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Eating out


Tennessee Trapper Tom

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This is an area of my life that has almost totally ended.

 

I love to take my wife out for dinner. I don’t have to cook which I do 95% of. (Get to eat what I want Lol). And I do support local business but it’s getting bad out there. With crappy young workers that could care less about health standards to just lazy young people, orders getting constantly screwed up to just terribly cooked food and bad cuts of meat. Eating out is just bad these days

 

i worked as an accountant for Iron Skillets Restaurant for awhile.  In the beginning I was impressed. They put sanitary measures and customer service up front. The cuts of meat were good and I ate there often.

 

Today they are terrible. The young people that work there as well as anywhere else could care less about being sanitary or even courteous 

 

I make it a point to sneak a peak at cooking situations. I’ve recently developed a bunch of food allergies and cannot tolerate cross cooked food. ie fishand beef or shrimp all cooked on the same grill, which is not cool. Or peanuts cooked in a pan and then my beef cooked in the same pan as the next dish. These things are not allowed but with restaurants struggling they are doing these things more and more often. 

 

Ive had so many allergic reactions in the last year that I won’t eat out anymore. If restaurants want to make it they are going to have to pay attention to basic standards, and the fact that their biggest consumer are older people that are more sensitive to changes in sanitary food standards and have more time and money to spend

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My eating out pretty much ended when my wife passed last year. I don’t like eating out alone. And I can’t abide poor service. I only occasionally grab breakfast at Denny’s I’d I have early business in town. They still have good food and nice waitresses. Cook has been there 20 years.

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My wife works nights. Weekend nights at that. I like to take her out to breakfast at least once a week. There are only a few places we go, all small "Mom and Pop" type places. Most of them have been around for several years or so, and quality and service are excellent. 

We rarely go out to supper, and since the places we do go are Breakfast and Lunch places, closing at about 2:00 P.M., it works for us. Also these small places we go to are much more affordable than a lot of bigger places. 

The only other place we might go is Golden Corral. While the food there is not the best, it's generally decent, and there is enough variety to keep it interesting.

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We usually eat at small family owned non franchise restaurants and cafes.  We get to know the owners, they recognize us as regulars.  We tip decently and they take care of us.  We eat supper out at least twice a week.

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Being as we live in the country, town is a small town. All eateries are mom and pop arrangements.  Friday night is typically a fish fry.  If you haven't had a Wisconsin fish fry on a Friday night, you need to put it on your bucket list.  Even the most hick looking bar/tavern will put on a great fish fry.  Saturdays and Sundays it is normally my day to cook so we will often go to the local Mex restaurant or a local bar to get a burger.  Not much better than a bar burger grilled on a flat top.   Onion rings and a pub brewed cold beer to wash it down.  Good vittles.

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I'm getting to sound like my grand-dad (now that I'm a grand-dad).

 

Customer service is currently on the outs.   I'd says "The Customer Is Always Right" died of Covid-19.

 

Hand in hand with the diminished customer service, and lack of consistent quality - prices are up significantly.     And God forbid you want a cocktail with dinner, gotta take out a 2nd mortgage on your home.

 

Finally, all of a sudden 20% is a 1/2-ankled tip???  Prices are up AND the tip percentage goes up?

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Getting too expensive!   We had our Ford serviced. Ran well past lunch time.  Our favorite cafe was about an hour away.  We decided to hit DQ for a burger.  I wasn't looking.  Ordered a #1 hamburger. $9.00 rounded up a few cent. Not including tax.  

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I occasionally go out to dinner or lunch with a couple buddies. Restaurants got hit really hard with this pandemic. I truly appreciate the waitresses and cooks that actually show up and try their best! 

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When my wife and I operated a couple of businesses we ate out  nearly everyday. Just didn’t  feel like cooking when we got home. Anymore we might eat out once a month. A couple of pards and I meet for lunch a couple of times a month at mom and pop cafes and their food is always consistently good. We just spent a few days over at the beach and didn’t eat out at all just stayed in camp and grilled fish, chicken and tri-tip, didn’t have to worry about how it was cooked.

