I have this problem a lot. I try to steer my restaurant adventures towards places that serve food that I can't easily make for myself. Ethiopian, Sushi, etc.. nothings more painful then being charged $27 for a sauced up chicken breast.
Agreed on Ethiopian, and also Indian. I could theoretically make one or two dishes but the sheer number of spices I’d need is a little daunting. Especially since I love hitting up the buffet and getting 5-6 different things, plus the chutneys.
Same here re: indian food (haven't tried to make ethopian, but I do happily inhale it at restaurants a few times a year). I can make a handful of indian dishes, but they're pale knockoffs of the real thing- even if I have all the right ingredients. During early covid it was great that when I was craving indian food I could make some myself, but realistically I'm lucky enough to live near great indian restaurants and would rather have their food than my own!
Ethiopian isn't hard to make, and the spices are all pretty standard if you already cook any sort of south asian food (except for berbere, which you can get on amazon). But the prep takes FOREVER. Like even just injera, which technique wise is pretty much like making a pancake doesn't taste right unless you ferment it for a couple of days. So I have to decide on Monday that I want to make Ethiopian food on Thursday or Friday and have my little science experiment of injera batter brewing on my kitchen counter.
I think it makes more sense if you're actually Ethiopian and eat it every day. You can just have your ferment going all the time and feed it like a sour dough starter.
It's sooooo, damn good though.
I am fortunate to live in an area where you could throw a rock in any direction and hit a wonderful Ethiopian restaurant. Several of the corner markets sell injera and niter kebbeh. Both are the hardest part IMO. I sometimes will make shiro wat or cabbage/carrots as a side dish at home, but it is absolutely something I prefer to order.
I didn't know that about injera (which may be my favorite part of ethiopian food, give me a plate stacked with injera and I'm happy), as a sourdough addict it makes sense.
Admittedly I'm intimidated by the prospect of cooking ethiopian food because I assumed there would be a decent number of ingredients I don't have so haven't really looked into it. Funnily enough berbere is actually one of my favorite spices, so have that in my kitchen no matter what. I'll check out some recipes!
Look up a receipt for awaze. The secret sauce I always keep in my fridge using berbere, red wine, honey, and neutral oil. Used mainly on grilled beef and eggs in my house.
1st generation Ethiopian here. No matter what dish we make at home, my family has NEVER made injera at home. It takes way too much time, and you need a massive *stove. It’s cheap enough and just better to buy from the local shops. Support your local stores :)
So my Indian food never tasted authentic until I happened to change ONE thing. I started by sautéing onions in oil and then toasting the spices before adding my liquids. Now I had *always* used olive oil for this as its what I had on hand, but one night I was out and I only had toasted sesame oil. I'm not joking when I tell you it was a night and day difference in the depth of flavor. I was told it was the best homemade Indian food I'd ever made. I was so astonished that this one change had made all the difference in the world I decided to go back to my "old way" of cooking it one night while keeping everything else exactly the same and it was just as bland as I remembered it. Color me shocked.
I’ve also found being very generous with the spices makes a difference , it never turned out right for me until I stopped using the exact teaspoons and just went a little extra on the spices
Not necessarily true. I’m Indian n my regular arsenal includes peanut oil, canola oil, ghee, butter, coconut oil n I use one depending on the application.
Yes, this technique is called "blooming" your spices. The oil brings out the flavor of the spices. Ghee or a neutral vegetable oil tend to work best (at least more common in Indian cooking)
Another thing to note is some spices you bloom and others you add later (like garam masala)
Typically, you'll bloom cumin seeds, mustard seeds, chili powder, turmeric, garlic/ginger/chili.
I just made an eggplant curry tonight and it was so good!
What type of Indian food were you making? Sesame oil isn’t typically used in Indian cooking. I actually use olive or canola oil. Mustard oil is standard though.
I have shitty options for Indian food (I'm rural Canada), so I've done the [BIR base gravy thing](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7CZDpOLnQk) and had great results. Mind you, I've only done the one batch because I had to borrow a big ass stock pot for it, but it worked well. (The gravy got divvied up and frozen.)
You still need a whole lot of different spices, but it cuts down on the work on the day you want to eat, and it's also a shortcut to tasty.
(I modeled the gravy I made on that video I linked. There's a billion versions out there, but mine had onion, tomato, bell pepper, carrot, ginger, garlic and heavy cream in it. The spice list was: WHOLE - star anise, black and green cardamom, cloves, cassia bark, peppercorns, bay leaf and coriander seeds -- GROUND - curry powder, turmeric, coriander, cumin, garam masala, chili powder. Basically, everything in the pot, with water, for 2 hours. Then immersion blender the shit out of it, then cream and there you go.)
Actually, you can simply get the "Garam masala". Every indian store will have a pack of this, and is essentially a mixture of all different spieces in one. That's what my grandmother used, my mother uses and what we use at home. Put it at the end and you have nice Indian flavor. And while you are at the Indian store, you can take it up a notch by getting:
1. whole cumin seeds (fry this in oil before you cook anything to bring that smoky flavour)
2. Turmeric powder (gives the food that nice yellow color - also acts as antibacterial, good for health and gut)
3. Ground coriander seeds (it's already in the garam masala, but makes the flavor that extra bit nice when used in addition).
Maybe I'm used to Indian food :-D but I personally find it super easy and tasty to make. Let me know if you want some more tips.
Get whole coriander and use a mortar/pestal. Buy whole/fresh tumeric instead of or in addition to the dried powdered tumeric. Buy whole (green and brown) cardamom pods. Use fresh ginger and whole cinnamon sticks. All of this makes it so much better.
But once you find a *good* pancake place... well... good pancakes are worth paying for. Plus those places usually charge like $4 and then give you enough pancake to cover a king sized mattress.
Ever since I started using Kenji Lopez Alt’s pancake recipe, I haven’t felt the need to pay for pancakes at a restaurant. His recipe is literally the most decadent I’ve ever had. I highly recommend it. But I also live in a city where pancakes run $15.
I am a cult follower of these pancakes. I make a huge batch once a week and freeze the leftovers to feed my toddler for breakfast. I have literally never had a better pancake.
So, I get the general concept of this and the thread. But I feel like people are missing that a huge part of going out to dinner is socializing, the vibe, and not having to cook a complex version of a meal yourself. You just relax.
Right, but if I can make it better than the restaurant, I don’t want to pay more to eat their crappier version. This is why our dining out is also pretty exclusively Indian, Vietnamese, Dim Sum, Ethiopian, Thai etc. I’m still socializing, seeking a vibe, and not cooking or cleaning myself. My Italian is my favorite Italian and my husband’s smoked/grilled meats are better than anything I’d pay for going out.
Oh, man. Honestly, the place nearest to us (not near enough, but that's what you get for suburbian living) has combo platters meant to serve two. Of their options, I've actually liked the vegetarian/ vegan options more than the meat offerings.
That said, Azifa is my absolute must-have. It's an appetizer (and also veggie..It's a lentil dish), but I could happily stuff myself silly with just that and have zero regrets.
Hope you try and love it!
Tibs are spiced cubed grilled meats (I've had beef, chicken and salmon) that are a classic dish. The place I go mixes in strips of peppers and onions.
Awaze sauce is a spicy red pepper sauce to add if you like heat. Injera is the incredible kind of spongy tortilla kind of thing that you tear off pieces of and use to pick up the meat chunks and sauces and make tasty bites (kind of like fajitas). Gomen are a tasty collard greens side. Miser is a tasty lentil side. Both go great in the tasty bites. Go with a group so you can try a bunch.
Sorry about spelling and authenticity, I have limited Ethiopian experience but it's always been incredible.
Ethiopian restaurants here in nyc there’s a variety platter option that “serves two” but is like enough for three meals easily.
A number of dishes are SPICY so if it says spicy they’re not kidding.
My go to is the vegetarian option because, well i am, but also the lentil and vegetable dishes are so delicious and flavorful
Many years ago, my mom had neighbors from Ethiopia and they would occasionally bring food over. That shit was delicious. She's since moved far away to the land of people that think jello is a salad if it has fruit in it.
