Why On Earth Do People Go Out For a Meal?

[Lat-Literal]

Total respect - and good fun which I can tolerate - but no actual restaurants - or meals - mentioned unless I missed them.

As always with me, the point isn't the point.

Get us out of this cave and enlighten with factoids.

Then there will be lots and lots and lots of love .

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Eating out is great - like vinty, many of my treasured memories involve good food in a good restaurant, with good friends (or on my own). I'm a not-too-bad cook, and quite enjoy cooking, but the treat of having someone else do the work, and clean up after me, is well worth the occasional expense. Some very decent eateries hereabouts, too, which helps.

[pastoralguy]

Eating out is great - like vinty, many of my treasured memories involve good food in a good restaurant, with good friends (or on my own). I'm a not-too-bad cook, and quite enjoy cooking, but the treat of having someone else do the work, and clean up after me, is well worth the occasional expense. Some very decent eateries hereabouts, too, which helps.

Mrs. PG spent part of our honeymoon at the Corsewall Lighthouse Hotel just north of Stranraer in the West coast of Scotland. It's a STUNNING location and the hotel has a gourmet kitchen, (which is TINY - goodness knows how they produce such wonderful food!) and is well worth a visit. (Although it's not cheap!)

We stayed in the 'Lighthouse Suite' which is a converted outbuilding and has a glorious sun porch where one can watch the ferrys on their journeys to Cairnryan. It had a lovely little hi-fi system which we turned up to 11 and listened to all manner of sounds. (And no neighbours to disturb unless one counts the cows).

There's also a fantastic Chinese Restaurant not far from Time Square in NY, NY which produces the best food we've ever tasted. Mind you, having a M&S sandwich in Princes Street Gardens during the Festival can be great too.

[teamsaint]

To get best use from Tesco vouchers.


And because you might be knackered at the end of the week.

I Like cooking,but professionals are mostly a lot better than me. Nothing wrong with keeping the specialists in work.

[Petrushka]

I always feel slightly awkward about dining out on my own though there are times when it has to be done. Usually go armed with a book but it never feels quite right.

Any suggestions?

[LeMartinPecheur]

Food that you haven't cooked yourself is just different, a surprise. A pleasant surprise one hopes, and it usually is - at least for me.

It's not just lunches or dinners in a restaurant either. Yesterday I was very pleasantly surprised by a sandwich in my office cafeteria: stilton, pear and walnut on brown Not something I'd ever have thought of making at home...though I might now give it a whirl if I find we have all the ingredients - but then it'll taste different again, maybe better, maybe wuss.

[LeMartinPecheur]

I always feel slightly awkward about dining out on my own though there are times when it has to be done. Usually go armed with a book but it never feels quite right.

Any suggestions?

Books do it for me - just relax!

[Pulcinella]

Food that you haven't cooked yourself is just different, a surprise. A pleasant surprise one hopes, and it usually is - at least for me.

It's not just lunches or dinners in a restaurant either. Yesterday I was very pleasantly surprised by a sandwich in my office cafeteria: stilton, pear and walnut on brown Not something I'd ever have thought of making at home...though I might now give it a whirl if I find we have all the ingredients - but then it'll taste different again, maybe better, maybe wuss.

One of the main reasons for eating out, in our book.
Having something that you really just couldn't do simply at home.
Oh, and to have an excuse to eat chips!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Books do it for me - just relax!

Being told to relax is, of course, always guaranteed to produce the opposite emotion (especially when the speaker is donning latex gloves at the time) but any initial self-consciousness I used to feel going into a restaurant on my own when I started (some years ago, now) quickly disappeared when I realized that restaurants don't mind in the slightest, everybody else is concerned with the people they're with, and the book is always fascinating. Nearly as greatly enjoyable in its own terms as dining with mates.

[P. G. Tipps]

Anyone here who 'eats out' regularly might look away now ...

Many years ago I once dined with colleagues at The Grand Hotel in Manchester and, following my meal, trooped to the toilet as one does. When I was relieving myself at a convenient urinal the foreign-accented Chef de Cuisine suddenly entered, parked himself at the one next to mine and engaged myself in some friendly chat ... worrying in itself, I thought, but I needn't have been too concerned. He then swiftly left saying it was 'hell out there' and without making the necessary and indeed mandatory hygiene precautions.

I've never been particularly comfortable 'eating out' ever since.

[Richard Barrett]

I've never been particularly comfortable 'eating out' ever since.

If you read Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential you find out about far worse things than that. And yet millions of people do go to restaurants and somehow survive.

[jean]

Yesterday I was very pleasantly surprised by a sandwich in my office cafeteria: stilton, pear and walnut on brown Not something I'd ever have thought of making at home...

In Perugia a few weeks ago, I was delighted by an ice-cream flavoured with gorgonzola, walnut and honey.

I cannot remember the name of the gelateria but it's in Corso Cavour, on the way to the archaelological museum. Go there.

[jean]

Mrs. PG spent part of our honeymoon at the Corsewall Lighthouse Hotel just north of Stranraer in the West coast of Scotland...

And where were you while your new wife sojourned there?

[vinteuil]

In Perugia a few weeks ago, I was delighted by an ice-cream flavoured with gorgonzola, walnut and honey.

I cannot remember the name of the gelateria but it's in Corso Cavour, on the way to the archaelological museum. Go there.

... class. Sheer class.



.

[BBMmk2]

I love going out for a meal. At least MrsBBM doesn't have to cook that evening, as she forbids me to go in the kitchen! also its a nice treat, every now and again.