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51 minutes ago, Yul Lose said:

When my wife and I operated a couple of businesses we ate out  nearly everyday. Just didn’t  feel like cooking when we got home. Anymore we might eat out once a month. A couple of pards and I meet for lunch a couple of times a month at mom and pop cafes and their food is always consistently good. We just spent a few days over at the beach and didn’t eat out at all just stayed in camp and grilled fish, chicken and tri-tip, didn’t have to worry about how it was cooked.

What’s Tri-tip may I ask??

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2 hours ago, Red Gauntlet , SASS 60619 said:

See a lot of tri-tip in the stores these days; a cut I never saw just a few years ago. A flavorful cut if cooked right. Slice thin on the bias, like you do with flank steak, otherwise it's tough.

A perfect chili meat

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We typically eat out once a week.  We like to picnic on the Tennessee river near us at a park that has about 50 or 60 picnic tables, all with an unobstructed view of the river.  So, about three weekends a month, we grab a burger or sandwich and go there.  We've got about three fast food places we will buy food from...Subway, because you watch them put it together.  Jacks, because the one we go to has had the same people working there for 10 years.  And the local Arbys, because the service is always good.  One weekend a month, we'll splurge and go to a sit down restaurant, usually a local Tex-Mex food place, or a country diner where the wife can get her plate of fried catfish.  

 

80% of the rest of the time, it's something I've cooked at home.  The other 20% is either a frozen dinner, canned soup or bagged salad, or something the wife had made.  I don't cook small meals, so we have always got something left over in the fridge or the freezer.

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20 hours ago, Utah Bob #35998 said:

My eating out pretty much ended when my wife passed last year. I don’t like eating out alone. And I can’t abide poor service. I only occasionally grab breakfast at Denny’s I’d I have early business in town. They still have good food and nice waitresses. Cook has been there 20 years.

 

Same here , I dont go  to eat alone , I will do a drive through when I dont feel like cooking , I can do better steaks at Home , seafood and if I want 8 shrimp instead of 5 on the menu .
 Sadly what I see here is the Local family owned diners and such are gone , all turned into chain restaurants , Dennys here looks like a Canp ground must be 4 campers behind it all plugged into store ??

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17 hours ago, irish ike, SASS #43615 said:

Never, ever go into the kitchen of your favorite eatery. You'll never eat there again!

 

This is VERY true. I was an electrician for 40+ years in Pinellas County, Fl.

 

During this time, I had the "privilege" of visiting many restaurants in the area. I would refuse to do work, give an estimate for work for a restaurant that I liked. Some things just can't be unseen or unsmelt.

 

I did find many restaurants that were very clean, served great food and had personable, qualified staff. Used to visit them on occasion.

 

We don't eat out too much anymore...easier, cheaper and less disappointing to eat at home. Way it goes, I guess.

 

BTW, I will never, ever, eat at any Oriental type restaurant...ever.

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We rarely go out to eat anymore.  If we do, it's mostly some sort of fast food joint - our anniversary dinner was Jack in the Box tacos.  

About once a month we order Chinese food for delivery.  Maybe once a month we go out to a local diner for breakfast.

For all the ethnic diversity and fresh food in Sonoma County you would think that there would be lots of variety.  Nope.  Mexican.  Chinese with all the standard offerings.  Pizza.  Italian.  One Ethiopian restaurant.  A few Vietnamese places.  No German.  No Eastern European.  And everyplace is EXPENSIVE.   But then, everything is.  Pork belly at Safeway is 10 bucks a pound.  At the restaurant supply place it's 6 bucks a pound, but I don't want to buy a 12 to 15 pound slab of it.  80/20 ground beef is pushing 6 bucks a pound.  

 

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We go to the local small town Bar & Café every other week.  A break from cooking and the opportunity to chat with friends and acquaintances.  Every other month or so, we'll go to a fancy restaurant in Billings, just because.  Most of the time Home cooking, a good bit home grown. 

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With the direction we have been forced to take, in the last 19 months, it is going to get worse. 

Even getting out and voting, in November, it will take a while to get this locomotive back on track, and chugging down the right track.