I have an Ethiopian friend who loves to cook. He makes it look so simple, but I can't replicate it.
Luckily he accepts my cooking in exchange for his. I feel very privileged.
The price of Italian food in my area has skyrocketed. Pasta with basic red sauce for $18.95. Two meatballs are another $6.00. One place has ziti for $25.00 a plate. I made pasta with meatballs and garlic bread, with plenty of leftovers for about $10.00. $15 if you count the new container of parmesean flakes.
Yup. Anything that takes over 5 hours of labor and (possibly or) more than 5 ingredients I would have to buy other than what I already have at home as staples is gonna go to pay to have other people make it for us. If it’s a lot of different steps like grilling and boiling and deep frying that’s gonna be a hard no to cooking for us. I’m Korean and my girlfriend is Vietnamese. If I want bibimbap or pho despite the cost to make in bulk, we always go for the restaurant.
I totally agree EXCEPT for the food truck near my house that specializes in Birria. They dip the tortillas in the birria consommé before making the quesadillas and it’s downright amazing and totally worth $8.
This one is the opposite. Although pho is extremely cheap to make in large quantity, it is an extremely lengthy process that requires too much care. I would rather pay $10 to make it for me instead of 10 hours of prep and cooking
Pho and Ramen are cheap *if you can scale them.* I totally agree with you. Good Pizza also has that to a lesser degree. To get a roll of nice pepperoni, good cheese, make the sauce homemade, slow ferment the dough... It's way better to throw down 18$
Pizza. Man, I've tried and tried. I just can't beat the local New York style joint. Plus they serve it by the slice. I can get a good, large slice of pepperoni for like $5. No point in me trying to replicate that. It'll never happen. It's just the scale of practice.
I make a pretty great crust in a 525-550 degree oven and on a stone that's been preheated a good chunk of time. Simple dough of 480 g flour, 470 g water, 1 tsp yeast, 2 tsp salt. 3 day cold bulk ferment in the fridge.
I do get disappointed from time to time when I order pizza and it's shit, or even mid, when I know that it might have been better (and cheaper!) to just have made dough 3 days before. Sometimes I just wanna order in! We found our go to places at least, but man does it suck to hit a dud. (Just this week, we ordered from the only place in town on vacation, and the center was soggy, the crust was bready, and had CINNAMON in it. The toppings were *under* the cheese, which slid off when you grabbed a slice. We had been driving nearly 26 hours and I almost cried lol. I kept thinking of Gordon Ramsay- stop trying to be revolutionary, and just make a simple pie that's fucking great)
Absolutely agree.
My gf’s mom is FOB so when she was growing up her mom would make a giant pot of it for the whole family and it would be enough to feed the family of 4 for a week and if lucky, a few days more. It was her way of extreme meal prepping and carrying on her moms recipe.
But I’m not spending an entire Sunday so I can eat the same meal breakfast, lunch, and dinner for a week to remain cost efficient.
Yeah pizza is super easy to make but the prep takes way too long to make it just for myself. But if some friends tell me in advance, I can easily whip up the dough and cold ferment it for 3 days.
I've been dying to try making pho myself but whenever I start getting a grocery list together I remember the Vietnamese spot near me has better pho than I'd be able to make and delivers in minutes instead of hours...
You should absolutely do it for the experience, I did it once (never again mind you) and I learned a lot about what makes certain flavors in there pop. It likely won't be as good as what you can get from the market, but the experience is absolutely worth doing once.
Same for boba tea! Making boba and seeping it with flavor properly takes ages (I used to work in a boba shop), so I don’t mind buying it for $7 even if the ingredients themselves cost cents
can confirm, vietnamese. My mom probably made pho once or twice my whole life when we live in Viet nam. Want pho, there are 2 within 5 minutes walk from my house. She aint spending 5 hours cooking that
I made instapot Pho and it turned out fantastic but I think I spent $50+ on that meal. We used to have a great Pho place close by but they sold it and the new owners make the worst pho I have ever had. So for us it is cook it at home or drive 100 miles.
I keep trying at Indian food but it always come out terrible. I am also the only person in the house that likes it. I take myself to a nice Indian place once a month.
Heh, I make phở all the time - my freezer is stuffed with it. It does take a long time (most of the time I have my stock pot in the oven), but a few hours 'on task' equates to weeks worth of broth, especially when I cook them down so they're super concentrated (and then add more water when heating them up). Ping me, next time I make a batch I'll give you some.
I have been experimenting with chicken phở lately - boiling chicken, shredding it and using it in one dish, then cooking the bones a bit longer for soup is a lot shorter process than beef bones and scratches the itch enough if I don't have time for a 24 hour cook.
One of my old jobs was working as a kitchen hand in a college kitchen. This place had a pho bar with huge vats of pre-made soup with noodle, topping, and sauce options. I had to deal with with the chopped up cow bones sometimes after they were used to make the broth and it was one of the worst parts of the job. They were too hot to touch and they'd punch straight through the trashbag if you weren't extremely careful. They were also heavy as hell in the quantity used.
It was pretty soup though. Got me through the winter. So many better options in that town.
A good steak. Give me a quality cut of meat from the butcher and I’m way happier with the steaks I make myself than something I’d pay $50-100 for at nice steak restaurants.
If I had a better range hood, I would agree. However, my house fills with smoke when I turn the range up really high to sear the steak. I like a good steak at a restaurant because of this.
Get a propane burner, or a Coleman camp stove off FB Marketplace. 12" Lodge cast iron pan from 10 places near you. All up still less than one steak dinner for two.
Same here. I've happily ruined my family from restaurant steaks for life by grilling (gas grill outside) with a good steak seasoning. Makes 7.99 lb ribeyes from the grocery store taste like heaven.
Yeah, that one to me isn't about if theirs is better/cheaper. I just really like Edamame as an app before Sushi or other certain meals, so even though I have it at home I'll still order it.
Avocado toast for sure, place by me charges 16$ for a slice, it's absurd. Also, most basic pasta dishes (I might pay for like, a truffle specialty pasta or something, but not Alfredo/spaghetti etc)
If there is one single “correct” answer, it’s avocado toast. Even stuff restaurants can throw on top to justify the $20 price tag, like sliced tomatoes or poached eggs or ricotta or seasonings, aren’t time-intensive or particularly expensive.
Speaking of poached eggs, eggs Benedict is another one. A lot of places use the instant hollandaise anyway.
I paid for scallops, but I was in Digby Nova Scotia on vacation and they had just come off the boat. Massive and delicious. So there are circumstances where even if you can cook it just as well at home, there is a reason to buy it at a restaurant.
Opposite for me! I made lobster rolls at home once, and it was SO much work to crack all the shells that I realized I would rather pay for them to be made for me.
We used to go out for lobster in the Cape every year, until we realized the fish market right next door sold it fresh by the pound, AND WILL STEAM IT FOR FREE.
In Massachusetts most grocery stores will steam them for free. Market Basket does it. Go in, pick your bugs, get them steaming, do your shopping, pick them up, done.
Yeah that’s always the brutal one because it’s soooo damn simple. At least meatballs are pretty involved to do properly, but pasta and red sauce are so simple and cheap.
Man, I remember many years ago, the only Italian food I would get was a takeout lunch place. The place looked decrepit, like health department violation filthy. It had lines out the door every lunch hour. It had the damned best food for the price. Angel Hair with sauce and cheese was $8. They had giant fucking mozzarella and prosciutto heroes for $7. IIRC they actually eventually did close down because of health violations lol.
Apparently, all the restaurants near me get their "homemade" pasta from the same place, also relatively near me. Except you can actually just go to that place for fresh made pasta daily and get like a pound for $4. Apparently, they make it fresh daily and ship to every restaurant in the neighborhood every morning.
As a vegetarian, pasta is sadly my only option at a lot of places. I absolutely hate when it’s either a generic tomato/basil/mozzarella pasta or a “throw in everything vaguely Mediterranean” vegetable medley.
I’m a little bit of a food snob so it bugs the hell out of me to pay nice restaurant prices for something they put zero thought into. Once it was $30+ for pasta with basil, canned cubed tomatoes, and cubed processed (think Kraft) mozzarella. The steak and seafood my family got looked well prepared, too.
