Random Rant of the Day: Screw fancy restraurants!

[BiscuitTrouser]

You obviously haven't been to any real fancy restaurants.

Excellent cooking

Great ingredients

Superb Service

Grow some taste buds, not to mention taste in general.

http://xkcd.com/915/

This comic says it far better than i do.

I dont think these things matter, taste is so subjective you eat where you like the taste and thats great. Sloppy joes or ritzy Restaurant it doesnt mean anything. Anying who says otherwise or prosumes to jugde you is a snobby conossour. Which effectively means they have no more of an important opinion than you.

#2: Macroscopic food portions: that would be a big portion, just letting you know. Besides, the point isn't how much you eat it's what the food tastes like.

When i go out to eat in goddam hungry. I didnt come here to taste some tastey water and not actually eat anything i came to fill my belly AND enjoy taste. If they cannot do this with a promised meal they have FAILED. If i was served one atom of the tastiest thing ever when promised a meal then i wouldnt be happy. I want FOOD. Like TO EAT TO STOP HUNGER. How snobby are people when they make FOOD into someone so complex and artsy fartsy that it no longer forfills its main function of BEING FOOD.

 

[AndyFromMonday]

I would much rather go to a bar than a fancy restaurant. It's not about what you eat or what you drink, it's about the company you keep.

 

[SilentCom]

You need to find some better fancy restaurants. Of course, I've never really been to a fancy restaurant so I really shouldn't be saying much. Actually, I don't eat out much at all... I guess I'll stop talking now.

 

[Pipotchi]

If you have had bad dining experience then that says more about your choice of restaurant and dish than about the perils of fine dining in general.

I like cheap and cheerful food as much as the next guy but If you have the choice (and living in London I do) you can spend 60-80 quid on a meal and you can taste the Difference, 35 days aged longhorn Ribeye steak, beef dripping fries, dessert and a few cocktails is well worth the money.

 

[redisforever]

#2: Macroscopic food portions

Sorry if someone already mentioned this, but that means big food portions. I think you mean microscopic.

OT: I agree completely. I like the "fancy restaurants" in my area. Not too expensive, food comes in about 30 minutes, because that's how long it takes to make it, and large amounts of that food.

The real fancy restaurants are just pretentious. The more you pay, the less food you get.

 

[Duol]

You obviously haven't been to any real fancy restaurants.

Excellent cooking

Great ingredients

Superb Service

Grow some taste buds, not to mention taste in general.

This comic says it far better than i do.

I dont think these things matter, taste is so subjective you eat where you like the taste and thats great. Sloppy joes or ritzy Restaurant it doesnt mean anything. Anying who says otherwise or prosumes to jugde you is a snobby conossour. Which effectively means they have no more of an important opinion than you.

So everyone on this site is a snobby game connoisseur?

"Eeewwww Farmville"

 

[Doom-Slayer]

Best steak I've ever eaten was at Cracker Barrel. I've had pricier ones that weren't as good.

Best steak Ive had was at a Winery called Craigy range. Cost 39.50NZD so about 30USD. Just because you haven't found a high quality expensive restaurant doesn't mean they don't exist.

 

[DoctorFrankenStein]

Paying extra for tiny portions of food to 'be seen' at trendy places is for chumps.
Likewise so is paying for some flash frozen and re-heated food-like item with no nutritional content from a burger joint.

Granted, I'm poor. I go out to eat less then once every two months. I can't afford it, not the money or conversely- the long-term damage to my health. [When I was younger my family was upper middle-class so I do have some experience in fancy restaurants.]
These days I mostly only eat Chinese if I go out, since that stuff can be hard to find the right recipe and make yourself.
I can get a decent cut of steak at my local supermarket, pass it to my partner Spirit for prep and grilling, and it tastes just as good or better then anything I've had at a fancy steakhouse.
Ultimately it makes more sense to buy raw ingredients and just cook for yourself. Sure it takes more time, but it's better for you and you know exactly what was put into it. Plus, if you make a big batch of something like soup; then you can eat off it for days and skip the cooking for a while, so everything evens out.
I think that teaching a child how to cook is one of the most useful skills a parent can pass on. Otherwise they'll always be at the mercy of con-men and deceptive product labeling. [Yes, I'm calling you out, DIET FOOD. Especially diet soda. It actually makes people hungrier BECAUSE there are no calories for your body to digest.]

 

[Blow_Pop]

#2: Macroscopic food portions

Sure, they say that good things take time. But if you're going to take eons to cook up a piece of food no bigger than my fist, than I think I'd rather eat my beard that I didn't walk into the restaurant with. I wouldn't mind the wait if it looked like it actually TOOK time, but in most cases, it looks like the chef was taste-testing it the whole way through, leaving almost nothing left. Fun fact: Any old schmuck can buy a cookbook with 20-minute recipes and can make them taste good as long as they know what they're doing. Speaking of making it taste good

This is just going to vary from restaurant to restaurant, it very well could be though that you were ordering 'the wrong thing' at the restaurant. I've been to a lot of places where if you order a steak you'll get a small 8oz with a couple of sides in similar portions but if you order pasta or fish you'll be burred in food and places where the reverse is true as well. I recommend looking around at the other diners tables as you're being seated to get a gauge. Also at a nice place it's not a bad idea to ask your server what they'd recommend, they're generally pretty good about suggesting solid filling meals.