 

There was once a title of a book that said: "Tough times don't last, but tough people do". While I do believe that is true, I wonder who is tough enough to endure what is coming down the trail at us.

I reckon we will find out. 

 

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I take my grandson most Sundays to Dennys.
Our waitress is a lifer we have known for many years.
My granddad used to do this when I was a tot, and now it is my turn.


One of the nice things about most of the CA assh*les who have fled to elsewhere, we have a surprising number of polite folks in the few eateries we frequent.

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what a great topic to make one take stock , my wife and i go in spurts - we will cook at home a while , then we go out a bit , seldom to sit downy big time dinners out but we vary through breakfast , lunch and casual dinners out locally  , we both eat out when we travel if together or separate , yes everything has changed with the covid crap and the current trend of not going to work [not sure how that works but seems like communism catching on] but we have found the places we go to be efficient and tasty in spite of it all , 

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I have to chime in on Tri tip….if you haven’t had it, you can’t eat it at restaurants because most of them ruin it and you’ll think it’s terrible.

 

It is the simplest cut of meat, with the least amount of prep or cook time that results in the best flavor for dollar.    Season it with https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwiw3aK2pZP6AhWokIkEHQ3DA4wQFnoECAwQAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FCattlemans-Grill-California-Tri-Tip-Seasoning%2Fdp%2FB07NWW75H3&usg=AOvVaw1YT_JNOvaBU4V8whjFPM5e

 

Smoke it to 137.5 degrees which doesn’t take long at all, let it set in a cooler for 30 min wrapped in foil and then slice and eat.  If you don’t have a smoker offset kettle it.

 

better than steak, faster than brisket, and if you want you can take it up to 201 degrees and it will taste pretty darn close to brisket and cook much faster.

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27 minutes ago, JD Lud said:

I have to chime in on Tri tip….if you haven’t had it, you can’t eat it at restaurants because most of them ruin it and you’ll think it’s terrible.

 

It is the simplest cut of meat, with the least amount of prep or cook time that results in the best flavor for dollar.    Season it with https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwiw3aK2pZP6AhWokIkEHQ3DA4wQFnoECAwQAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FCattlemans-Grill-California-Tri-Tip-Seasoning%2Fdp%2FB07NWW75H3&usg=AOvVaw1YT_JNOvaBU4V8whjFPM5e

 

Smoke it to 137.5 degrees which doesn’t take long at all, let it set in a cooler for 30 min wrapped in foil and then slice and eat.  If you don’t have a smoker offset kettle it.

 

better than steak, faster than brisket, and if you want you can take it up to 201 degrees and it will taste pretty darn close to brisket and cook much faster.

 

I smoke it all the way to 200.  It takes hours.  Always super tender and delicious.  I often rough chop it and use it for chili.  That's outstanding.

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There are a couple of places we eat out at regularly.  Food is always good, and there's leftovers for lunch the next day.  We nearly always sit at the bar and chat with the other regulars.  It's always a nice evening out.  We do that about twice a week.

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We use to eat out twice a week, one a family owned which was great and since wife didn't like cooking Liver and onions, it was my go to menu.  The Covid hit them hard and finally they had to close. The other was a Steak House were we usually spent 40 to 48.00, but then cost went up and when it was 65.00 for the 2 of us, we stopped. Now our eating out is maybe a Fish Fry at our church on Fridays, or a Pancake Breakfast on Saturday Mornings.

I do miss the Liver and onions though.

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We eat out often. The prices have increased and the quality has decreased at the big name national restaurants. Seems like the local restaurants still do a good job though their prices have also increased a considerable amount. With the cost increase of eating out it makes buying a better cut and grilling/smoking at home more attractive.

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Most of the time when my wife and I go out to eat it's when we're getting together with our daughters and their families. Our oldest grandson started playing football. We went out for lunch afterwards. 

 

Other then that my wife hates going out. And if we do and the food sucks, watch out! I've been doing a lot of smoking and grilling this summer but soon will be in cooler weather mode and cooking different things. When I'm out of town on my own I  try to find some good local places to try.

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