Random Rant of the Day: Screw fancy restraurants!

Recommended Videos

Togs

New member
Dec 8, 2010
1,468
0
0
Battleaxx90 said:
#3: The food's no better than any other restaurant

Here's a fun little story: A few months back, I was taken to a fancy restaurant somewhere in Sydney for a cousin's wedding, where I ordered some lasagne. It took two hours to get to my table and the lasagne was passable at best. The next week, me and my mates went out to some Italian restaurant in the suburbs, where I again ordered lasagne, which was the best damn lasagne I ever tasted. What's the point of going to a fancy restaurant if I can get better food at some small-time restaurant that's struggling to pay its bills? Speaking of money...
Whilst your other points are all fair game, they dont personally bother me but I can see how they might do other people this one is the one I have issue with- too many times Ive had people say "it tastes no different" when choosing to serve cheap stuff to expensive stuff when its so quite blatantly does- it may not to you but that isnt an issue with the food, the issue lies with you having a blunt and uneducated pallet.
 

Doom-Slayer

Ooooh...I has custom title.
Jul 18, 2009
630
0
0
Battleaxx90 said:
#1: Long waiting times

#2: Macroscopic food portions


#3: The food's no better than any other restaurant


#4: It's too zetta expensive
Having been to many fancy resturants, including the second best resturant in the whole of NZ where the main I had was approx 30USD, I figure Ill answer these a little bit.

1. Depends on the restaurant, fancy=/=slow. There are plenty of terrible and slow resturant, plenty of good and fast restaurants. Also one other people ill cover in a moment.

2. Cover in a moment

3. See 1.

4. Good things cost money? Why do expensive cars cost more than an average car, because they are better, higher quality and more time and effort was put into them,

And now for the big overarching reason, which basically answers everything. You have the wrong idea of why people go to expensive restaurants etc. You do not go to get served immediate with a huge plate of food, that is not the point. You go for the "experience". If you want a big plate of food, you go to a medium scale restaurant or you make yourself a sandwich. If you actually want to sit down, and enjoy you surroundings with company, ( since going to expensive restaurants alone is just sad) then you go somewhere fancy. And this is not something you do often, unless your like some of our family friends( real estate agents, lawyers etc) you do not do this often.

bahumat42 said:
If your taste buds aren't developed enough to tell the difference between fast food and good food thats your call.
Also QTF. If anyone in this thread is complaining theres no difference in taste, quite simply..fancy food isnt for you, go eat your BBQ ribs or w/e, leave the fancy food for the people that can taste it.
 

Doom-Slayer

Ooooh...I has custom title.
Jul 18, 2009
630
0
0
TestECull said:
My taste buds are developed enough to tell the difference between good food and overpriced food. On top of that, my nose isn't held so high above the clouds I can't figure that possibly someone else's tastes differ from my own. Someone must like spending forty bucks for a steak that would barely fill a housecat. If such people didn't exist these restaurants would not be able to stay open, and since you're so vehemently defending them I'm assuming you're one of those people.


Ain't me though. I'll go somewhere cheaper and get a better product.
Ignoring all the ranting, let me comment. Not all fancy restaurant have good food and not all fancy restaurants have overpriced food. And let me give you an example, if you took a steak from a fancy restaurant all cooked up 'fancy-like' and a cheap one from a steakhouse, and you proclaim "they taste the same" that is not you're tastes being different. You are wrong. And this is what it all hinges on, there IS a difference between good and bad food, and if you can taste that, you go to fancy places to get it, that's why they exist.

Also on a side note, if your complaining about portion sizes you are what they say "Do it wrong". You do not go to fancy restaurants to get stuffed full of food. If your really hungry, then have something simple that fills you up, if you want something that tastes nice, you go to fancy. Resturants sole purpose is not to fill you up, cheap places maybe, not all places.
 

thylasos

New member
Aug 12, 2009
1,920
0
0
Egh. Nice every once in a while, it must be said. And by once in a while... I barely ever eat out anyway... the fancy restaurant may be a once a year thing.

If you're worried about waiting times, book in advance. Yes, you might still be waiting for a few minutes to get seated, still, but you WILL get seated, and the restaurant experience is not all about speed. Also, if I'm waiting to be seated, I'll still walk over to the bar and get me and the person I'm with a drink. If the quality of the food's not great, you probably could have picked that up from the odd review, or word of mouth. If it's barely edible, kick up a stink.

I was waiting two hours in a place once, admittedly (having just walked in off the street), but the result of that was me and my friend getting £60 of food and £20 of fairly incredible wine for free.

Obviously there are restaurants out there which focus more on image than the quality of the food or service, but there're plenty that don't, yet retain the "fancy" image.
 

Lucane

New member
Mar 24, 2008
1,491
0
0
Ever heard of the saying time is money? Well for the people who goes to those kind of places other and other again, They have the "time" and the money to do so which is a way to feel superior to others who don't have either or both as such what you actually get doesn't really matter either as it's being seen eating there like others have said.

I can't remember where this quote came from but it's along the lines of... "That's why a lot of rich people like to eat the trash part of animals."
 

