When I Get Old ...

Our easiest access white tablecloth Italian restaurant in Hermann re-tooled recently. Now it is a hideous concept restaurant: seafood and alcoholic slushees. They cater to the tourista crowd. These owners are professional chefs and I respect their food, but blechhhh to slushees. And sure their casual fish dishes are fine but I miss their perfectly lovely Italian/American menu.

Hermann also has a specialized European place, by reservation only, price fixe menu. It is too difficult to figure out how to reach them so we have not been, but they are high end foodies who cook.

Love that Vermont video!!!
Always surprised to see how a thread evolves and how interesting the posts are.

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Originally Posted by ApatheticNoMore

What I missed traveling some places in the U.S. was a lack of any even moderately healthy cuisine. Gah I guess that's why they call it California cuisine!!! >8) Truthfully not just California, like noone has any doubt you can eat well in Seattle etc., but some places are truly a wasteland, and I kept eating at the most unhealthy restaurant ever when trying places and when I tried ethnic food it was the worst imitation of it ever. I was very tired of the food.

But I don't care about restaurants all that much when I live somewhere as I cook and cook well. But then I care about what groceries I can buy, better have a good selection there, I mean darn well better. The one ethnic food I'd most want is a good Jewish deli. Well we have those. After that I like middle eastern. And yep I like California cuisine.

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on the road in the Midwest, you will suffer mightily from the fare.

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Originally Posted by razz

Love that Vermont video!!!
Always surprised to see how a thread evolves and how interesting the posts are.

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I like that video too, watched it again all the way through!

Awesome video Catherine! If you shared it before, I missed it.

I am surprised at the enthusiasm for eating out. When did that become so important? DH and I tried dining out and were so constantly disappointed that we gave up. People would rave about a restaurant and we would try it and swear never again. There were some really good meals but no consistency in subsequent visits. Price had little to do with the quality of the food. We ended 'dining out' on Lake Erie perch, fries, coleslaw, and salad bar for $1/4 of a restaurant meal and it was consistently good.

I feel that if I dine out for $$$$ it has to be something that I would not make myself with my usual fresh ingredients. Yes, I do get tired of cooking bytimes but then a takeout pizza will do quite well.

A friend took me out for lunch at this really fancy location and the portion that was brought to the table was a very small child portion with some sauce drizzled over the large white areas of the plate with a herb sprig for contrast. She was shocked but glad that she had used a retirement gift certificate. Apparently that practice of restaurant portion control is not unusual. On my tour of Newfoundland, the local guide mentioned some of the fancy dining spots in St John's but cautioned that one needs to eat first and then go out to dine for the taste. We laughed but decided we needed more food than taste.

Do others find this as well?

Razz, I am not a very good cook and do not take the time to do it, but I love to eat! I dont like bland food much, so I love ethnic menus and foods. They use veggies in imaginative ways.

After I retired I set out to learn to make biryani, a northern Indian dish. It is quite involved. I made it twice and gave up because it never tasted much like the dish I got in restaurants.

I have taken several Indian cooking classes but did not keep up that dkill.

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Originally Posted by razz

I am surprised at the enthusiasm for eating out. When did that become so important? DH and I tried dining out and were so constantly disappointed that we gave up. People would rave about a restaurant and we would try it and swear never again. There were some really good meals but no consistency in subsequent visits. Price had little to do with the quality of the food. We ended 'dining out' on Lake Erie perch, fries, coleslaw, and salad bar for $1/4 of a restaurant meal and it was consistently good.

I feel that if I dine out for $$$$ it has to be something that I would not make myself with my usual fresh ingredients. Yes, I do get tired of cooking bytimes but then a takeout pizza will do quite well.

A friend took me out for lunch at this really fancy location and the portion that was brought to the table was a very small child portion with some sauce drizzled over the large white areas of the plate with a herb sprig for contrast. She was shocked but glad that she had used a retirement gift certificate. Apparently that practice of restaurant portion control is not unusual. On my tour of Newfoundland, the local guide mentioned some of the fancy dining spots in St John's but cautioned that one needs to eat first and then go out to dine for the taste. We laughed but decided we needed more food than taste.

Do others find this as well?

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Your story reminds me of that restaurant scene in L.A. Story when Steve Martin is presented with a smidgen of food with a few garnishes and and smears of aoli and he says "I'm finished and I don't remember eating."

I do enjoy eating out, and I don't like large portions. I really enjoy tapas/small plates. But I don't have a need to eat out constantly. I have family members that post every week from a restaurant, and that's even during COVID! I haven't been to a real restaurant... hmmm, can't remember. Probably a restaurant in Asbury Park in early March 2020 was the last time I went out to a decent restaurant.

