Guy went into a whorehouse and told the Madam he’d pay $1000 for the worst lay in the house. “Why?” the Madam asked. “For that kind of money you can have the best we have!” “Look, lady” the salesman replied, “I’m not horny, I’m homesick!”
You can find it if you know where to look. Costco often has prime meats. Whole Foods almost always has prime meats, as well as dry-aged meats. A local chain called Treasure Island is similar in the availability. It’s hardly difficult to find, but you do need to know where to go. I generally make my own steak because I only have a hankering for it once or twice a year, and when I do, I buy myself prime steaks (typically around $25-$30/lb, but I have gone as high as $40/lb for the most amazing dry-aged ribeye I’ve ever eaten. I’m fine with choice grade for filet mignon, but I’m not really much of a filet fan, unless I’m in the mood for steak au poivre.) That’s already expensive, but I’d be paying about 1.5x - 2x that at a restaurant that serves those types of steaks. Plus add in the cost of wine and drinks, and for something like that, I’d rather stay home, pop open a nice bottle and grill myself a steak. Plus I enjoy cooking the steak myself.
I can make most things that one finds on ordinary menus. I’ll order lasagna in a restaurant if I know that it’s good, because I rarely feel like it at home. Same for carbonara. But Sunday gravy and meatballs? Never. I refuse to pay $30 for a steak, so I never order it. Steak is usually the bait for the bait-and-switch menu scam. Put a $30-$40 steak at the top and everything else looks reasonable, even if it’s not. Suddenly that $12 hamburger looks like a steal.
We rarely go out for breakfast, because mine are usually much better. When we do, we order things like crab cakes hollandaise or something else unusual. Bacon and eggs is just stupid to order, and in my experience a breakfast cook will most likely fuck up biscuits and gravy than not. It doesn’t take many orders of hockey pucks and watery kindergarten paste to put you off ordering that dish. Restaurants fuck up hash browns and home fries as well. Either the potatoes are mealy or under cooked. Short answer: I just avoid going out for breakfast unless I’m traveling.
I make killer soups, but will order a good bisque or something complicated like cioppino or bouillabaisse, or one that sounds nicely spiced, but not something ordinary.
I have to admit, for me, my favorite meal to go out for, even though I rarely do it, is breakfast. It’s amazing what you can still get for $4 here. My wife and I stopped by a Mexican joint and not only did we get the obligatory bowl of chips and some kind of warmed-up salsa that was heavy on the green peppers (in additional to the usual salsas), but there was some sort of amuse bouche thing of a warm tortilla with an appetizer-sized portion of spiced meat. Frankly, I was almost full just from the free stuff. Then two eggs huevos rancheros with homemade salsa, rice, beans, and warm fresh tortillas. I really don’t know how these guys can make money. I would easily pay 2-3 times those prices for that kind of menu. And I don’t have to get any pots or pans dirty. 
oh my god, this. a thousand times this, your last sentence especially.
i mean, we all know everything in a restaurant is going to cost more because you’re not just paying for the food, you’re paying for the service and the atmosphere as well. in addition to the “don’t feel like cooking” factor, cooking doesn’t come easily to everyone. some people can look around their kitchen and whip up a tasty meal with whatever’s on hand, some people can’t, or don’t want to, or don’t have the time or the inclination to do so.
does this guy still talk to you?
I dont get ppl not liking steaks in restaurants either. Prime dry-aged beef is certainly better than I can get at the local Kroger marked-down section and by the time Id pay for online delivery of these steaks, I coulda had someone else flame-broil it for me. That and a really good salad - Im easy to please!
Good home-fries, or whatever you call breakfast potatoes, take a long time to cook; some would argue at least 12 hours because you must use baked potatoes left over from the night before. I seldom make them at home.
The perfect over-medium egg is also not to be dismissed lightly; I cannot do it in a frying pan at home, and apparently many professionals cannot either. (Good scrambled eggs are a bit easier to find.)
Toast is deceptively simple; heat the bread, spread some butter, what could go wrong? Good toast requires good bread, and I don’t eat a lot of bread, some I hesitate to spend $5.00 on a decent loaf that goes moldy before I finish it, because, of course, it doesn’t have any preservatives in it.
Bacon, sausage, ham - never mind. They’re frequently pre-cooked and then re-heated, which makes no sense, they cook so fast on a good grill. I seldom order meat with my breakfast for this reason. But I do love going out to breakfast for two eggs over medium with home-fried and pumpernickel / rye / wheat toast.
There is a restaurant I go to in Culver City, almost every time that I’m there, because the pasta is truly amazing. You can’t make it. I can’t make it. It’s handmade, hand rolled, hand cut, mostly styles that you almost never see anywhere, cooked to perfection with just the right toppings, never with tomato sauce.
Now, Olive Garden, I can agree on not ordering that kind of pasta in a restaurant. Or just stay away from Olive Garden and the like.
The same relative of mine who orders oatmeal at Starbucks - and here’s the real kicker - then takes it home to eat it. I kid you not.