Lucane

New member
Mar 24, 2008
1,491
0
0
Arontala said:
Wouldn't actual rich people just hire their own personal chef?

So I don't really see the point of "fancy restaurants".
Why can't they do both?(Most likely do.) And it's about being seen by other wealthy people and trying to one up each other or just being better than everyone else like those crazy expensive cellphones with barebone basic features that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars because they are handmade, limited quantity, made of precious gems and or gold and may even have auctions anyway to add to the exclusiveness to it all.
 

razer17

New member
Feb 3, 2009
2,518
0
0
NO FUCKING WAY! A fancy restaurant was expensive? It's not like that's entirely the point.

Fancy restaurants are about image as much as anything. People can say "Oh, I went to Gordon Ramseys restaurant the other day". If you go to a good restaurant, you will have booked weeks or months beforehand, unless your name is Tom Cruise or something, and you will get your table at the time booked, and the menus arrive quickly, and your food will arrive quickly.

Funny thing about top end restaurants is that they don't employ any old chef. They employ only the best, and the head chef will be pretty harsh on anyone that's too slow. If it took you 2 hours to get food, it's because it's a shit restaurant, not any other reason.

IF you go to a good one, with a good head chef, the food is likely to be some of the best you've ever eaten. Admittedly the portions are tiny, but that's why these restaurants are for rich people. They aren't for common folk like me and you.
 

BabyRaptor

New member
Dec 17, 2010
1,505
0
0
I think the "highest class" place I've ever gone to eat is Applebees.

I'm pretty happy with that.
 

ExileNZ

New member
Dec 15, 2007
915
0
0
A good restaurant isn't necessarily a fancy restaurant. But then, some of the best restaurants are really very expensive.

I went to Lombardi's in New York and it was easily the best pizza I found in the US.
Not sure I'd say the best I ever had, but it was really good and I had to wait 20 minutes just to get in.
 

SovietPanda

New member
Jun 5, 2011
102
0
0
Couple tips OP. Just like anything your likely to drop a couple hundred dollars on... look into it in advance, resturaunts get reviewed too you know. You can find out what other people think about a given resturuants efficiency, quality of food and value for money. Plenty people out there figure that if the decor is modern and expensive, the front counter has someone that calls themself a maitre de and the bill comes in a leather folder it automatically makes it a "good resturunat". Just not true.
BOOK AHEAD, your average bar and grill can handle walk ins easily. Your fancy resturaunt' with highly involved meals with multiple components takes time to produce these meals. granted waiting for the menus and to actually be served at all is frustrating and a sign of poor work practices/understaffing/badly trained staff/ being busier then expected. But with regards to how long the food takes to come out, keep in mind that your food doesnt start getting cooked as soon as you order, it starts getting cooked as soon as the chef deals with all the dockets from tables that ordered before you.

Dont got to top range resturaunts for a big meal. Its just not going to happen, you want pub sized meals go to a pub. high end resturaunts are about taking food beyond just sustenance and turning it into an entire experience, and if you can't afford to have anything more then just a main meal you probably wont end up full, the meals are sized generally so the average person can easily fit in an appetizer, an entree, a main, a dessert and possibly even some cheese and coffee afterwards.

Dont lump us all in together, have one bad experience don't write us all off. There are plenty of bad fancy resturaunts... again i make a point about reviews.

Finally if you don't know what experience your getting into, don't come. You sound like the customers i hate dealing with. I get very tired about complaints about food from people that don't know a thing about it. From telling me there steak is cooked wrong when they don't really know what medium rare means, to claiming im lying to the public because the king salmon i sell isn't nice and pink (they thought king salmon and atlantic salmon are the same fish).

Sorry for the counter rant, and if i came across offensive in anyway i apologise.
 

Nickolai77

New member
Apr 3, 2009
2,843
0
0
Personally, i've dined in some pretty nice places in my time, and at one point i worked in a gastropub, so i feel fairly qualified to give an opinion.

As has been said, there are good posh restaurants and bad posh restaurants, for the good ones you can get some really excellent food and service- if you feel the portions are small then ask for a side portion of vegetables or chips. It also helps if you know you like the food items on the menu, and book in advance.

Personally however i'm a big fan of pub and bar meals. The food's English so you don't need to know French to understand what your ordering, the foods simple, wholesome and filling, and there is also a big selection of alcoholic beverages. The atmosphere also tends to be more relaxed and less formal, which i prefer. Some pubs, or gastropubs, lose this effect however if they go too far up the scale of poshness, i thought my old workplace did that.
 

meowchef

New member
Oct 15, 2009
461
0
0
I love expensive restaurants.

However... I love ALL restaurants. I like traveling around the country eating at tons and tons of different restaurants. It doesn't matter if its 12 bucks for the two of us or 150.
 

Smooth Operator

New member
Oct 5, 2010
8,162
0
0
Indeed.

If you want good food, good service and a nice feel to it go to a small privately owned place where the staff is actually looking after it's own place.
They will be friendly, they will do their best to make you welcome and the food will be just as good at a fraction of the price, even personal requests will usually be welcome if you have atleast one or two kind words on offer.