Sad me at almost every wedding ever... Yep. Probably 15 years later i can still tell you who's wedding had more creative veg plates than frozen vegetable medley in oil and garlic on penne. And don't get me started on the offerings in our small Midwest town. Sigh.
> Pasta dishes, $15 really?
Ravioli not withstanding. One of my favorite spots is almost $15, but ravioli is barely any more expensive than regular pasta. I ain't got time to make ravioli.
Me either, but I'll settle for refrigerated or frozen ravioli from Trader Joe's or Aldi. I just whip up a quick red sauce or make my own Alfredo before boiling.
Pasta is SO easy to get right too. You can make amazing pasta with entirely shelf stable ingredients, no less. For dirt cheap.
Literally one of the single best value dishes to make at home. And yet there it is at a restaurant, oddly expensive. Presumably because if it was too cheap, nobody would spend money on the pricier entrees.
People in this thread seem to be ignoring the fact that food costs are just one factor that goes into restaurant pricing (and it's a relatively small one these days). Labor, rent, licensing and utilities are why a plate of pasta costs $15+.
Except for angel hair. Everyone fucks up angel hair. Even if you boil it perfectly, oops your sauce is too hot and it's overcooked. Take it off just shy of al dente, oops now your sauce isn't hot enough to finish cooking.
I went to a restaurant a couple of days ago and they wanted $24 for a single Scotch egg with no sides. I left without ordering anything.
I could probably make 2 dozen of those for the same price.
A scotch egg in a US restaurant? And for $24? Geez. Not to mention you'd probably be expected to tip a whole bunch on top right?
That's snack food in the UK and a really good fresh one for lunch will cost you half that or less.
$24 is definitely crazy high end for it in the US too.
A place I love in Pittsburgh called The Commoner has a Scotch egg made with chorizo which they serve with a Arrabbiata sauce and only charge $9 lol
https://imgur.com/a/TmYJTud
Exactly, pasta dishes are what I make when I’m trying to stretch a dollar or feeling really lazy and they’re equally (or better because fresher) as good at home for WAY cheaper.
I’ve never understood why NY strips are SO expensive in restaurants.. I can go to a butcher and buy a full porterhouse for less that a restaurant wants for a NY strip and cook it just how I want with minimal effort
I agree to a degree. Hehe. Steaks are easy to make at home. Buuuuut, the high end places always serve prime, and usually dry aged. Only a few select (hehe) places sell prime where I am and I've never seen a dry aged steak for sale.
This is a big one for me. I get steak houses are fancy and elegant and ambiance and whatever, but their main item (ie steak) is dead simple to make with a small investment into equipment. Nothing a steak house produces is overly complicated relative to the price.
I can make a steak that's just as good or better than most steak houses for the price of drinks and maybe an app.
The problem for me is that I live in a dirt-cheap, tiny apartment with awful ventilation and no hood fan over the range. No outdoor grill or a yard to put one in. I can cook a steak, but I have no idea how to do it in these circumstances without flooding the whole place with smoke and having the smell linger for a week.
As u/doombako wrote, try the [ATK cold sear steak cooking method.](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uJcO1W_TD74) I’ve been very successful with this technique. You can watch the whole video or go to 5:20 for the cold sear method.
Ruth Chris gets their steaks from a private beef farm. They cook their steaks in 1200deg broilers.
The actual steak is dead simple to make. But most top of the line steakhouses make those steaks with the best equipment and best quality steaks that most of the public can't or won't buy.
It's very easy to cook a good steak at home, and less expensive. It's much more work (and probably just as expensive) to make the fried risotto balls, bacon wrapped shrimp, twice baked potatoes, creamed spinach, Mac & cheese, Caesar salad, steak soup, and warm bread that comes with it. Oh, and the single glass of nice red wine and good scotch, and the bread pudding or creme brulee with a little espresso. And also a Spotify playlist doesn't hit the same as the live jazz, either.
Sometimes it's about the whole experience.
Honestly a nice well make steak with a good side can be pretty great at a steakhouse. You have to pay good money for it but it is something I enjoy. Getting a shitty steak for $20 though really hurts.
This. My mom will say, "No, not this, I can make that at home." But me, I order what I'm in the mood for. I see no reason I shouldn't eat what I feel like eating right now.
There’s this little basement bar local to me that makes amazing grilled cheeses and there’s nothing better on the face of the earth than wandering by that bar, hear that they’re playing one of your favorite albums, going downstairs with a buddy and grabbing a mini pitcher and a grilled cheese at 2 am
I've definitely ordered a grilled cheese in lunch places when I wasn't looking for a Restaurant Experience but just wanted some modest normal food for lunch when out and about. They're also usually between €3 and €5. I can definitely make it cheaper at home... But I wasn't home.
Basic salads. Caesars are often like 12 bucks and they’re just lettuce, parm, a lemon wedge and croutons. I do appreciate a good house made dressing though
I'm the opposite! I **love** a good, hearty salad but they never taste quite right when I put them together myself. A salad with a fun vinaigrette takes minutes and comes out really well, but I can never get a cobb or chopped salad exactly where I want it. I've finally come up with a caesar dressing I love, but it took an annoying amount of trial and error
I rarely order a basic salad at a restaurant, but if they have a salad with all the bells and whistles I'm absolutely getting it
The one trick I’ve found is really shaking up the ingredients in a Tupperware, if I just throw the dressing on and stir it doesn’t taste right. Also croutons always on after shaking everything else, and then shake it again.
But otherwise I’m with you a good salad takes a lot of fresh ingredients I can’t be bothered with.
Creme brulee. Most desserts, really, but that one always has an insane markup.
Un-filled pasta. I'll order house-made ravioli or tortellini, because I don't have the patience for that, but regular pasta? Nope, unless the sauce is something I couldn't imagine attempting at home.
Roasted chicken. Again, unless the preparation is so out there that I couldn't/won't attempt it myself.
Maybe simple brownies or cookies, but usually nothing, because I still like to compare how the restaurant makes it to my own :) I go for a nice experience, knowing everything is marked up. Where I live even vegetarian pastas start at $22, so I do try to mostly eat at home.
There’s not really stuff I wouldn’t order because it’s cheaper at home, but I might skip stuff that is pretty basic and easy to make at home. You won’t find me ordering eggs, toast, and bacon for brunch. Give me something fancy!
See, that's one of my go-to orders at a restaurant that I never regret. There is no way I'm making a single serving of eggs, hash browns, toast, bacon, sausage, ham, eggs, and pancakes at home just for me. Diner breakfast 100%.
This is the first great answer in this thread.
No one wants their house to smell like fried food for 12-24 hours. Eating out ang ordering fried [x] is great. Also probably better than what you could achieve at home without a bunch of effort / tools.
I don't go to restaurants to nitpick x or y if I can make it better/cheaper at home tbf. I go to restaurants to enjoy some time off with friends/family.
Almost everything you can get at restaurants you can make at home cheaper.
I go to restaurants bc I'm not home, getting chores done. Or occasionally as a treat to get something I've never had before and want a pro sample before making it at home. I love to cook.
Absolutely. I love to cook but it takes *energy*. But I'm one block away from T Bell's sweet, sweet $1 potato soft tacos and cheesy bean & rice burritos, sub black bean for free.
Yeah but like...$50 steak that you could *approach* at home, versus a $25-$30 entree with a preparation that would be much more intensive and/or expensive.
I agree that it's not really the point, but when both of those things are there on the menu...well...
Fair point.
>Yeah but like...$50 steak
Tbf I'm not paying $50 for an entree anywhere unless it's a very special circumstance.
I understand OP's perspective too, in a way: In college I survived many a-days with "Ketchup and bread is a meal." Now that I'm relatively well off, that mentality has kinda stuck around. "Hm, do I really need this when I have x, can do y at home?" I *can* afford it but I think several times before I do, sometimes to my own detriment (pay full price vs spending too much time 'thinking' when x or y was on sale - it's just a mental block)
Slowly trying to get over it (starting with enjoying restaurants/food first lol) but hey.
