Here I go again. Yes, I've waffled on about restaurants before but there is no limit to my disappointment and the amount of complaining I can manage. I don't think it's because I'm old(ish), I think it's because cafes, especially after surviving during Covid, don't want to take chances and they all offer the same menu choices in order to compete with other surviving cafes.
Smashed Avocado on Sourdough Toast topped with Feta and, sometimes, a poached egg, is a delicious breakfast or lunch. It has, however, become 'de rigeur' in almost every cafe. That's fine if you can handle sawing apart toasted sourdough. I've given up and just pick it up in my hands. If you've read some of my other posts, you'll know I have Essential Tremor in my hands, making eating in a restaurant akin to frisbee throwing, that is, for my nearby neighbours. It is best if I eat with my hands. That, however, is not why I complain about the sameness of cafe menus.
Although cafes offer a plethora of breakfast and lunch menu options, there is a noticeable absence of some good old staples. I suspect that if a cafe offered these, they would be considered below standard, a laughingstock or drummed out of the corps. I refer to the simple dish of open faced, grilled cheese and tomato on toast, perhaps with ham, or even a toasted croissant with the same ingredients. By toast, I mean the stuff that comes out of supermarket packet. I don't buy such for home use, but it is much easier to cut with a knife than toasted sourdough. You can also make two vertical cuts and have three nice strips to eat by hand for those of us with questionable hand movements.
So many things have improved in what is available in supermarkets, but other, simple things have faded into obsolescence. Previously I have bemoaned the disappearance of Chicken Maryland and Steak Diane in restaurants, although some steak restaurants will offer steaks with your choice of sauces. A couple of years ago I went with a friend to a steak restaurant at the Gold Coast. You almost needed to take your bank manager with you to afford a steak. I ordered prawns, not to be cheap, but because I love them. They came cooked in their shells. I have never experienced such a messy meal with so little to show for it. If the place was that expensive, they may at least have peeled them, plus add a dozen more so I didn't leave needing a Macdonald's hamburger.
I honestly feel that I haven't had a decent meal since I lived in Hong Kong forty years ago. I recently had a Chinese meal that my friend and I picked up for dinner. We've used the restaurant many times and it is adequate. This time it sadly disappointed. Maybe the usual chef was away or had simply given up all hope. Chinese is expensive these days and, recently, I have learned to cook a really good Chinese chicken stir fry. It is so good, the takeaway meal paled by comparison. What's wrong with that, you ask? It's because I'm tired of cooking and, it seems, I cannot go out and find a meal equal to anything I cook at home.
There is only so much pizza, cooked chicken or hamburgers I can stomach for takeout. I need someone who can cook like me, but instead of me. I'm so tired of trying to figure out what to do with the corpses of cows, chicken, pigs or poor lambs. I feel guilty enough eating them without having to ponder over what to do with their dead flesh.
I have wandered off the theme of this post, but it sent me down a perilous road of disappointing eating out and takeout experiences. The man in my life actually gets cross if I ask him what he'd like for dinner. After all, it's such hard work to decide. I remind him that he doesn't actually have to go out, find an animal, kill it and bring it home. All he has to do is eat it. If you haven't cooked nearly every darned day of your life, I guess having to make a decision about food must be extremely tedious.
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