I look forward to going out to eat eventually. I do love Indian restaurants and I LOVE Japanese restaurants (there's that Japanese thing again, razz!).

Funny that I don’t like Japanese food much and will never go to a Japanese restaurant. Granted, I do buy sushi at a nearby grocery store, but that’s as far as I go. I buy the spicy kind. I think Japanese food is mostly bland.

And we don’t go out to eat all that often. In Covid times, until recently, I was trying to buy takeout once a week from the restaurant around the corner and spending a lot on that because I want to give her the business. But recently DH yelled at me about spending too much money so I’ve cut down.

In non-Covid times we might go out to eat on average once a week Which is often, I grant you, but low end cheap places because we’re driving out on errands.

I love to eat out and normally do it once or twice a week. The only ethnic food I like is Italian and polish. I have one meal that I will eat at a Mexican or Chinese restaurant if I am forced to go to one:)).

Today is the second time we got takeout since last March. It was jambalya that we have had previous years for Fat Tuesday. It was enough to feed us again tomorrow and wonderful! I am a very good cook (as I am told) and find most restaurant food lacking. We used to go out for breakfast/brunch or Friday fish fries. We seemed to have good luck with those types of restaurants. We occasionally went to ethnic places as well. I look forward to those times again.

The Eastern Europeans know how to cook but I cant say I would love Polish food as a first choice. I would love it because they know how to cook.

Oh polish food and Russian food can be quite good.

My DIL and her mom are excellent cooks. I love their breaded pork cutlets, Little balls and the whole meal smothered in homemade gravy. The desserts are delicious also.

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Originally Posted by iris lilies

on the road in the Midwest, you will suffer mightily from the fare.

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I've been to too many places outstate and in neighboring states where "fine dining" means they give you a cloth napkin instead of a paper one. :~)

Here in the big-gish bad city, I can easily walk to Thai, a ramen shop, two Mexican fusion places, barbecue, Jamaican (!), and Eye-talian. Oh, and McDonald's. Almost everything else, including Ethiopian, Vietnamese, Turkish, Indian, Russian, sushi, Cambodian, real Italian, and more, is within a 10-minute car ride. I'm happy about that.

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Originally Posted by iris lilies

Funny that I don’t like Japanese food much and will never go to a Japanese restaurant. Granted, I do buy sushi at a nearby grocery store, but that’s as far as I go. I buy the spicy kind. I think Japanese food is mostly bland.

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Really? Bland? I think it's so elegantly simple. When I was in Japan the breakfast buffet alone was just amazing!!

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Originally Posted by catherine

Really? Bland? I think it's so elegantly simple. When I was in Japan the breakfast buffet alone was just amazing!!

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The visuals of everything associated with food production and service are beautiful, I’ll give you that. Elegance in the visuals yes.


I probably don’t know all that much about Japanese food simply because I haven’t been to many sit down sushi restaurants other than a couple some years ago.

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Originally Posted by catherine

When I was in Japan the breakfast buffet alone was just amazing!!

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Had the same experience in South Korea. The breakfast buffet was amazing and could easily have sufficed for the one meal of the day - except that I was enjoying as much of the Korean food as possible. LOL!

Under different circumstances, I'd eat out at least every week or so--because despite my best attempts, I'm really not much of a cook Especially of the ethnic foods I love.

But I'm with you, Razz, re those precious white plates of miniature entrees featuring coulis dribble. I've been to high-end restaurants and their prices and pretension are a total turnoff. My favorite places are family-owned and cozy, with generous servings of food I couldn't produce in years of trying. A favorite Thai place we used to go to featured the owners' tiny children quietly sitting at a table doing homework.

I have enjoyed Japanese noodle dishes like yakisoba and ramen, and Japanese curried rice is one favorite I can make at home, as the main component comes in a box.

"The one ethnic food I'd most want is a good Jewish deli. Well we have those. After that I like middle eastern. And yep I like California cuisine."

Yeah--Jewish delis are at a premium, too, along with salumerias (not sure that's a word) that sell cured meats. I think there are a couple in downtown Seattle. I do love a good corned beef or pastrami. Garlic, yum.

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Originally Posted by ApatheticNoMore

The one ethnic food I'd most want is a good Jewish deli. Well we have those.

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I wish we did. There are a few delis here that pretend to the title. Kind of like a tribute band compared to the real thing. Several people have opened Jewish delis over the decades I've been here; they do okay for a while (probably business from the Minnesotans who have lived where there are Jewish delis) and then business falls off and they close. They don't even descend into the tribute-band level; it's almost like they'd rather be remembered for pure effort than what they used to represent. There's a good bagel place on either side of the river, though. Too bad I no longer eat bagels.