I have eaten at a lot of different places, some better than others, but the ones that I was the least satisfied with were the most expensive ones. My in-laws had quite a lot of money, and they paid for pretty much everyone in their family to go on a Caribbean cruise 15-20 years ago, I know that we hadn't been in Maine long. The food on the cruise was great, as long as I ate at the 24-hour buffet but, since the inlaws paid for us to go on the cruise, we were obligated to join them for formal dinners in the evening, the kind where I had to dress up in a monkey suit. At these formal dinners, there would be four options for the entree and, each time, there wasn't even one of them that sounded like it was going to be good, and none of them were. Generally, in more expensive places, one of my complaints has to do with the quantity of food that is served or, rather, the lack of it. At these dinners, the fact that the plates contained more decoration than food was a plus because I hated the stuff. I'd have to go to the buffet after the dinner was over just to get the taste of that crap out of my mouth. One Christmas season, an employer decided that she would invite all of her upper-level employees to some fancy restaurant in McAllen, Texas. While it was nice of her to do that, a gift certificate to What-a-Burger would have been more appreciated, since that's where we went once it was over. Being rich may have its advantages, but the food sucks.
@Ken Anderson Agree..I have been to rich fancy dining places. I was at a The Anathole high rise hotel back in the eighties. Fancy dinner with chicken. I just you not the smell of that chicken made me nausea and I have a tough tummy. I did not eat chicken for two years . Could not stomach the thought. Then on top of. the dome in Dallas...small portions of fancy food that costs way too much.Gimme a bourbon coke and hamburger..I be fine
Agreed. You just can not beat simple tasty food and if you are lucky enough to find home style cooking you are gold !
I worked for a government contractor that treated its workers very well (thank you, Taxpayers!) It was a partnership, and they were very generous to all the staff in every department. I've eaten at some very nice restaurants on their dime. I've had a $100+ meal at a French restaurant (that was in the 1980s, involuntary and on my dime, but another story.) To me, it's a waste: #1: I don't like the workers hovering when I eat. It makes me feel uncomfortable. I'm not gonna steal the salt shaker. #2: I don't need workers hovering to make me "feel important." I'm not. We both know it. I'm fine with it. #3: The incremental quality of the food is not worth the exponential price hike, if any. As everyone has already said, there are some really good cooks out there working at some very nondescript places, where you can have a nice chat with real people along with a tasty meal. I've said it many times: thank God for my low-key, out-of-the-spotlight middle class life. There's more freedom to it than there is in being rich, I'm 100% convinced of it. And the food's better
The “Nouvelle” type cuisine has pretty much been around for a couple of hundred years but the trend hit hard in the U.S. around the “80’s. The art demands that the food itself must be light and in small portions and does indeed focus on presentation, which, to tell the truth is a pain in the posterior to produce on a busy night. To be quite frank, the contrasting boom of the Cajun cuisine led by Paul Prudhomme during the same time period was / is far more enjoyable to me. Interesting fact: I beat Paul and took first place in the 1981 New Orleans food festival with Paneed Frog legs and Stuffed Crab. The thing about the price though is that you’re not actually paying for the meal as much as you are paying for the ambience and a name; the name of the Chef du Cuisine. Note: A good example might be a simple hamburger. If a backyard cook put out a hamburger it might garner maybe $5 to even $10 but if Bobby Flay put out the exact same type of burger it would go for upward of about 20-50 beans.....or more. Another example might be a funny story about a much younger and slightly devious Food and Beverage director / consultant, namely....me. The restaurant in question had an excellent staff and after quite a few tastings and some question and answer periods with the guests there shouldn’t have been any problems but alas, the restaurant had very little business compared to it’s competitors. So, I devised a small plan and it worked. I had the local newspaper show up and take a picture of the Chef holding a plaque acknowledging that he was the winner of the “Coveted” Coleman Culinary Award. The very day after the paper published the picture along with a very nice article, the place had a waiting line at lunch and dinner and still did way after I finished my contract. The thing is, I had the plaque made and I gave that award to the Chef and the Coleman part of the award is my middle name.
We sure are easy to market to, often to our own detriment. Your " Coleman Culinary Award" tactic has likely been replicated to win more elections than we can imagine. The tactic of "scarcity" is also a frequent winner ("Supplies Limited!" "Only 2 Per Customer!!!") When I was 18 (and under the then-current drinking age), I was in charge of the beer & wine department of a drug store. I autonomously managed the whole thing. I decided how much of each product to stock, how much shelf space it got, how much Bud to buy when it went on sale for $5/case. (Funny how I later ended up in a Purchasing/Inventory Management career.) I, too, would create my own BS signs to put on displays, often referencing the name of my distributor's rep: "Jim says it's an incredible experience for the price." I have no idea if it increased sales, but I sure enjoyed it. As a side note to that job: A couple of the guys who delivered beer thought it to be unfair that I did all that work and could not legally buy the product, so every once in a while they would leave me a case of beer hidden behind the store for me to pick up after I got off. That's the only time Schmidt's is worth drinking...when it's free! (That was nearly 50 years ago. I'm sure the Statute of Limitations has expired.)
I can't figure why it's necessary to take a perfectly good piece of meat or fish or vegetable and bury it under an incomprehensible combination of ingredients unless it's merely to sound fancy and charge a lot. It's also necessary to explain which side of the mountain the cows grazed on, in order to explain where the milk was produced, whether the cows were happy and if the milkmaids (all virgin Swiss milkmaids named Adelheide) sang to them while milking and if the cheese was cured with "feeling". One of my favorite menu items was "coffee-encrusted rabbit liver tacos". Whaaaa? Now if it had said "Rabbit shot by Bubba-Joe yestiddy and stewed all night long and served with Granny's famous cornbread and sum uh them greens what's been growing out back", I would have dug in right fast.
I had a friend who was the head chef at a high-end restaurant. I used to accused him of taking perfectly good food and perverting...and he agreed.
I used to work for H&R Block. Did the tax returns for a guy who picked up vials of bodily fluids from doctors' offices and drove them to the local labs for processing. He did not want to put "Driver" as his occupation. I gave him the title of "Biological Specimen Transportation Specialist." He didn't make any more money, but he was happy. Sometimes even hip waders just aren't tall enough. And that sammich you refer to costs about $5 more than a PBJ...$7 more "sans browned perimeter."
On a business trip our company sent us on, the fancy hotel restaurant fare was fancied up but crummy, and I found myself going to the Denny's across the street.
When I had my motel, guests would ask for recommendations and I always offered a fifty dollar plate with 5 dollars of food or something else. Very few of them took the 50 dollar plate option.