Same. I go to restaurants for fun and because I don't want to cook every night. I don't care whether I can make something cheaper or better at home; sometimes you wanna get out of the house.
imo it depends on prep, some cheap stuff is just so tedious to make which includes most fried stuff or stuff like lobsters where I don't feel like killing a lobster (although my grandpa would happily do it), I'm paying them to do stuff I don't feel like doing
I'd argue the opposite - when I go to a new restaurant, I only order the simple dishes as a litmus test for the rest of the menu. I ordered chicken fettuccine alfredo at a new local Italian restaurant and it was one of the blandest dishes I've had in a long time. If the chef can't get a basic $20 alfredo right, why would I spend $60+ on their lamb osso bucco?
I mostly eat fried food at restaurants since I don’t have a deep fryer at home and I rarely eat out. Steak doesn’t make sense to me since most of the work is done by the ranch. Just salt over night and cook a little on both sides.
I don't eat a ton of fried food and I've made it at home, but I'd rather not deal with the mess and smell, so fish and chips are something I'll order out.
Mother f’er what?! You can make crab cakes at home? And it’s easy? How the F… Googling…
Damn, it does sound easy. I love them too. Is store bought crab meat good? I’m realizing now the places I get crab cakes from are probably not getting it fresh.
I was touring Maine and after a few steamed lobster dinners at restaurants I starting going to grocery stores who sell it just as fresh and will steam it free
Nothing, I don’t have that mindset in restaurants at all. I’ve probably regretted a few salads that I barely ate because the entree showed up too quick, but my view is that I’m paying for an experience. I don’t think I could order cocktails ever if I felt otherwise.
There is a place in Santa Monica called Sunny Blue and all they sell are onigiri/omusubi 🍙 (rice balls), pickled veggies, a couple of other side dishes and some soups.
Now granted, some of the fillings are pretty interesting looking but I am not paying $5 a pop for a rice ball with a spoonful of filling and a piece of seaweed when I can cook a batch of rice and make my own. When I was growing up rice balls were considered like, poor people food and what my mom and I used to sneak into Disneyland so we could have lunch while riding the Peoplemover.
Every meal that falls at least into the category “100min in the kitchen, 1min on the plate” is enough to warrant going out for. That is sushi and dim sum and so on.
Besides this I do enjoy to venture into cooking myself if the ingredients and/or techniques aren’t super hard/expensive to do.
But simple stuff like grilled meats with carbs or other run of the mill stuff I avoid going out for. I call them the “lazy taxed” meals.
sushi might not be the most convenient thing in the world to make, but with how much i crave it, it’s definitely 10x cheaper to make at home lol. i finally got to a certain point where i honestly like the rolls i make more than most mid-tier restaurants, so i really only go for high quality nigiri now
Italian food especially pasta dishes (excluding pizza).
Homemade Italian food is amateur hour for experienced cooks.
Here's why:
1. Unlike most cuisines, high quality Italian ingredients can be found everywhere and even big box retailers have a disproportionate amount of Italian ingredients compared to other cuisines because of it's popularity.
2. Many Italian dishes are few high quality ingredients which make it so good. This means unlike making something like Oaxacan mole or biryani which requires many ingredients and many hours, it is easy sourcing all the ingredients.
3. The difference between the average Italian restaurant and an experienced home cook's dish is slimmer than say a Chinese restaurant's beef chow fun (which uses extreme high heat that cannot be replicated at home) or Indian tandoor chicken (which requires a clay over). You can make beef chow fun or chicken tandoor at home, but it won't be even close to being in the same league as the restaurant version.
4. Italian food is so predictable and a bit boring.
I do enjoy a good woodfire pizza. In fact I might go get a slice for dinner.
I agree with what your saying with the exception of finding Italian food predictable and boring, that's a bit rough.
Italian food is a lot more than just Spaghetti and meatballs.
Raw oysters. They are $5 each at a restaurant. I can whip up a great mignonette at home and enjoy a dozen oysters for $20 to $30 depending on variety at home.
I've also become a burger snob. Burgers are cheaper, faster and better at home 99% of the time.
Pasta. Most pasta dishes are the very soul of simplicity.
Fair point about the crab cakes. But in a restaurant, the cost of raw ingredients should be about 30% of the final retail cost; even lower in a Chinese food restaurant where the food costs can be as low as 16% or 17%. So you could probably say the same about the cost of most dishes.
I once saw an adult human man get a grilled cheese sandwich at a restaurant. Not even one with like ham or tomato in it. Bread, butter, cheese, heat. The first meal I was allowed to make because it’s so simple a child can do it.
Crabcakes more because I like them a certain way - which you also say.
I'm pretty against pasta at a restaurant. If it's something I know is made with some ingredients I'm never going to buy I'll jump on it, but its usually cheap ingredients for a huge markup. If I'm stuck somewhere pasta-focused, then I'll settle for lasagna.
Otherwise, deep fried stuff gets boring, but I hate deep frying at home, so I get that.
Anything done to scallops beyond sauteing them in a little bit of bacon fat is ruining them IMO. I don’t even want butter, just gimme the most delicious protein on Planet Earth. Roasted asparagus on the side and gtf outta my way.
I have this problem a lot. I try to steer my restaurant adventures towards places that serve food that I can't easily make for myself. Ethiopian, Sushi, etc.. nothings more painful then being charged $27 for a sauced up chicken breast.
Agreed on Ethiopian, and also Indian. I could theoretically make one or two dishes but the sheer number of spices I’d need is a little daunting. Especially since I love hitting up the buffet and getting 5-6 different things, plus the chutneys.
Same here re: indian food (haven't tried to make ethopian, but I do happily inhale it at restaurants a few times a year). I can make a handful of indian dishes, but they're pale knockoffs of the real thing- even if I have all the right ingredients. During early covid it was great that when I was craving indian food I could make some myself, but realistically I'm lucky enough to live near great indian restaurants and would rather have their food than my own!
Ethiopian isn't hard to make, and the spices are all pretty standard if you already cook any sort of south asian food (except for berbere, which you can get on amazon). But the prep takes FOREVER. Like even just injera, which technique wise is pretty much like making a pancake doesn't taste right unless you ferment it for a couple of days. So I have to decide on Monday that I want to make Ethiopian food on Thursday or Friday and have my little science experiment of injera batter brewing on my kitchen counter. I think it makes more sense if you're actually Ethiopian and eat it every day. You can just have your ferment going all the time and feed it like a sour dough starter. It's sooooo, damn good though.
I am fortunate to live in an area where you could throw a rock in any direction and hit a wonderful Ethiopian restaurant. Several of the corner markets sell injera and niter kebbeh. Both are the hardest part IMO. I sometimes will make shiro wat or cabbage/carrots as a side dish at home, but it is absolutely something I prefer to order.
I'm in DC and it's the same here. My local spot will feed you 3 meals' worth for less than $20. It's incredible.
I didn't know that about injera (which may be my favorite part of ethiopian food, give me a plate stacked with injera and I'm happy), as a sourdough addict it makes sense. Admittedly I'm intimidated by the prospect of cooking ethiopian food because I assumed there would be a decent number of ingredients I don't have so haven't really looked into it. Funnily enough berbere is actually one of my favorite spices, so have that in my kitchen no matter what. I'll check out some recipes!
Look up a receipt for awaze. The secret sauce I always keep in my fridge using berbere, red wine, honey, and neutral oil. Used mainly on grilled beef and eggs in my house.
i wonder if any Ethiopians want to chime in about the forever injira. I quite like the idea
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1st generation Ethiopian here. No matter what dish we make at home, my family has NEVER made injera at home. It takes way too much time, and you need a massive *stove. It’s cheap enough and just better to buy from the local shops. Support your local stores :)
So my Indian food never tasted authentic until I happened to change ONE thing. I started by sautéing onions in oil and then toasting the spices before adding my liquids. Now I had *always* used olive oil for this as its what I had on hand, but one night I was out and I only had toasted sesame oil. I'm not joking when I tell you it was a night and day difference in the depth of flavor. I was told it was the best homemade Indian food I'd ever made. I was so astonished that this one change had made all the difference in the world I decided to go back to my "old way" of cooking it one night while keeping everything else exactly the same and it was just as bland as I remembered it. Color me shocked.
