Fine dinning?

Has anyone here ever had fine dining?

i.e. expensive food prepared by expert chefs; the kind of restaurant France has a lot of.

Impressions?

Just curious. I'm a Midwestern college student and I don't think I've ever spent more than 26 dollars for a single menu item.

I never have, and not that interested. Probably would only do it for really big events/celebration

Not often. I usually spend more on drinks than food.

I've worked as a chef in fine dining. It is very cheap food made to look expensive. Sometimes it is all in the preparation, a long time can be spent on a item of food to get it succulent, but even that is generally done in mass portions to bring the price down greatly. Going to eat at a fine dining place is nice on that very special occasion, other than that food is food and does the same thing whether it be fine dining or Chinese takeaway.

Yes. Craving it currently since I've been watching 'Hannibal'.

Sure, Chilli's is awesome.

Yeah, I have. However, I am an eater, so those places don't interest me. If you're going to show more plate than food, then I'm not interested. My family is filled with cooks and chefs, and they describe those as places as "Go hungry, leave hungrier"

My parents took me and my brothers to a super nice steak place just before they moved. It was like $50 a meal or so.

Real fine dining restaurants are nothing like you are describing...

I've ate at some pretty nice places. The most I've ever spent on a dinner for 2 was 350 at a french restaurant in san francisco.

Ok then I'm never rich enough to eat at a place like that, and I don't think a place like that exists here in New Zealand. Fine dining here exists as a main meal costing between $80-$120 each and thats in NZ dollars. I'm glad we dont have places like that, imagine the snobs going in those.

I spent about that in Montreal...but I think it was the truffles, mostly.

$9.99+ for a burger is expensive.

to me fine dining is the Cheesecake Factory

Only a handful of times. It's one of the more famous steakhouses in southeastern U.S. Dinner for two plus trip upstairs for desert room was over $300, but it honestly was the best food I ever ate. They have their own farm a few counties over, I believe.

It's a waste of money, in my opinion. I don't believe any food in the world can top a nice, $20 ribeye steak, but that's just my opinion.

I'm not much of a fan, I'd rather have a lot of good quality food so I'm full instead of a small amount of amazing quality that leaves me and my wallet with a void inside.

Never ate at a fancy upscale restaurant. I eat out of necessity and have found that diners that charge $10 for a meal will give you more quality food than a restaurant that charges 5x that.

$20 is expensive.

I had filet mignon at the tavern on the green, which i believe is one of the most upscale restaurants in the world.

Although i was a fairly young at the time and dont remember it being that amazing. It was also while i was staying at the Plaza Hotel in the room home alone 2 was filmed in. One of the many benefits of having some super rich dude trying to bang your mom.

Never been to "Fine Dining" but I've been to many great and somewhat expensive restaurants with $50 plates per person with really great food. I will eventually like to try Fine Dining but I don't think it'd be common place for me because I despise small portions of food no matter how good, if I find that it's not worth the price.

yes, and bored of it..... as a client and as a flight attendant serving fine dining food in first class cabin.... waste of money actually because I got the skill to cook the same thing at home ( I was in a culinary school)

Everything is relative.

Nope and don't want to.

the most ridiculous meal i ever had was at per se in NYC for my girlfriend's birthday back in 2005.. iirc at the time it was ranked in the top10 restaurants in the world. my brother worked there shortly after graduating from culinary school so we got vip treatment including complementary wine pairings w/ each course. the meal was 17 or 18 courses ( including desserts and sorbets ) and took around 5 hours w/ a tour of the kitchen included. it was fantastic.

5 hours? lol, its must of been a special kitchen?

lol, the kitchen tour only took about 10 minutes...

So what did you do for 4 hours and 50 minutes?

I once attended a black tie affair that cost $800 a table. I didn't pay for it thankfully.

I agree with the ambiance. But let me ask you, I still have $45 worth of Applebee's Gift Cards that I had for about a year, I finally plan on taking my friend someday soon but I was wondering how is the food?

"Empty your mind of everything that doesn't have to do with fine dining. Fine dining and breathing."
On-topic now, getting something that's not on the dollar menu is fine dining for me!

Ha, I don't know what it is about this post. But it's a classic. Thanks.

Some of you are saying that it's more about the atmosphere, which I can see.

I'm sure some restaurants rely more on atmosphere / presentation, while others have an excellent culinary team / head chef.

I'd love to try though someday. Maybe Eleven Madison Park in New York. We'll see.

You're welcome! The quote was from an episode of Spongebob :P

Only once. While visiting San-Francisco I decided to try one of the classy seafood restaurants near Fisherman's Wharf. It was something like 40 dollars for a mixture of crab and lobster, 12 or 15 bucks for a little avocado salad (not much there, but it sure looked pretty) and something like 8 bucks for a glass of wine. It was all really good, and the waiter was very polite and friendly even though it was obvious we didn't exactly fit in (when he listed off the wine selection, I just asked him for some decent red stuff).

yeah.. that's where the 18 courses came in....

It's edible, but they're not very good. Their appetizers are good, but the entrees are bland.

me, too

Across the street where i work there is a restaurant on top of the Hyatt Hotel in SF. Been there a few times, you spin around and view the entire city as you eat. I've been there few times, for business mostly. During my 8th grade graduation we went there to eat, instead of going to Great America, we were pretty pissed off. All we got for about $100 dollars was a tiny meal that was smaller then my fist, and then a small bowl of soup. Not worth it dude. When going to an expensive nice place, your not going to get much food, but its more about the atmosphere. This was years ago, i'm sure $100 will not even get you a meal there any more. Stick to a good bar restaurant like the Outback, or Red Lobster, those places are cool to me.

When did you guys get full?

we were both very full by the time they started dessert. for our dessert iirc they brought us 3 different things, one for each of us and one to share. then the brought us out custard or creme brulee or something which neither of us could even touch. then they brought out chocolates and macaroons which we ended up just taking home.

I've never tried it as of yet. I'd like to once in my lifetime for the experience, but I'm in no rush. I enjoy places that are more down to earth, and not overly expensive. @Lexlas- See, that'd be what I'd describe as an experience. It seems neat, but that price tag(and likely increased now?)? It just doesn't compute with me.

@comp_atkins:

so based on your experience, will you spend a lot of money to do it again?

Actually what was the 2005 bill?

meh maybe a few times. i'm not too fond of it in that it's too pricy for basic items and you can't really relax.

they charged us the prix fixe cost of $175 per person, which iirc at the time was the cost for the 8 or 9 course menu without wine pairing. the wine pairing would have been an additional $100 each. so we ended up getting 18 courses rather than 8-9 and we got the pairing for free. $350 for the bill and we threw in a $150 tip to make it an even $500.

i don't know if i'd want to spend that kind of money again for a single meal, but it was worth the one time experience. maybe on a special occasion.

$150 tip? how much wine did you have?

it wasn't a matter of drunkeness :) we were seriously hooked up and the servers were great. like i said, if we were charged for the wine pairing it would have cost us $550 before tip anyway.