Holy crap do you guys eat at expensive places.

Last time we went for steak, my daughter had flat iron which is one of her favorite steaks right now. $14 for the whole meal including the salad bar but her soft drink was extra. A 14oz prime Rib was $17 and my porterhouse was $21. The boy had salmon but I don't remember the price. The food was good. Mostly we make steak at home though.

We did eat at a Ruth's Chris once and it was not any better than what we get around here and it was way overpriced. That is the only place I have eaten where the price per plate was over $30.

The local Chinese not-buffet costs us around $60 for the four of us. The good buffet is less.

The local bar has excellent pizza but it does run in the $22 range for the large, thick crust and it would easily feed six college kids. I know, I was there.

On vacation we usually stop at an Erberts and Gerberts if there is one on the way.

Your groceries must be expensive too. I spend about $250 for two weeks worth of food for a family of four. I've noticed that when we load up on fresh fruits, vegetables, refrigerated raw meat, and other unprocessed ingredients, it can save us as much as $100 for two weeks of groceries. We don't buy frozen meals. Almost all of our meals are prepared from scratch from raw ingredients. I take salads to work that we make at home for lunch.

Eating every meal at McDonalds ($30 a meal for four people X 3 meals a day for two weeks) would cost $1,260.

Well, ****, that's no fun. Might as well stay home and watch Flipper reruns, with a TV dinner on an vintage TV dinner tray.

I'd prefer to drink champagne while getting dressed up for the evening, then drink a nice cocktail at the restaurant's bar before enjoying a 4 or 5 course dinner, followed by after dinner drinks and coffee. With the right female, the rest of the evening proceeds nicely...

I'll have to give them a try. Thanks for the tip!

Never enough good sushi!

Ms Vega was was going out of town a couple weeks ago so we went out to dinner. To celebrate? :) Local burger/sports bar so we just wanted a few beers and a burger. What a let down. ~$75 and quality was... meh.

When we eat out it is rare for my wife to order a drink. It happens a couple times per year. I almost always have a bottle of beer, but just one.

Most places we both take home leftovers. Some restaurants serve enough my wife can get two meals of leftovers and still be full leaving the restaurant. When I look at the $50 charge and realize that is two meals for two people it is $12.50 per meal which ain't cheap, but less painful.

National chains are usually at the bottom of my list for dinner out. There are tons of great local places to eat at. We are thin on great seafood places but steaks are cheap.

One famous restaurant is Cattleman's in the packing town area. Right next to the Oklahoma Stockyards, which is still one of the largest active stockyards in the country. The oldest continuously operating restaurant in Oklahoma City.

History

Sushi 21 in San Pedro has something like that... but I'm a sushi snob so not a big fan of all you can eat (usually a limited menu).

There was a place in Hermosa beach, Cal Beach I think it was called, all you can eat anything behind the glass counter-top for one hour... started at $15, price went up to $20, then to $25... of course they get you on the beer and sake, but boy was it worth it!

Pretty sure it is not there anymore :(

Good advice. Too many places confuse volume with quality. They serve you mountains of absolutely blah tasting food and feel good about it. Lots of times we will order a couple or three appetizers and be happier with that.

We are at around the same per week. We also cook from fresh.

We do toss in a monthly Costco run.

One thing I get there is the 4 pack of pork roasts.

Do about one a week and it's good for two meals.

We pretty much gave up on red meat.

The cost to value is no longer there.

Hard to find a decent cut in a supermarket much less one that is reasonably priced.

Also once we started cutting back my cholesterol, which has been a lifelong battle, plummeted from way over the upper range to just under.

Had a physical this morning, anxious for the bloodwork to come back and see if it was just a fluke or not.

Wife and I do the same thing... two or three appetizers can easily fill us up... if you are clever you can hit the restaurant at happy hour and get the discount on the apps!

This place has a good happy hour menu (but make sure you feed the parking meter!):

Rok Sushi Kitchen | Japanese Fusion Restaurant

The place I was talking about in Newport Beach was called California Beach Sushi. Unfortunately, they shuttered a few years ago.

Very pricey to eat out in Kauai. What I do there and other high priced areas is find out how late they serve lunch and make that my main meal of the day. Often take 1/2 of that for a later snack.