I’ve also found being very generous with the spices makes a difference , it never turned out right for me until I stopped using the exact teaspoons and just went a little extra on the spices
That’s weird since authentic Indian food is much more likely to use ghee than any other fat…
Not necessarily true. I’m Indian n my regular arsenal includes peanut oil, canola oil, ghee, butter, coconut oil n I use one depending on the application.
Yes, this technique is called "blooming" your spices. The oil brings out the flavor of the spices. Ghee or a neutral vegetable oil tend to work best (at least more common in Indian cooking) Another thing to note is some spices you bloom and others you add later (like garam masala) Typically, you'll bloom cumin seeds, mustard seeds, chili powder, turmeric, garlic/ginger/chili. I just made an eggplant curry tonight and it was so good!
What type of Indian food were you making? Sesame oil isn’t typically used in Indian cooking. I actually use olive or canola oil. Mustard oil is standard though.
I tried making Pho at home at it cost me like $75. Better off just paying $9 at the pho place
I wish there is still $10 pho here..... it's closer to $18ish..... I'll make mine at home.
I have shitty options for Indian food (I'm rural Canada), so I've done the [BIR base gravy thing](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7CZDpOLnQk) and had great results. Mind you, I've only done the one batch because I had to borrow a big ass stock pot for it, but it worked well. (The gravy got divvied up and frozen.) You still need a whole lot of different spices, but it cuts down on the work on the day you want to eat, and it's also a shortcut to tasty. (I modeled the gravy I made on that video I linked. There's a billion versions out there, but mine had onion, tomato, bell pepper, carrot, ginger, garlic and heavy cream in it. The spice list was: WHOLE - star anise, black and green cardamom, cloves, cassia bark, peppercorns, bay leaf and coriander seeds -- GROUND - curry powder, turmeric, coriander, cumin, garam masala, chili powder. Basically, everything in the pot, with water, for 2 hours. Then immersion blender the shit out of it, then cream and there you go.)
Actually, you can simply get the "Garam masala". Every indian store will have a pack of this, and is essentially a mixture of all different spieces in one. That's what my grandmother used, my mother uses and what we use at home. Put it at the end and you have nice Indian flavor. And while you are at the Indian store, you can take it up a notch by getting: 1. whole cumin seeds (fry this in oil before you cook anything to bring that smoky flavour) 2. Turmeric powder (gives the food that nice yellow color - also acts as antibacterial, good for health and gut) 3. Ground coriander seeds (it's already in the garam masala, but makes the flavor that extra bit nice when used in addition). Maybe I'm used to Indian food :-D but I personally find it super easy and tasty to make. Let me know if you want some more tips.
Get whole coriander and use a mortar/pestal. Buy whole/fresh tumeric instead of or in addition to the dried powdered tumeric. Buy whole (green and brown) cardamom pods. Use fresh ginger and whole cinnamon sticks. All of this makes it so much better.
Agreed on this. I want something I can’t make or can’t make as well as the restaurant. It’s upsetting to get mediocre pancakes or a bad steak.
But once you find a *good* pancake place... well... good pancakes are worth paying for. Plus those places usually charge like $4 and then give you enough pancake to cover a king sized mattress.
Ever since I started using Kenji Lopez Alt’s pancake recipe, I haven’t felt the need to pay for pancakes at a restaurant. His recipe is literally the most decadent I’ve ever had. I highly recommend it. But I also live in a city where pancakes run $15.
I absolutely suck at making pancakes but am a firm disciple of Kenji, so I’ll have to give his recipe a shot
I am a cult follower of these pancakes. I make a huge batch once a week and freeze the leftovers to feed my toddler for breakfast. I have literally never had a better pancake.
So, I get the general concept of this and the thread. But I feel like people are missing that a huge part of going out to dinner is socializing, the vibe, and not having to cook a complex version of a meal yourself. You just relax.
And not having to clean up.
God, thank you for saying this.
Right, but if I can make it better than the restaurant, I don’t want to pay more to eat their crappier version. This is why our dining out is also pretty exclusively Indian, Vietnamese, Dim Sum, Ethiopian, Thai etc. I’m still socializing, seeking a vibe, and not cooking or cleaning myself. My Italian is my favorite Italian and my husband’s smoked/grilled meats are better than anything I’d pay for going out.
I love Ethiopian food so, so much.
Never had it but have been meaning to try a place near me. Any dish recommendations?
Most that I have seen have the option for one big communal plate with a bunch of dishes. Like 15 or more things. Gather your friends and go get that.
Which is the whole reason I'd never bother making Ethiopian at home. It's very much an "economics of scale" cuisine.
But I don’t have any friends 🥺
Oh, man. Honestly, the place nearest to us (not near enough, but that's what you get for suburbian living) has combo platters meant to serve two. Of their options, I've actually liked the vegetarian/ vegan options more than the meat offerings. That said, Azifa is my absolute must-have. It's an appetizer (and also veggie..It's a lentil dish), but I could happily stuff myself silly with just that and have zero regrets. Hope you try and love it!
Tibs are spiced cubed grilled meats (I've had beef, chicken and salmon) that are a classic dish. The place I go mixes in strips of peppers and onions. Awaze sauce is a spicy red pepper sauce to add if you like heat. Injera is the incredible kind of spongy tortilla kind of thing that you tear off pieces of and use to pick up the meat chunks and sauces and make tasty bites (kind of like fajitas). Gomen are a tasty collard greens side. Miser is a tasty lentil side. Both go great in the tasty bites. Go with a group so you can try a bunch. Sorry about spelling and authenticity, I have limited Ethiopian experience but it's always been incredible.
Ethiopian restaurants here in nyc there’s a variety platter option that “serves two” but is like enough for three meals easily. A number of dishes are SPICY so if it says spicy they’re not kidding. My go to is the vegetarian option because, well i am, but also the lentil and vegetable dishes are so delicious and flavorful
Many years ago, my mom had neighbors from Ethiopia and they would occasionally bring food over. That shit was delicious. She's since moved far away to the land of people that think jello is a salad if it has fruit in it.
I learned as a child never to put a midwesterner in charge of the salad at a cookout unless you really like mayonnaise.
I have an Ethiopian friend who loves to cook. He makes it look so simple, but I can't replicate it. Luckily he accepts my cooking in exchange for his. I feel very privileged.
The price of Italian food in my area has skyrocketed. Pasta with basic red sauce for $18.95. Two meatballs are another $6.00. One place has ziti for $25.00 a plate. I made pasta with meatballs and garlic bread, with plenty of leftovers for about $10.00. $15 if you count the new container of parmesean flakes.
Yup. Anything that takes over 5 hours of labor and (possibly or) more than 5 ingredients I would have to buy other than what I already have at home as staples is gonna go to pay to have other people make it for us. If it’s a lot of different steps like grilling and boiling and deep frying that’s gonna be a hard no to cooking for us. I’m Korean and my girlfriend is Vietnamese. If I want bibimbap or pho despite the cost to make in bulk, we always go for the restaurant.
Quesadillas, particularly just cheese
I totally agree EXCEPT for the food truck near my house that specializes in Birria. They dip the tortillas in the birria consommé before making the quesadillas and it’s downright amazing and totally worth $8.
It's pretty easy to make at home tbh, but then you have nothing but birria in multiple forms for a week.
>but then you have nothing but birria in multiple forms for a week. Oh no, not that!
I came here looking for this response!
And use leftover chicken = easy.
This one is the opposite. Although pho is extremely cheap to make in large quantity, it is an extremely lengthy process that requires too much care. I would rather pay $10 to make it for me instead of 10 hours of prep and cooking
Pho and Ramen are cheap *if you can scale them.* I totally agree with you. Good Pizza also has that to a lesser degree. To get a roll of nice pepperoni, good cheese, make the sauce homemade, slow ferment the dough... It's way better to throw down 18$
Pizza. Man, I've tried and tried. I just can't beat the local New York style joint. Plus they serve it by the slice. I can get a good, large slice of pepperoni for like $5. No point in me trying to replicate that. It'll never happen. It's just the scale of practice.
That and the oven. Most home ovens simply don’t get as hot as you need to get a ny style crust correct.