So as far as the original thread topic, the only thing I really will not order is spaghetti with a red sauce. I can definitely do that better, even using sauce out of a can.
There are a lot of things I order less often from restaurants just because they’re so easy to do at home - steak, most breakfast options, many other pasta options, and just about anything barbecued. When I do order these it’s because I’m either out with other people or I just don’t want to clean up the kitchen after the meal.
I make them fresh. Cut them up and fry them in some oil or bacon fat. Takes about 15 minutes or so. That said, this morning I used some leftover braised red potatoes. Cut them up and fried them, topped with a couple of medium eggs; excellent. I don’t like using leftover russets because they tend to fall apart. Reds are waxier and hold together better.
My wife and I always go out for fried chicken. It’s so messy to cook at home. You have to wash the chicken, cut it up, flour it. The stove gets splattered, and the walls too. Popeyes is just as good. Why make a mess at home?
I never object to eating any food at a restaurant. A deli sandwich or hamburger can easily be made at home but I enjoy them at restaurants too.
The only food I **never **order at a restaurant is soup. I’m convinced the restaurant opens a can just like I do at home. I’m not paying restaurant prices for soup.
You’ve never been to our local Thai place, that’s for sure. Every day there is a different soup, made from scratch and tasting like heaven.
Nah, they don’t open a can like you do at home. They thaw a brick. Seriously. Soup base (concentrate, like the stuff you get in a can of Campbells) comes frozen in bricks. You thaw it out, add water or milk, and heat it up.
Sams Club has some really good soups in plastic containers. They can be eaten immediately or frozen.
I might order it if I knew for sure a restaurant made soup from scratch. But it’s rare these days to find a place that does. That frozen soup base saves the restaurant too much time.
I used to go to a restaurant specifically to eat their spaghetti. It was an Italian place that made the noodles and sauce from scratch. Their sauce was a thick, garlic-y, not-sweet orgasm on the tongue, with Parmesan cheese grated and melted on top. The people running it grew old and couldn’t get enough family to take over the business, so they closed. 
I should look into duplicating it, but I’m sure it would be FAR more effort than simply doctoring store-bought sauce. Still, maybe on special occasions. . .
Right. I don’t get the people that are posting as if there aren’t restaurants that make their own pasta from scratch. It is a world of difference when made fresh from scratch instead of buying dry. There is a local Italian place that makes their pasta and sacues from scratch. Maybe I could make pasta that was as good if I made it from scratch, but dried or even “fresh” pasta from the grocery store certainly doesn’t compare.
Fugu. Always best made at home.
Seriously though, I make a good steak at home, but at a restaurant I get to just eat it, I don’t have to make it appear at the same time as the rice is done, and the roasted asparagus are overdone, and the dog is waiting to go out because he thinks the smoke alarm is going to go off. Then when it is done and I tell the family to come and eat they all wander off to different parts of the house like it a ritual pre-dinner hide-and-seek game.
At a restaurant it comes: I eat it. Very simple.
While I certainly agree that there are reasons to eat out besides the cost and ease of cooking a similar meal at home (even if you can), I find the phenomenon of the popular-for-weekend-breakfast-place really puzzling - I might choose to go to a restaurant for bacon and eggs and toast rather than making it at home, but I sure as hell am not going to wait in line for an hour or more for it.
Maybe there needs to be a distinction in the question between going to a restaurant specifically to get a particular dish, and ordering a dish because you happen to be in a restaurant.
I’ve ordered oatmeal in restaurants a number of times when I’m travelling. I eat oatmeal at breakfast at home probably about 80% of the time. It’s a healthful whole grain, and I normally round it out with some fruit (normally cooked in the oatmeal) and a cup of skim milk, and it keeps me satisfied until lunchtime. When I’m travelling, I still have the same priorities for what I want out of breakfast. (I always ask first to make sure that it is regular rolled oats and not damned instant, however. I refuse to pay for wallpaper paste.)
And I was going to come in here saying what several others have said, that I couldn’t see myself saying “I refuse to pay for that because it’s too easy/cheap to do at home,” but I actually did think of an example. Although some of my co-workers at my former workplace used to go grab lunch at a nearby place called The Dog House, I never joined in with them, because I just couldn’t see going out for hot dogs. However, recently a new place called FireWurst opened up next door to a store I go to occasionally. One day I had been running around all morning until way past lunchtime, and I noticed their sign saying they had a $2 special after 2:00. I went in and grabbed a Carolina dog (hot dog, chopped onions, slaw, and chili) — and I loved it. However, once again, the restaurant had the advantage of providing something I normally couldn’t do conveniently at home. I like my hot dogs with slaw and chili, but the others in my house don’t, so I normally don’t have either the slaw or chili on hand to make the hot dog the way I like it.
I suspect PBjs and cold cereal are mainly on the menu because of toddlers. I might want to stop by the burger joint, but if my kid is at a picky age, the pbj is just what we need to get her th rough the meal without drama.
I’m not sure if ther’s anything too easy to make for me to order out, but I won’t order chicken soup, because mine is better.