OK. When we go back east to see the inlaws, I’m gonna want some specifics. I love deli food, and good Jewish deli is manna. They are scarce out here, so I want to get my fill in the time allowed. Plus Chinese, a trip to Nathan’s and Papaya King, etc. I’ll let you know when to give me a list! 
Hey, I live in Jackson Heights about 5 blocks from there. Gotta check that one out.
And to the OP, yeah, what Dewey said. I actually don’t know the restaurants in Queens all that well (despite having lived here for a year) but on Smith St. in Brooklyn (for ex.) you’ll find Manhattan quality and variety of cuisines for normal-person prices.
While watching Iron Chef, the real version, they frequently talk about how much a rare ingredient they are using costs and that the dishes created there would be in the 100’s of dollars.
A nicely-sized Kobe steak will easily exceed $50. There’s always McD’s.
Yet another reason to be happy I’m a vegetarian. Vegetarian dishes at restaurants are typically cheaper. Of course, some steak house type restaurants have no vegetarian dishes, which means I don’t even have to bother going into them at all.
That’s the difference between GA and CA. Our steak houses routinely have vegetarian dishes. But we’re weird.
Actually Atlanta has a pretty good vegetarian selection compared to a lot of places. It won high marks in one of the online vegetarian sites’ “top places to be a vegetarian” things a few years back. I think it’s better than northern VA where I lived until almost two years ago, and better than Tucson, AZ, where I lived before that, though that may be partially due to the fact that I haven’t lived in Tucson for 10 years, and 10 years ago most places weren’t very vegetarian friendly.
Little Five Points (L5P) in Atlanta is a vegetarian/vegan/commie/freak haven. Why, uber-vegetarian/PETA-head/Artist Nellie McKay herself raved about the vegetarian fare here.
And we even, recently, obtained that there indoor plumbing. :rolleyes:
I HATE this! I love eating out at really nice places, but I’m a rather small woman. Don’t bring me 30 oz. of steak or chicken or whatever with no sides whatsoever and then charge 50 bucks for it. Jellychick and I went out to a not-even-very-nice place when we were in Maui. I ordered chicken piccata (for about $28) and got two enormous slabs of chicken. That was it. Enough chicken to last me a week on a bare plate. It was good, as chicken picatta goes, or at least the corner I nibbled off of one of them was, but come on, people! Throw me a ‘tater at that price! Oh and wait! You couldn’t order potatoes if you wanted to! The chef “didn’t believe in them”. I had no idea potatoes have become some sort of anti-religion. So your only option for starch was to order a $20 plate of pasta to go with your slabs o’ poultry. Jellychick wasn’t very hungry. She ordered a side of string beans. For $11. So to sum up: to have a balanced meal with protein, starch and a vegetable, one would have to spend $59. Apiece. In a restaurant where everyone was wearing flipflops and kids were chasing each other around the tables. We should have walked out. :mad:
By the way, almost every hamburger I encountered in Maui cost $20, regardless of quality or presentation. And every restaurant featured burgers. Apparently people on vacation eat a lot of hamburgers. They came with fries though .
It’s not just Maui, though. I’m seeing this sort of thing more & more in San Diego too.
Of the rare occasions I’ve eaten at Charlie Trotters, I’ve been told that the wait is insane (verging on months in advance).
I should clarify my law post. I took my gf with me because she wanted to see her parents. Work owed me dinner for being on a business trip, so I thought I would subsidize our dinner. I invited her parents along, and I was making reservations. This is where I couldn’t get a table, but I couldn’t get it between the hours of 4:30 and 10:30, iirc. So, yes, I was getting reservations, but at very inconvenient times. My only free time was Fri or Sat night, this was at: Mortons, Chicago Chop House, Gibsons, Ruth Chris, and at, I want to say Gene and Georgetti’s. These were the ones that I hadn’t been to yet. Mortons actually told me to try my luck and just show up because they don’t take reservations at the time, or something like that. I thought about taking everyone to Charlie Trotter’s, but my gf’s dad likes having a choice on the menu with things he’s tasted before (I don’t blame him, I personally find fusion styles to be mostly revolting).
What’s the deal with these steakhouses? there is no cooking skill involved-you just buy a piece of high-quality beef and grill it! I’ve eaten at the Chicago Grill, Smith&Wollansky, Morton’s, etc., and there isn’t any difference between them. Grilling meat is NOT haut cuisine-you can get just as good a staek in many other places 9for a lot less money).
Opal–Tucson has gotten a lot better about veggie restaurants. The mid-range and fancy places will all have at least one veggie dish (even if it’s not always that great) and most will take special orders. There are a lot of ethnic restaurants that have amazing veggie dishes and even a fair number of places that are veggie only. Things have changed a lot in 10 years, it would seem.