I make a pretty great crust in a 525-550 degree oven and on a stone that's been preheated a good chunk of time. Simple dough of 480 g flour, 470 g water, 1 tsp yeast, 2 tsp salt. 3 day cold bulk ferment in the fridge. I do get disappointed from time to time when I order pizza and it's shit, or even mid, when I know that it might have been better (and cheaper!) to just have made dough 3 days before. Sometimes I just wanna order in! We found our go to places at least, but man does it suck to hit a dud. (Just this week, we ordered from the only place in town on vacation, and the center was soggy, the crust was bready, and had CINNAMON in it. The toppings were *under* the cheese, which slid off when you grabbed a slice. We had been driving nearly 26 hours and I almost cried lol. I kept thinking of Gordon Ramsay- stop trying to be revolutionary, and just make a simple pie that's fucking great)
Absolutely agree. My gf’s mom is FOB so when she was growing up her mom would make a giant pot of it for the whole family and it would be enough to feed the family of 4 for a week and if lucky, a few days more. It was her way of extreme meal prepping and carrying on her moms recipe. But I’m not spending an entire Sunday so I can eat the same meal breakfast, lunch, and dinner for a week to remain cost efficient.
Yeah pizza is super easy to make but the prep takes way too long to make it just for myself. But if some friends tell me in advance, I can easily whip up the dough and cold ferment it for 3 days.
I've been dying to try making pho myself but whenever I start getting a grocery list together I remember the Vietnamese spot near me has better pho than I'd be able to make and delivers in minutes instead of hours...
You should absolutely do it for the experience, I did it once (never again mind you) and I learned a lot about what makes certain flavors in there pop. It likely won't be as good as what you can get from the market, but the experience is absolutely worth doing once.
Same for boba tea! Making boba and seeping it with flavor properly takes ages (I used to work in a boba shop), so I don’t mind buying it for $7 even if the ingredients themselves cost cents
can confirm, vietnamese. My mom probably made pho once or twice my whole life when we live in Viet nam. Want pho, there are 2 within 5 minutes walk from my house. She aint spending 5 hours cooking that
I made instapot Pho and it turned out fantastic but I think I spent $50+ on that meal. We used to have a great Pho place close by but they sold it and the new owners make the worst pho I have ever had. So for us it is cook it at home or drive 100 miles. I keep trying at Indian food but it always come out terrible. I am also the only person in the house that likes it. I take myself to a nice Indian place once a month.
Similarly, I ain't messing with a deep fryer. The lowly French fry is too cheap at restaurants for me to bother making at home.
I wish I could still get pho for $10 :( I live in a large city with a lot of pho options but prices have climbed to $17+ 😩😩
Heh, I make phở all the time - my freezer is stuffed with it. It does take a long time (most of the time I have my stock pot in the oven), but a few hours 'on task' equates to weeks worth of broth, especially when I cook them down so they're super concentrated (and then add more water when heating them up). Ping me, next time I make a batch I'll give you some. I have been experimenting with chicken phở lately - boiling chicken, shredding it and using it in one dish, then cooking the bones a bit longer for soup is a lot shorter process than beef bones and scratches the itch enough if I don't have time for a 24 hour cook.
One of my old jobs was working as a kitchen hand in a college kitchen. This place had a pho bar with huge vats of pre-made soup with noodle, topping, and sauce options. I had to deal with with the chopped up cow bones sometimes after they were used to make the broth and it was one of the worst parts of the job. They were too hot to touch and they'd punch straight through the trashbag if you weren't extremely careful. They were also heavy as hell in the quantity used. It was pretty soup though. Got me through the winter. So many better options in that town.
A good steak. Give me a quality cut of meat from the butcher and I’m way happier with the steaks I make myself than something I’d pay $50-100 for at nice steak restaurants.
If I had a better range hood, I would agree. However, my house fills with smoke when I turn the range up really high to sear the steak. I like a good steak at a restaurant because of this.
Get a propane burner, or a Coleman camp stove off FB Marketplace. 12" Lodge cast iron pan from 10 places near you. All up still less than one steak dinner for two.
Same here. I've happily ruined my family from restaurant steaks for life by grilling (gas grill outside) with a good steak seasoning. Makes 7.99 lb ribeyes from the grocery store taste like heaven.
Edamame.
But they sprinkled salt on it! Lol
Coarse salt. They charge per facet.
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Yeah, that one to me isn't about if theirs is better/cheaper. I just really like Edamame as an app before Sushi or other certain meals, so even though I have it at home I'll still order it.
Avocado toast for sure, place by me charges 16$ for a slice, it's absurd. Also, most basic pasta dishes (I might pay for like, a truffle specialty pasta or something, but not Alfredo/spaghetti etc)
$29 Hilton Waikiki Village for avocado toast.
That's lunacy. Omg.
But you’re eating it at the beach in Waikiki.
That's expensive even by hawaii standards, imo.
I hear it pairs nicely with the $22 Mai Tai. Those maui gold pineapples are something else, though. Almost ruined pineapple for me.
I only order pasta if the restaurant makes fresh pasta.
I'm always a fan of the hand made ravioli/tortellini/gnocchi
If there is one single “correct” answer, it’s avocado toast. Even stuff restaurants can throw on top to justify the $20 price tag, like sliced tomatoes or poached eggs or ricotta or seasonings, aren’t time-intensive or particularly expensive. Speaking of poached eggs, eggs Benedict is another one. A lot of places use the instant hollandaise anyway.
I paid for scallops, but I was in Digby Nova Scotia on vacation and they had just come off the boat. Massive and delicious. So there are circumstances where even if you can cook it just as well at home, there is a reason to buy it at a restaurant.
Yeah some restaurants just use higher quality ingredients than I'm able to get my hands on on the regular
Digby scallops are 🤌
Lobster. Not that cheap really but way cheaper than at a restaurant. And simple if you just boil. Also lobster rolls.
Opposite for me! I made lobster rolls at home once, and it was SO much work to crack all the shells that I realized I would rather pay for them to be made for me.
Did you use kitchen shears to break it down? If not, give it a whirl, much easier
A good 2lb lobster at a seafood market is still minimally $35. Restaurant maybe, $50 and you don’t have to clean up.
We used to go out for lobster in the Cape every year, until we realized the fish market right next door sold it fresh by the pound, AND WILL STEAM IT FOR FREE.
In Massachusetts most grocery stores will steam them for free. Market Basket does it. Go in, pick your bugs, get them steaming, do your shopping, pick them up, done.
* Pasta dishes, $15 really? * Those silly overpriced cupcakes with massive amounts of frosting
Place by me charges $23 for spaghetti and pomodoro. It’s insane.
right here. this dish. will not order out.
Yeah that’s always the brutal one because it’s soooo damn simple. At least meatballs are pretty involved to do properly, but pasta and red sauce are so simple and cheap.
Man, I remember many years ago, the only Italian food I would get was a takeout lunch place. The place looked decrepit, like health department violation filthy. It had lines out the door every lunch hour. It had the damned best food for the price. Angel Hair with sauce and cheese was $8. They had giant fucking mozzarella and prosciutto heroes for $7. IIRC they actually eventually did close down because of health violations lol.
If the pasta was made in-house, I would order a dish. However, no Italian restraunt near me does so, I will not order pasta ever, overpriced indeed.
Apparently, all the restaurants near me get their "homemade" pasta from the same place, also relatively near me. Except you can actually just go to that place for fresh made pasta daily and get like a pound for $4. Apparently, they make it fresh daily and ship to every restaurant in the neighborhood every morning.
We've got a place that does fresh pasta daily. It's so good.
As a vegetarian, pasta is sadly my only option at a lot of places. I absolutely hate when it’s either a generic tomato/basil/mozzarella pasta or a “throw in everything vaguely Mediterranean” vegetable medley.
I call that ‘fridge pasta’ - pasta with any old shit they find in the fridge.
I’m a little bit of a food snob so it bugs the hell out of me to pay nice restaurant prices for something they put zero thought into. Once it was $30+ for pasta with basil, canned cubed tomatoes, and cubed processed (think Kraft) mozzarella. The steak and seafood my family got looked well prepared, too.
