what is wrong with people who eat pasta at restauarants?
It depends. If the restaurant can make good handmade fresh pasta, unless you can do the same at home, the restaurant would probably be worth it. However if the restaurant is using store bought dried pasta, yeah you could probably make the same at home if you have all the ingredients for the pasta sauce.
You're picking bad restaurants.
Though I'll agree most of it (at least any chain) is a waste of money. I know of 3 Italian restaurants that make excellent food (2 are run by first gen Italian immigrant families, 1 family immigrated in the 1920's).
But that's my opinion of most food - I can make it just as good, for 10%-20% of the price, at home (and I'm not kidding, I've done the math for most of our 300 recipes).
Our average per serving cost is $2 - we don't eat shit out of a box and most meals are excellent, some are "I'm tired and this is at least good".
I got invited somewhere where it's the only vegan option.
Allthough I've had some Napolis and Arrabiatas that were way better than what I can make at home at actual italian restaurants, kind of wondering whether they just source better (canned) tomatoes or just use olive oil a lot more liberally
This was the phase I reached when I learned how to make cashew cheese at home.
My pasta sauces are definitely some of my best work in the kitchen, so I’m inclined to agree somewhat, but I just can’t. There’s some pastas I’ve had that blow anything I’ve made out of the water. You just gotta splurge a little
Italian food is just white people food with a little salt on top.
mostly agree but I had a nice a seafood risotto once that was worth it
I tend to go for stuff that I can’t make at home or that’s a big pain in the ass to make myself. Like, I made lasagna once and it was great but way too much work to feed two people, so I’ll get lasagna at a restaurant. Much like I’m never gonna make pho because that’s an incredible amount of effort for one or two bowls, but on a restaurant scale it’s pretty cheap.
Didn't realize lasagna was a lot of work. What makes it take so long?
You have to make two sauces, a bolognese and a white sauce, boil the noodles, have a casserole pan the right size (where I fucked up, tbh), do the layering, then bake it all. IMO, a proper bolognese takes hours of simmering, which is where most of the time is sunk.
(I basically always use Beyond ground “meat” for my bolognese sauces for several years now, the only exception being when I made it at my father in law’s house with the ingredients he already had. It’s good!)
some of the best restaurant meals I've ever had were pasta dishes