Can you cook a meal at home as good or better than the best restaurant in town? (ingredients, grill)

[Tough Questions]

Are you a great cook? Do you have access to high quality food at your local grocery store? Are you willing to put in a lot of effort to use special recipes to add flavor and creativity to your food? If so, why eat out so often?

I have friends who insist that because they are such great cooks and shop at such high end stores they are able to create food at home for family and friends that is far superior and much more tasty than the best 5 Star Restaurant in New York City. Do you believe them? Or is it not possible to create food at home as good as American best restaurants?

[highway29south]

I believe some people can cook that well. I can't though! I have made some things that taste really good that I got from a copy cat restaurant cook book I have. Every once in a while I find a recipe that has the family "ohhhing" and "ahhhing". Most of the time I shoot for good taste and healthy. I don't think most restaurants worry too much about healthy, which is why everything they make tastes so good and why you gain lots of weight if you eat out a lot.

Our family did make Shabu Shabu last week and it was fantastic. Considering that the local restaurant that makes it wanted $30 a person for it, I'd say it could have tasted a lot worse and I'd still have been happy!

[SXMGirl]

DH thinks that my spaghetti with Sunday gravy is better than any Italian restaurant. That might be because he wants to see if the stove really works!

[Robhu]

We have a fridge and freezer to keep food in.
We have a stove and a grill to cook it on.
My wife knows how I like my food cooked and seasoned.
And how she likes hers. And she knows how to make it like that.
Why should we take a chance on eating out and maybe not liking what we get versus eating at home and getting our meals exactly like we like them.
Once in a great while we might eat out.
But we would rather eat at home and know it's going to be how we like it.

[gentlearts]

Depends upon the restaurant. I'm a great plain cook, with access to high quality foods, but I'm not in a league with an accomplished chef.
Can I do as better than a chain restaurant? Sure. Actually, I just realized that restaurants can do steaks better than I can, since I don't have the high heat they do.

[Mooseketeer]

No. I have not had the years of training, do not have access to the very best ingredients and quite frankly can't be bothered. I am lucky to live in an area with some fantastic restaurants and chefs including a few Michelin starred ones so I could not even begin to produce anything of that caliber. Many of our local restaurants use only organic ingredients, many grow their own vegetables and fruits, raise their own pigs for ham and bacon as well as pork, cattle, chickens etc.. and provenance and sustainability is quite a big issue for many local restaurants which is important to me.

I am a decent home cook and can produce some very tasty home dishes if I try. Anything sophisticated however is way out of my league... But it gives me an excellent excuse to go out and eat out so I am not complaining as I loathe cooking anyway.

I love all kinds of food from the simplest and plainest dishes to the most adventurous and fancy ones and sadly I am not a "fancy" chef ! My main area of weakness in cooking is sauces and fish. I adore both but they always taste better in restaurants.

[Capt. Cave Man]

Depends on where you live, too. I live near a town of less than 5K, not too hard to do and I suck.

Fresh ingred. and homemade can't be beat, imho. Especially when you can get the kids involved.


But it sure is nice to be waited on and have no clean up.

[Huckleberry3911948]

how hard is it to pan fry a fillet mignon and micro a potato?

[Bulldogdad]

I have been cooking at home for friends and family for about 30yrs now.
I would be a fool if I stated that I can consistently create dishes that match up to the finer restuarants and chefs. These are companies and people that have in some cases hundreds of years of experiance in the kitchen. It would be absured to assume someone without professional skills could accomplish that on a regular basis. Plus not to mention the access to professional appliances. I do however have access to the most diverse and freshest food on the planet given the area where I live.

[Fontucky]

I'll let you know once I've dined at a 5-star restaurant.

But don't hold your breath, as I'm still working my way through all the hundreds of hole-in-the-wall Mexican joints in my area.