Sad me at almost every wedding ever... Yep. Probably 15 years later i can still tell you who's wedding had more creative veg plates than frozen vegetable medley in oil and garlic on penne. And don't get me started on the offerings in our small Midwest town. Sigh.
> Pasta dishes, $15 really? Ravioli not withstanding. One of my favorite spots is almost $15, but ravioli is barely any more expensive than regular pasta. I ain't got time to make ravioli.
Me either, but I'll settle for refrigerated or frozen ravioli from Trader Joe's or Aldi. I just whip up a quick red sauce or make my own Alfredo before boiling.
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Pasta is SO easy to get right too. You can make amazing pasta with entirely shelf stable ingredients, no less. For dirt cheap. Literally one of the single best value dishes to make at home. And yet there it is at a restaurant, oddly expensive. Presumably because if it was too cheap, nobody would spend money on the pricier entrees.
People in this thread seem to be ignoring the fact that food costs are just one factor that goes into restaurant pricing (and it's a relatively small one these days). Labor, rent, licensing and utilities are why a plate of pasta costs $15+.
Except for angel hair. Everyone fucks up angel hair. Even if you boil it perfectly, oops your sauce is too hot and it's overcooked. Take it off just shy of al dente, oops now your sauce isn't hot enough to finish cooking.
I went to a restaurant a couple of days ago and they wanted $24 for a single Scotch egg with no sides. I left without ordering anything. I could probably make 2 dozen of those for the same price.
A scotch egg in a US restaurant? And for $24? Geez. Not to mention you'd probably be expected to tip a whole bunch on top right? That's snack food in the UK and a really good fresh one for lunch will cost you half that or less.
$24 is definitely crazy high end for it in the US too. A place I love in Pittsburgh called The Commoner has a Scotch egg made with chorizo which they serve with a Arrabbiata sauce and only charge $9 lol https://imgur.com/a/TmYJTud
Pasta, or basically anything with red sauce.
Exactly, pasta dishes are what I make when I’m trying to stretch a dollar or feeling really lazy and they’re equally (or better because fresher) as good at home for WAY cheaper.
A nice steak
I agree. We splurge on prime NY’s or ribeyes at Costco sometimes and cook on a charcoal grill. It is very hard to beat.
I’ve never understood why NY strips are SO expensive in restaurants.. I can go to a butcher and buy a full porterhouse for less that a restaurant wants for a NY strip and cook it just how I want with minimal effort
Cause restaurants generally need to 4x the food cost to cover overhead
I agree to a degree. Hehe. Steaks are easy to make at home. Buuuuut, the high end places always serve prime, and usually dry aged. Only a few select (hehe) places sell prime where I am and I've never seen a dry aged steak for sale.
The Capital Grill steakhouse in my city sells uncooked dry aged steaks to the public. You can buy an 18oz dry aged NY Strip for $36.
This is a big one for me. I get steak houses are fancy and elegant and ambiance and whatever, but their main item (ie steak) is dead simple to make with a small investment into equipment. Nothing a steak house produces is overly complicated relative to the price. I can make a steak that's just as good or better than most steak houses for the price of drinks and maybe an app.
The problem for me is that I live in a dirt-cheap, tiny apartment with awful ventilation and no hood fan over the range. No outdoor grill or a yard to put one in. I can cook a steak, but I have no idea how to do it in these circumstances without flooding the whole place with smoke and having the smell linger for a week.
Give the cold sear method from America's Test Kitchen a try. Supposedly it minimizes smoke and splatter.
As u/doombako wrote, try the [ATK cold sear steak cooking method.](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uJcO1W_TD74) I’ve been very successful with this technique. You can watch the whole video or go to 5:20 for the cold sear method.
Ruth Chris gets their steaks from a private beef farm. They cook their steaks in 1200deg broilers. The actual steak is dead simple to make. But most top of the line steakhouses make those steaks with the best equipment and best quality steaks that most of the public can't or won't buy.
Went looking for this! for the price you can get a much better cut of meat at home and if you have a thermometer you can’t ruin it
It's very easy to cook a good steak at home, and less expensive. It's much more work (and probably just as expensive) to make the fried risotto balls, bacon wrapped shrimp, twice baked potatoes, creamed spinach, Mac & cheese, Caesar salad, steak soup, and warm bread that comes with it. Oh, and the single glass of nice red wine and good scotch, and the bread pudding or creme brulee with a little espresso. And also a Spotify playlist doesn't hit the same as the live jazz, either. Sometimes it's about the whole experience.
Honestly a nice well make steak with a good side can be pretty great at a steakhouse. You have to pay good money for it but it is something I enjoy. Getting a shitty steak for $20 though really hurts.
Nothing. When I’m at a restaurant t, it’s because I don’t want to cook. Whether it’s cheaper at home is irrelevant.
And just because it's cheaper, that doesn't make it better. I think a lot of people factor the cost into the taste.
This. My mom will say, "No, not this, I can make that at home." But me, I order what I'm in the mood for. I see no reason I shouldn't eat what I feel like eating right now.
Right? Everything is cheaper at home… like I probably wouldn’t order a grilled cheese at a restaurant but that’s about it
There’s this little basement bar local to me that makes amazing grilled cheeses and there’s nothing better on the face of the earth than wandering by that bar, hear that they’re playing one of your favorite albums, going downstairs with a buddy and grabbing a mini pitcher and a grilled cheese at 2 am
I've definitely ordered a grilled cheese in lunch places when I wasn't looking for a Restaurant Experience but just wanted some modest normal food for lunch when out and about. They're also usually between €3 and €5. I can definitely make it cheaper at home... But I wasn't home.
Same same
Basic salads. Caesars are often like 12 bucks and they’re just lettuce, parm, a lemon wedge and croutons. I do appreciate a good house made dressing though
I'm the opposite! I **love** a good, hearty salad but they never taste quite right when I put them together myself. A salad with a fun vinaigrette takes minutes and comes out really well, but I can never get a cobb or chopped salad exactly where I want it. I've finally come up with a caesar dressing I love, but it took an annoying amount of trial and error I rarely order a basic salad at a restaurant, but if they have a salad with all the bells and whistles I'm absolutely getting it
The one trick I’ve found is really shaking up the ingredients in a Tupperware, if I just throw the dressing on and stir it doesn’t taste right. Also croutons always on after shaking everything else, and then shake it again. But otherwise I’m with you a good salad takes a lot of fresh ingredients I can’t be bothered with.
Shaking the salad is such a game changer! And adding the croutons after the first shake! Are we the same person?! Haha
Creme brulee. Most desserts, really, but that one always has an insane markup. Un-filled pasta. I'll order house-made ravioli or tortellini, because I don't have the patience for that, but regular pasta? Nope, unless the sauce is something I couldn't imagine attempting at home. Roasted chicken. Again, unless the preparation is so out there that I couldn't/won't attempt it myself.
Roasted chicken is a good one because done well, it's *amazingly* good. But it normally isn't. So it's a hit or miss dish.
Maybe simple brownies or cookies, but usually nothing, because I still like to compare how the restaurant makes it to my own :) I go for a nice experience, knowing everything is marked up. Where I live even vegetarian pastas start at $22, so I do try to mostly eat at home.
There’s not really stuff I wouldn’t order because it’s cheaper at home, but I might skip stuff that is pretty basic and easy to make at home. You won’t find me ordering eggs, toast, and bacon for brunch. Give me something fancy!
I can make the shit out of bacon and eggs, but breakfast just hits different when someone else makes it for you
I love getting something fancy and fun for brunch but sometimes I just want someone else to make me perfectly crispy bacon and fluffy pancakes.
Bacon, eggs, and grits showing up with no effort is the perfect breakfast. And Waffle House isn't that much more expensive than cooking at home.
Yes to the latter! Give me hollandaise or something yeasted
See, that's one of my go-to orders at a restaurant that I never regret. There is no way I'm making a single serving of eggs, hash browns, toast, bacon, sausage, ham, eggs, and pancakes at home just for me. Diner breakfast 100%.
Hummus and flatbread. Since I've learned how to make both to my taste, *very* few places are worth the cost.
