Growing up in the 1960's, my family never went out to eat at a restaurant, couldn't afford it for one thing and there was no such thing as fast food. (My parents to this day prefer to eat at home and never eat out. They don't like 'eating their money!)
We go out once in a great while for an occasion such as a birthday celebration but mostly I cook at home. I actually prefer it now.
Seems to me that restaurant food is cooked swimming in butter and portions are way oversized. I have friends who eat out at the drop of a hat and think nothing of the cost. (But they're American so it's second nature, I guess wink )
But I do have my favorite place to eat out....and that place is The Cheesecake Factory. So, do you/or spouse cook at home or do you prefer to go out to eat? And is there a favorite restaurant you like to go to?
We mainly eat in and cook for ourselves although sometimes we'll order out too.
We just got back from vacation so were eating out almost every night and you are right about the portion sizes they are huge. We went to Chillis one night and i felt bad as i had to leave at least half of it. There was enough for 2 people!
We like The Olive Garden and Red Lobster too -) Now i'm hungry!!
I take the kids out once in a while, they're favourite place is Uno's.
We went to the CheesecakeFactory when we were out in San Diego last year and I loved it too. We don't have one up here in the wilds of Maine. (
We also like a local Chinese restaurant a lot.
I eat out at least once a week. After working 55 to 60 hours per week I feel no guilt whatsoever in paying for someone else to cook at least once.
Last week we ate at an Indian restaurant in Indianapolis..... D
Ack, we are terrible for eating out. That said, we have cut it down a LOT.
Now we (me, him, 2 kids)have one big (more expensive) eat out a week, on a Saturday afternoon.... Land & Cattle steakhouse, Pappadeux, Olive Garden somewhere like that,, and a couple of cheaper eat outs in the week.
We used to eat out a good 6-7 times a week, 3-4 days out of the week, then lunch and dinner Saturday, then breakfast out Sunday. Got to be a very expensive habit, that was tough to break.
Even now that we have damatically cut down, our kids hate eating out. "Awww muuuuum do we have to do out to eat??" Although they can order like pros LOL. Going out so much ruined it, stopped it being a treat.. a relaxing time. Turned into a 'go in, order, eat, leave' kinda deal.
We mostly eat at home because it's the best value way of eating. Luckily, our fave place to eat out is also very cheap so we go around once a week It's called the Thai Kitchen and it's superb. I usually have garlic pepper chicken, medium hot with extra cilanro.
Yumtastic.
We eat at home every night. We also work long hours but with a bit of planning and sharing we manage to have a good evening meal each night. Weekends are often cook outs on the grill or the occasional take out from the local Chinese or BBQ Hut
Wife likes to eat out, tells me that over all it is cheaper than shopping, so she is obviously bloody insane. Myself I hate eating out, every place I go to I try and not open my mouth because 1. They don't understand I word I am saying and 2. They want to sit at my table for 10 minutes and hear me speak and 3. I really don't like American food, especially as it is freezing by the time it gets to my table.
Although we have got quite a good indian nearby and we go there now and again
We only eat out as a treat (usually sushi) or we pick up Mexican food when we are run ragged and don't have the time or energy to cook. We much prefer to eat at home. We never ate out when I was growing up. For a special treat we might get fish and chips now and then but that was the extent of non home cooked food! I think I was about 17 the first time I went to a real restaurant to eat.
Learnt to love eating out at early age as my Mum's cooking was terrible! Still is apparently. However, my Dad who had to cook for my Grandparents when he was young, they were always ill, is a very good cook. Still enjoy eating out but enjoy eating in, just as much. Fortunately, took after my Dad in the cooking stakes and Gordon is a very good cook as well.
We eat out once a week or get take-out. It's just something that we do no matter what. There are alot of good quality restaurants in Western New York so there's always alot to choose from. There are also oodles of chain restaurants like Chilli's, Applebees, Perkins, etc that we sometimes go in if we fancy some crappy food. Last week I ate at an awesome curry-house called Tandoori's - go there quite often. Good prices, and very good food. Weirdly very few of the staff are Indian or Indian heritage. Going out to eat tonight and we might try a Turkish restaurant near where I work.
We don't eat out as much as we used to. Being retired we have plenty of time to prepare good meals. We do however have to go to one of our local Indian restuarants called Little India, at least once every couple of weeks.
We go for the mid-day buffet and for the two of us it costs less than $30Can. Like most Indian restuarants there is no empasis on alcoholic drinks.
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I never went out to eat at a restaurant really until I lived in the US, so its was definately a learning curve for me to go out to restaurants in and around the Buffalo area. I like chinese food so I like to go out there to eat but we do go to italian restaurants and also I like tex-mex, and we do occasionally go to a polish restaurant and I like a fish fry which isnt as good as back home but its okay. I have to say I'm not a connoissieur of food but what restaurants I go to, which nowadays is rare I like.
"Out to eat" was always a rare treat in UK for me.
Nowadays, we go a couple of times a week. I like to go to the same Chinese or Mexican restaurants - the Chinese has good food and the Mexican is very close-knit so they treat you like family. Their food is good too, obviously.
I went to a nouveau cuisine place here once but was very disappointed - give me a little no-name place any day.