Four Rules of Dining Out

Yes we go out to eat. There, we admitted it.  Happy now?

We are as thrilled as the next dude to let someone else feed us. When we find ourselves at the end of a long day of shoving the mouse around six inches of desktop real estate, we like to sit at a table and have someone, anyone really, set victuals in front of us so we can tank up our astoundingly awesome bodies again. So sue us, we are effort-challenged Americans too, what did you expect?

But here’s the thing, it turns out that once you are kicking ass in the kitchen, making great food from stuff you bought by the pound, well, it starts to make you think a little different about where you go out to eat.  We have developed enhanced standards as to how we pick our purchased dinners and lunches. We have an awareness of food, and what you get when your order from someone else's kitchen.

The Man Meets Stove Four Rules of Dining Out:

1. The food has to be better than we can make in our kitchen, and we are pretty damn good, so don’t try to pull anything over on us.
2. The meal has to be cheaper than we can do it for ourselves.  
3. A big plate of meaty goodness has to land in front of us faster than we can say “Meat! Meat! Cheese!”
4. The place needs to provide a feeling of utter relaxation, dominance of our world, and validates the simple truth that we ARE in fact superior specimens of humanity.  In short, the atmosphere has to be better than our living room, leather couch, BIG plasma TV, Xbox, and 80s hair metal videos on demand.

Now we are regular blokes (well that’s what we tell ourselves that anyway), so we just need two of the four rules to be true or MOSTLY true for us to head out to the checkered table cloth and the busboy with the two opposable left thumbs.  Ladies in tow.

Of course we break the four rules; we made ‘em! But not as often as you think. Life is too damnably short for cheap crystallized ice cream, soggy burgers, noisy, and annoying restaurants. We tend to buy our meals where the food is more difficult and/or requires longer to make than a half hour prep time. We like to eat spices, veggies, and meats that are either hard to get, or hard to store. If the restaurant has equipment that we don't (and really how likely is that?) we will line up in the rain with the unwashed masses to get “flavor-infused-zero-gee-Sous-vide-Himalayan-Yak-and-Couscous burgers”, but only because we can't afford a space station.  Or a yak.

Lastly, restaurateurs, we expect staff to be available at a moment’s notice but not intrusive, and we REALLY hate waiting to pay.  If we are ready to give you our Benjamin’s and your idea of customer service is to have us wait in line to do so, then you aren't very likely to get our cash the second time. If the food was bad, you might as well do the honorable thing and impale yourself on your Wusthoff Chef’s knife. Okay don’t do that, but you really should think about the possibility.

Now go forth and buy a meal!  Say hi to the yak.


Yak picture curtosy of [TheAsarya]