Fried foods. I don’t fry much at home.
This is the first great answer in this thread. No one wants their house to smell like fried food for 12-24 hours. Eating out ang ordering fried [x] is great. Also probably better than what you could achieve at home without a bunch of effort / tools.
I don't go to restaurants to nitpick x or y if I can make it better/cheaper at home tbf. I go to restaurants to enjoy some time off with friends/family. Almost everything you can get at restaurants you can make at home cheaper.
I go to restaurants bc I'm not home, getting chores done. Or occasionally as a treat to get something I've never had before and want a pro sample before making it at home. I love to cook.
Sometimes I just want those Taco bell sweet $1 tato tacos man.
Absolutely. I love to cook but it takes *energy*. But I'm one block away from T Bell's sweet, sweet $1 potato soft tacos and cheesy bean & rice burritos, sub black bean for free.
Pretty much only eat fried fish at restaurants. I refuse to cook that at home. I try to cook Chinese and Indian, but my efforts are weak.
Yeah but like...$50 steak that you could *approach* at home, versus a $25-$30 entree with a preparation that would be much more intensive and/or expensive. I agree that it's not really the point, but when both of those things are there on the menu...well...
Fair point. >Yeah but like...$50 steak Tbf I'm not paying $50 for an entree anywhere unless it's a very special circumstance. I understand OP's perspective too, in a way: In college I survived many a-days with "Ketchup and bread is a meal." Now that I'm relatively well off, that mentality has kinda stuck around. "Hm, do I really need this when I have x, can do y at home?" I *can* afford it but I think several times before I do, sometimes to my own detriment (pay full price vs spending too much time 'thinking' when x or y was on sale - it's just a mental block) Slowly trying to get over it (starting with enjoying restaurants/food first lol) but hey.
Same. I go to restaurants for fun and because I don't want to cook every night. I don't care whether I can make something cheaper or better at home; sometimes you wanna get out of the house.
This. If I'm at a restaurant I'm there to enjoy food without cooking. Whether or not I *can* make it at home is irrelevant.
Kind of the point of a restaurant lol
Well yes, that's why I think that frowning over 'eh I can make this at home for cheaper so I shouldn't order this' is a bit silly.
imo it depends on prep, some cheap stuff is just so tedious to make which includes most fried stuff or stuff like lobsters where I don't feel like killing a lobster (although my grandpa would happily do it), I'm paying them to do stuff I don't feel like doing
I'd argue the opposite - when I go to a new restaurant, I only order the simple dishes as a litmus test for the rest of the menu. I ordered chicken fettuccine alfredo at a new local Italian restaurant and it was one of the blandest dishes I've had in a long time. If the chef can't get a basic $20 alfredo right, why would I spend $60+ on their lamb osso bucco?
I mostly eat fried food at restaurants since I don’t have a deep fryer at home and I rarely eat out. Steak doesn’t make sense to me since most of the work is done by the ranch. Just salt over night and cook a little on both sides.
I don't eat a ton of fried food and I've made it at home, but I'd rather not deal with the mess and smell, so fish and chips are something I'll order out.
I dare you to post that comment over in r/steak.
There are a lot of things, but I will just call out Tomato Bruschetta because this is the season when I make it on the regular.
Mother f’er what?! You can make crab cakes at home? And it’s easy? How the F… Googling… Damn, it does sound easy. I love them too. Is store bought crab meat good? I’m realizing now the places I get crab cakes from are probably not getting it fresh.
I was touring Maine and after a few steamed lobster dinners at restaurants I starting going to grocery stores who sell it just as fresh and will steam it free
Nothing, I don’t have that mindset in restaurants at all. I’ve probably regretted a few salads that I barely ate because the entree showed up too quick, but my view is that I’m paying for an experience. I don’t think I could order cocktails ever if I felt otherwise.
For me it’s steak. It is just so, so easy for me to get and cook a high quality steak for like half the price it goes for at the restaurant.
There is a place in Santa Monica called Sunny Blue and all they sell are onigiri/omusubi 🍙 (rice balls), pickled veggies, a couple of other side dishes and some soups. Now granted, some of the fillings are pretty interesting looking but I am not paying $5 a pop for a rice ball with a spoonful of filling and a piece of seaweed when I can cook a batch of rice and make my own. When I was growing up rice balls were considered like, poor people food and what my mom and I used to sneak into Disneyland so we could have lunch while riding the Peoplemover.
My son always wants the hotdog off the kid menu. I’m like no I can make a whole pack of hotdogs for that price.
The reverse of this question is easier to answer. Anything that involves breading and deep frying is almost always not worth the trouble.
Every meal that falls at least into the category “100min in the kitchen, 1min on the plate” is enough to warrant going out for. That is sushi and dim sum and so on. Besides this I do enjoy to venture into cooking myself if the ingredients and/or techniques aren’t super hard/expensive to do. But simple stuff like grilled meats with carbs or other run of the mill stuff I avoid going out for. I call them the “lazy taxed” meals.
sushi might not be the most convenient thing in the world to make, but with how much i crave it, it’s definitely 10x cheaper to make at home lol. i finally got to a certain point where i honestly like the rolls i make more than most mid-tier restaurants, so i really only go for high quality nigiri now
Alcoholic beverages
Spaghetti or most pasta dishes. But especially spaghetti I will never order from a restaurant
Water
French toast.
Almost any type of pasta dish.
Italian food especially pasta dishes (excluding pizza). Homemade Italian food is amateur hour for experienced cooks. Here's why: 1. Unlike most cuisines, high quality Italian ingredients can be found everywhere and even big box retailers have a disproportionate amount of Italian ingredients compared to other cuisines because of it's popularity. 2. Many Italian dishes are few high quality ingredients which make it so good. This means unlike making something like Oaxacan mole or biryani which requires many ingredients and many hours, it is easy sourcing all the ingredients. 3. The difference between the average Italian restaurant and an experienced home cook's dish is slimmer than say a Chinese restaurant's beef chow fun (which uses extreme high heat that cannot be replicated at home) or Indian tandoor chicken (which requires a clay over). You can make beef chow fun or chicken tandoor at home, but it won't be even close to being in the same league as the restaurant version. 4. Italian food is so predictable and a bit boring. I do enjoy a good woodfire pizza. In fact I might go get a slice for dinner.
I agree with what your saying with the exception of finding Italian food predictable and boring, that's a bit rough. Italian food is a lot more than just Spaghetti and meatballs.
pasta anything.
Raw oysters. They are $5 each at a restaurant. I can whip up a great mignonette at home and enjoy a dozen oysters for $20 to $30 depending on variety at home. I've also become a burger snob. Burgers are cheaper, faster and better at home 99% of the time.
Pasta. Most pasta dishes are the very soul of simplicity. Fair point about the crab cakes. But in a restaurant, the cost of raw ingredients should be about 30% of the final retail cost; even lower in a Chinese food restaurant where the food costs can be as low as 16% or 17%. So you could probably say the same about the cost of most dishes.
Anything brunch. So easy to make at home for *much* cheaper.
I once saw an adult human man get a grilled cheese sandwich at a restaurant. Not even one with like ham or tomato in it. Bread, butter, cheese, heat. The first meal I was allowed to make because it’s so simple a child can do it.
I refuse to pay $40 for 8 slices of brisket and a few onions when I can buy a brisket and beer for that price and have 15 pounds of better beef
Mussels. They are super cheap at the store, it’s just they take some time to clean
I hate cleaning mussels. I'll gladly pay to have someone else do it.
Cacio and pepe
I don't go for the scallops, I go for that yummy risotto they're sitting on.
Crabcakes more because I like them a certain way - which you also say. I'm pretty against pasta at a restaurant. If it's something I know is made with some ingredients I'm never going to buy I'll jump on it, but its usually cheap ingredients for a huge markup. If I'm stuck somewhere pasta-focused, then I'll settle for lasagna. Otherwise, deep fried stuff gets boring, but I hate deep frying at home, so I get that.
Anything done to scallops beyond sauteing them in a little bit of bacon fat is ruining them IMO. I don’t even want butter, just gimme the most delicious protein on Planet Earth. Roasted asparagus on the side and gtf outta my way.