Comment by CompelTechnic | Hacker News Reader

Comment by CompelTechnic | Hacker News Reader

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My view as a (6 ft 0 inch tall, 170 pound [182 cm, 77 kg], slightly athletic, frugal) American:

If I order an entree at a restaurant, I want that meal to be my biggest meal of the day, with rare exception. A meal at a restaurant is a special occasion, and should be a source of hospitality. The prime way for the restaurant to provide this hospitality is to accomodate my hunger! If I am still hungry at all after ordering and finishing an entree, then I am not satisfied.

I'm totally fine with eating a bunch of cheap filler sides (fries, rice, etc) to make me full. Often times, I feel like more expensive restaurants do a worse job at actually filling you up with the entree, because they want to tack on appetizers, small plates, etc. I leave these sorts of restaurants angry sometimes. Just give me food, dang it!

To reply to your thoughts, I always had read that restaurants and food in general were cheaper in the U.S. Curious that you found the opposite to be true.

Most of those types of restaurants are just feeding you cheap, deep fried, slop. If I got to a special occasion restaurant invariably the meals will be small. I'm usually paying for the location, the reputation of the chef and their team, and the presentation of the food. If I wanted deep fried filler I have a skillet and freezer full of that at home.

As an expat dining in the US is stupidly expensive. I've had 3-course lunches at french restaurants that didn't cost more than $20. I consider myself lucky if I can eke $30/pp at the local wingery after food, drinks, taxes, and gratuity.

>> To reply to your thoughts, I always had read that restaurants and food in general were cheaper in the U.S. Curious that you found the opposite to be true.

If you compare the same quality food, it is way more expensive in the US. I can get a very decent 3-course meal here (Netherlands) for $20, maybe $30 if you include drinks (wine, beer). To get the same quality food in CA (and I've visited many, many places there) I would have to spend at least $50 without drinks, without tips.

Of course I can get food for $20 or $30 in CA at every corner of the street as well, but the quality will be way below what I expect for that money. The difference in perspective is probably that in the US there seem to be 9 low-end places for every decend mid-range restaurant, while here it's more like 50-50. Not trying to be a snob here, that's just my perception.

At the high-end it's way worse even, by the way. For $100 I can get a royal 6-course high-cuisine meal with accompanying wines for every course here, even at some restaurants rated with a Michelin star. I've been to places in e.g. Palo Alto, which were pretty good, but nowhere near the level of even a single michelin star, and the bill would approach $200 per person after including drinks and tips. Portion size was not a problem in these cases, by the way ;-)

I assume by CA you mean SV. It's wildly inappropriate to generalize SV experiences to the US as a whole. It's about as applicable to the reality most people live in as Floridaman stories.

Not just SV, I've been all around the pacific coast, but also inland (Central Valley, San Bernadino, etc). You won't find a lot more than Denny's, KFC and McDonalds there anyway ;-)

Try the Midwest or South. If all you've experienced in the US is the west, you're missing a lot.

it's just harder to find the good, cheaper places in california because they don't have the budget to advertise like the expensive places (by that i mean acquiring "free" press from local food critics, newspapers, and the like, not just literally paying yelp).

also, good western european(?) food (spanish/french/italian/etc) is more expensive than, say, good asian or latin american food. the plating of food into courses will bias you toward those more expensive restaurants, by the way. my favorite restaurants are typically single plate/bowl by design, which you can then share family-style by ordering a few items.

i'd also echo the point that good food costs way more in northern california than in southern california. socal just has many more cheaper, good restaurants to choose from.

This is the usual perspective I heear from fellow Americans, but I can't agree with it. What ever happened to a satisfying experience that didn't involve stuffing oneself?

He never said anything about "stuffing himself". He said he shouldn't leave the restaurant hungry. I don't see how this can be a controversial preference.

Probably because satiety isn't a constant thing...our bodies adapt. As an American, whenever I spend time in Europe or Asia, I spend the first week feeling hungry. But after that, I adapt and I'm fine. And when I get back to the States, I spend the next month making two meals out of every restaurant portion I buy until my body eventually adapts back.

In America, we stuff ourselves without realizing we're doing so.

In America, anything worth doing is worth overdoing. :)

(I live here too, I'm just poking fun at our culture)

An entrée is not supposed to be a main dish...

Interesting note on that, the usage of “entree” has shifted over the past 100 years; the American meaning ‘main course’ is in line with the 19th century French definition.

http://languageoffood.blogspot.com/2009/08/entree.html?m=1

What about the French usage? The French use of the word entrée in Escoffier's 1921 Le Guide Culinaire was still the traditional one ('made' hot meat dishes served in the classic sequence before a roast). Escoffier classifies as entrées almost any dish that we would now consider a main course: steaks (entrecotes or filet de boeuf, tournedos), cassoulet, lamb or veal cutlets, ham, sausage, braised leg of lamb (gigot), stews or sautes of chicken, pigeon or turkey, braised goose, foie gras. Escoffier has over 500 pages of entrée recipes. Only roast fowl, and small game animals are classified as roasts, in a small 14 page roast section.

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