Richard: You ever eat at "Horsefly" in Montrose when you visit your dad? On Main St. I luv their food/beer. Was there twice last week. Wednesday is taco day. $1.50 for Fish tacos, 2 was plenty for me.

On a long m/c day, often a $5 Subway lunch is the only meal I buy all day. Or maybe $4 for a bit of crab salad at a grocery deli.

I love to cook too...
But this work thing gets in the way (need to work to support my breathing habit):D
Up at 5:30 - get home around 6:30 if I'm lucky (no overtime or no rain).
By the time I get out of my work duds and shower it is after 7:00 and I'm not much feeling like rattling the pots and pans. :(

We are lucky to have some very nice Asian markets close by (Gardena) where I can get sashimi grade fish... that is a quick easy meal.

Back in the 80's when my Daddy was still alive I went out to dinner with him. I ordered a $7.00 Banana's Foster desert. I never heard the fking end of it, just how profligate I was...The only way I got him off my back was to tell him I learned how to make it. I there in proceeded to make it for him. Then it was OK...yeah right.

The point of my little tale is that I was not brought up going to "expensive" restaurants. On my birthday we would go out to a "expensive" restaurant for dinner. So I have continued with my miserly ways through out my life. That is not to say I won't make the good stuff at home. Which is usually on a par with an "expensive" restaurant. Or I will go to good quality moderately priced restaurants.

The town I live in is chock full of great and not so great restaurants...The Buffets are really about the best bargain going...For $7 or under you can get a Breakfast Buffet with to order Omelets. For Lunch about $11.00 you can get great BBQ Beef Ribs. For Dinner $15 to $25 gets you Prime Rib and or a Seafood night with Crab Legs and Shrimp.

Lately I went to THE HASH HOUSE..3 locations here...where the comfort food is made to order and they give giant portions...Chicken Fried Steak $16. That is my notable find lately.

My friend in S CA has made comment numerous times that the restaurants that he observes are always busy as in crowded. After he mentioned it I started noticing the phenomena as well. It is somewhat puzzling since the economy is not doing that great, and consumer demand is tepid at best. A friend works for the premier high end jeweler in the world, he keeps telling me business is SLOW. The people who can drop 250K on a piece of jewelry are not doing it anymore. As a matter of fact they are planning on closing one of their stores. He further has gone on to say that a number of other high end retailers are closing up as well, as business is terrible. I noticed that the Salvatore Ferragamo Outlet store has discounted $700 pairs of men's dress shoes to $200. So there it is, the premier brands are discounting to maintain sales. I noticed quite awhile back that to maintain price point manufacturers are

You ever hear of an invention called a "Crock Pot?"

Put your stuff in it on low, you come home from work and it is done, easy peasy

I make a wicked Bananas Foster and Cherries Jubilee

When I was in college there was a high end store closing and I got about $4000 worth of Ferragamo shoes for $500

As I mention we eat out a lot. We never get appetizers. In 25 years of marriage we have ordered a dessert maybe a dozen times. It was when the restaurant was serving home made peach cobbler or some other unusual dessert.

Now that total does NOT count getting the complimentary sopapilla at most Tex-Mex places. Since it is part of the meal like the chips and salsa it can't have calories right?

I have not, and haven't heard about it. Looked it up on Facebook and it does look good. We always seem to end up at Camp Robber.

A buddy and I ate at a Turkish restaurant in San Jose a couple weeks ago. Not high end.... salads were $20 ish. We brought a bottle of French red from Trader Joe's. The restaurant wanted a $15 corkage fee. Are you &*(&(ing kidding me?? To my way of thinking, asking for anything more than $5 for a corkage fee is a huge F-YOU to the customer.

When the kids were still at home, we got to where most times we would just order iced water to drink. In the south, sweet tea is considered a staple - if you don't live here you probably wouldn't understand. But anyway, $2.49 for a glass of tea (of course free refills) for 4 is $10 - and with tip $12! For some sugar sweetened water!

Been to Camp Robber. Good place also....I always end up paying for a group of 7, so it adds up over 3 or 4 days.