2 cocktails, Half a Duck w/ fried rice (such a large portion I normally have leftovers), and Brown Butter Seaweed Noodles w/ Mushrooms ($100 pre tip and $120 w/tip)
2 Star Michelin Sushi Spot for Omakase ($96 pre tip and $120 w/tip)
I’m not a food snob by any stretch of the imagination but the cost for eating out has just gotten out of hand. I’ll happily pay an extra $20-40/meal for the 2-4 times a week I eat out for high quality food made by chefs who know what they’re doing as opposed to some mediocre chain or middle of the road restaurant putting out average food.
Yes 100%. This is exactly what I meant above too but didn't articulate as well. The middle of the road options make zero sense. I'd rather spend ~$20 - $30 more than get food that is mind blowing OR spend way less and go to a great family run indian or mexican restaurant.
I agree with your point but the data points you're bringing up seem misleading. First, I could only find one 2 star Michelin Omakase place in the US (Sushi Ginza Onodera) and the omakase there is $450. Second, I've only been to a few 1 Michelin Star restaurants but they've all been more than $80/head without drinks, e.g. Crown Shy in NYC is on the lower end and was more than that. Third, your CPK order should really be more like $60 pre-tip. When you're making comparisons fudging individual numbers by even just a little bit can make an invalid point suddenly very valid.
The place I’m referring to is called Wako and upon further research they lost their stars this past year. They’ve also increased their prices pretty substantially (nearly doubled) in the past 9 months, which was the last time I dined there and is honestly not that surprising. The economics of that place never made sense. They’re open 4.5 hours per day and 6 days a week with three groups coming in per night but capacity was only a dozen at a time. Given their limited capacity they never had any issues selling out every night but it always felt like they should be charging more and wouldn’t see a drop off in demand. At the new price points my guess is that they’re still selling out most nights but have a slow weekday or two.
State Bird Provisions, San Ho Won and Mister Jius are all places I’ve been more recently where you can pretty comfortably dine within the range that I discussed. As long as you’re able to avoid a mandatory tasting menu most of these higher end places can be done in a similar range.
When making my hypothetical CPK order I actually did it on the website with the exception of the cocktails (paid $15/drink when my parents came into town recently). Subtotal for a pizza, salad (no protein), and 2 drinks @ $15/each was $77.61 pre tip and assuming the standard 20% tip that comes out to $93.13. Discrepancy comes from rounding but no matter which way you cut it $93 for chain food and drinks is pretty bad (rounded $77 to $80 in my initial post).
I like great food, sometimes it’s a Michelin starred restaurant, but sometimes it is an ethnic hole in the wall. I find at true fine dining you get exceptional consistency, wonderfully knowledgeable staff and great execution.
Most fancy restaurants ive been to are terrible. The dishes are more of an artistic expression, big on plate presentation and fancy designs with sauces and other sides. I usually leave not feeling full after blowing a wad of cash. No thanks.
In most cases I would prefer just a nice family Italian restaurant with great food and nice vibe, Mexican or a great steakhouse over a so called fine dining spot. Especially in places like Manhattan, I really can't stand it when you finish your food and the staff drops the bill almost immediately or are hinting you to leave. It ruins the whole experience for me to be honest. In most European cities it is normal to stay for an hour or even hours after you finish your meal, still ordering drinks and stuff ofcourse.
Yes I enjoy high-end restaurants a lot and find the food there finer and better prepared. Also find that the decor and ambiance are often nicer and more upscale which I enjoy.
I guess there's a difference between fancy restaurants that focus on the gastronomy (michelin starred restaurants) those the focus on the vibes (trendy ones like Catch or Nobu that also have good food). I enjoy both but usually former with family and good wine and latter with friends before drinks or going out.
I also enjoy cheaper places and sometimes chow on McDonalds or whatever but a nice high-end restaurant can be great for a night out.
I hate it when people post some lame ass photo of their steak, mid tier cocktail, or some other bullshit food with the name of the restaurant tagged. It’s just a douchey flex.
Agree with what people have said above about either cheap food or going all out. My gf and I went to a super nice resort in Mexico and the food was unbelievably good. V nice place but worth it to have such great meals and a beautiful beach. Otherwise, I’d just like to get cheaper food and a drink or two. Lotta “nice” steakhouses and such are v underwhelming for the price. Better to save up and pay up for v nice dining more occasionally and just learn to cook what you like at home.
The worst thing I’ve noticed recently, say over the last five years is the explosion of upper mid farm to table/New American restaurants. They’re so incredibly generic, it’s invariably some pork belly, try hard mixology and a forgettable meal that all blends together.
Never have been a fan of expensive restaurants, but love a creative, well constructed meal. The dichotomy is that the connotation is that these are mutually exclusive, but turns out they are not. I live in San Antonio, TX, which while compared to the other major cities in Texas is definitely lacking in the fine dining category, it still has an assortment of what I would consider expensive restaurants to eat at, a lot of which are Mexican food places that will serve you some "gourmet" set of tacos for $25/plate that will leave you hungry 2 hours later. That being said, SA has some of the best food trucks and hole in the wall restaurants I've ever experienced. If you are truly a foodie, do yourself a favor and quit going on yelp or eatery or whatever and ask some locals where you should eat. That is where the ROI is the best.
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