As a former cook I have to agree. Always ask your server. They can give you all kinds of information from how big the dish is to (most likely) if they find it good. MOST restaurants I have worked in (and that's been quite a few) as both a cook AND a waitress will have (at least) the servers do a taste test of the food so they can do JUST THAT. Look up reviews of the place as well. Food critics and non critics who make reviews on places. It will give you an idea of what to expect. Some places like to go towards the more "artistic" sense of cooking and when they do they tend to cut down the size of some portions. Also look at WHAT the restaurant is suppose to be good for. As the above has been pointed out, you could have been ordering the wrong thing.

#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...

Without a doubt you can find great food for great prices at small restaurants and if you find a gem like that jump on it and tell your friends. This doesn't however translate to a blanket 'you can generally find better food for better prices than at fancy places'. It's very possible that lasagne was just something that that particular restaurant wasn't good at. Also, being that you were there for a wedding it's possible that you're long delay (and the poor flavor due to the food cooling) was due to the extra business associated with an event./

It's easy to look at a fancy place and say, "well I can spend $50 for steak here or $15 for it at the local diner and therefor the diner is better" but among other things at a nice place your paying for better trained chefs and better quality materials, which does generally translate to not only better tasting and more filling food but more healthy as well.

You mentioned earlier than anyone can get a 20min recipe and make something that tastes good, and to an extent that's true, but only in the sense that you can give anyone a pencil and they can draw a cartoon in an hour. You can't make a brisket in 20 minutes, you can't perfect grilling a steak without a LOT of practice, and you probably can't buy many of the spices, vegetables and means that you'll find in the nicest restaurants in an economical fashion.

I have to agree. Yeah mostly you could get your own recipe and cook something fairly good. At the same time you could overlook a detail and it wouldn't be as good. However, restaurants typically use a lot of ingredients that are hard to find cheaply. Some of the best food I've ever had was at a fancier type of restaurant that I was actually a server at. The funny thing, the place was a banquet hall and concert hall. And the food quality did not vary. Ever. It was amazing every night. I'm surprised that I didn't grow fat off the food there. If the kitchen happened to cook a bit extra we got the extra and as it happened they did that quite often. I also got quite addicted to the calamari they had as appetizers just about every night.

In summary, I fail to see the appeal of fancy restaurants, due to the fact that you have to wait for hours for an expensive morsel of food that isn't even very good. I have no idea what everybody sees in them, but I for one am never going to another one of those scams again if I can help it.

Mostly what foodies see in fancy places is very simply better food but it does go further than that. Some times you go to a nice place for a unique experience, molecular gastronomy makes for a very interesting eating experience and a nice tapas place will allow you to try a broad variety of food in a single meal. Setting can also be an important factor, a nice restaurant will be an enjoyable experience just to sit in. Lastly there's inspiration, most foodies also cool, and the people in the nice restaurants (and of course sometimes in the small holes in the wall) are on the cutting edge of how to get the best out of food. Since I've been to Delmonico's I've learned a lot of tricks about how to spice my steaks, after eating at Purple I've become much more creative in building a salad. I love nice restaurants and wish I could get to them more, and I do hope that you find some in your area that you'll appreciate as well.

I can go to a fancy restaurant and have an appreciation for them. Especially seeing it from the other side first hand (not just watching it on some reality show but actually working at one). It all depends on the restaurant. I can see the appeal but I like my local restaurants better since I know they are cheaper and I tend to be on a very tight budget. As a result, I rarely go out and am more prone to making my own food. Also someone mentioned that fancy restaurants tend to not be healthier than cheaper ones. Not always true. Some of them are, some of them aren't. You can always ask for nutrition information (at least here in California) at ANY restaurant and by law they HAVE to show you it. Otherwise they get in a lot of trouble and get reported. Also, look at the restaurant rating. Usually if it is rated as an A the food tends to be good and clean. They got that rating for a reason. OP I think you need to try other restaurants first before making a generalisation off of one restaurant towards all of them. They are nice to go to every once in a while to celebrate something(birthday, anniversary, engagement, etc). I think on average, I go to a fancier restaurant once every.....oh about 5 years or so. I'm not too terribly big on them. I also don't like dressing up and quite a few of them do tend to have dress codes or you are expected to have a higher dress style than others.

 

[BiscuitTrouser]

You obviously haven't been to any real fancy restaurants.

Excellent cooking

Great ingredients

Superb Service

Grow some taste buds, not to mention taste in general.

This comic says it far better than i do.

I dont think these things matter, taste is so subjective you eat where you like the taste and thats great. Sloppy joes or ritzy Restaurant it doesnt mean anything. Anying who says otherwise or prosumes to jugde you is a snobby conossour. Which effectively means they have no more of an important opinion than you.

So everyone on this site is a snobby game connoisseur?

"Eeewwww Farmville"

In a word. Yes. If someone elses enjoyment of something suits them, who are you to tell them its better or worse. Im allowed to say eww farmville. I hate it. You are allowed to go EWWWW frogs legs. However to jugde or tell someone they are inferior is just incorrect. However games playing is also a skill as well as a commodity. I can say i am more skilled than a farmville player. This in no way makes me better than them or more of a games fan, but i can say i have a wider range of experiences, and a wider taste in games, if they were to say for example that my games were poor for x reasons, id be better equipped to argue with them than if i was to do the same due to my better experience. However nothing i say or do can take their fun away so i might as well respect it, i can rip on farmvilles makers though. Those guys suck.