I suppose they’re useful as an occasional focus for a shared experience like the annual office Christmas get-together, or a convenient environment for a business meeting, but that’s about all. The notion of going to one for its own sake is completely alien to me. And what’s this ‘romantic candlelit dinner’ stuff all about, because I’m blowed if I know. And I dislike the atmosphere – that hint of subservience on the part of the waiting staff, and the artificial niceness of the proprietors. Even the ones with traditional wood furniture and fittings seem to have something inherently plastic about them.
I suppose all this says that I’m neither urbane nor a gourmet, just an incurable Romantic who likes value for money. Maybe I’m missing something.
I remember once when one of my partners offered to take me out for a meal on my birthday. She was most put out when I declined because I didn’t see the point. How would doing something I wouldn’t enjoy be a birthday gift, I asked? She yelled at me, though not for the first time – nor the last. She was the one who took to calling me at around midnight, then spending the next three hours telling me what a rat I’d been. And that was several years after we’d split up. It was also in the days when I still answered the phone.
I’m going off-thread here. Never mind. That’ll do.
9 comments:
The food at some restaurants is much better than what i can make at home and sometimes i like to get take out if i'm too tired to cook or go to the grocery store. But most of the time i don't care to go into the restaurant and sit and eat. Like i said i like to call in and order, pick it up and bring it home. And i usually do this with Mexican or Japanese, etc. Sometimes pizza, but if its just regular old food i prefer to just make it myself.
The biggest mystery to me is why people actually go into fast food places and sit and eat. I HATE the atmosphere... unless you have kids because they sometimes like to play in the play areas there. I did when i was little.
But what do you mean by ‘much better?’ Fancier, I grant you, but does it actually taste better? My absolutely favourite meal as a kid was hot bacon and tomato sandwiches. I would have taken that any day over anything they could serve in a restaurant. Like I said in the post, Andrea, I’m just not a gourmet. Maybe I’m a slob. Or boring. And I really dislike being ‘served.’
Takeaways are different. They’re cheaper, and useful if you’re tired or busy. And they’re a way of having something different for a change. I discovered my love of bean sprouts and water chestnuts that way.
By much better i mean the food tastes better. Not always, but sometimes.
I agree with you, though I have had some good meals at restaurants it's usually because they're things that I (or my mom, dad, whomever) can't make at home, or don't know how to. I infinitely prefer home cooked food to eating out. Joe and I butt heads with this because he likes to go out to eat-and often. I think mostly because it's convenient, and our taste in food clashes so there are only a few things that I will eat/cook which he will as well. Mostly, his taste palate includes fried chicken, pizza, chips, burgers, and coca-cola, the only thing of which I will deal with occasionally (and only if it's good) is pizza. I've debated making a blog post on the subject many times, haha.
Eating out here doesn't cost much. My hubby and I do quite often at cheap franchise ones. We rarely care how thier surroundings look like.(as long as it's safe and clean.) IMO, it's similar to taking away. Food and convenience are what we want. It's almost not about romance or luxury.
Andrea: I think I'm just fortunate in having very simple tastes.
Kaetlyn: I would add chips. Brits of my generation were weaned on them; they were cheap and easy. And when I was very young the only fast food outlets were fish and chip shops. Nearly every street corner in industrial towns and cities had one, and when I was taken to my granny's as a little boy it was my job to fetch them. I doubt I will ever lose my love of chips. Why don't you call them French fries?
Mei-shan: Over here, restaurants are very much associated with the urbane mentality at least, if not necessarily luxury. Although we don't generally regard places like McDonald's as 'restaurants.' They're 'fast food joints.' We like to make the distinction.
I don't want to speak for anyone but it could be that Kaetlyn is talking about what you call crisps. I think that is what you call them. In the US we call them potato chips. Thinly sliced, deep fried, dried, and bagged.
I don't really consider McDonald's a restaurant either. Like you, its fast food. There are restaurants though that i will not eat at just because of the atmosphere. To me the environment and feel of the place is important.
I can't eat out too often; i get tired of restaurant food, even from my favorite places.
The environment and feel of everywhere is important to me, Andrea. It's why I so like living where I do. I've developed a real dislike of offices as I've got older, even though I worked in them for many years. So it isn't just restaurants.
I would get tired of restaurant food, too. Sometimes, a lowly plate of chips and beans is just about right. And I mean French fries, of course.
Out of good old habit Jeff. My dad has always called them chips, and always fussed when he would see "fries" everywhere, but fish and chips would always be fish and chips, not fish and fries. I've picked up the habit and stuck to it. Just like how my mom calls the remote for the television the dit-dot and I've picked up that as well, along with the rest of the long list of vocabulary of imported and made-up words. We have our own language here in the McCafferty household.
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