Eating Out becoming a Luxury?

It's the amount it's marked up that's the issue.

Even if you can afford it, its about value for money.

I like to eat out or get take away for food I would not cook at home, eg. Duck or calamari. Abroad I go for fresh fish or seafood in Spain, Poetugal and the states.

A pasta dish for example is such poor value when you order it out, pasta bit of cream or tomatoe sauce costs less than €1 to make and an Italian resturant will charge €18 or for it or €16 in a bar. While a steak & sides & chips will cost at least €6, and you'll pay €18 in a resturant and maybe €16 in a bar.

Same with airports. I am not tight or frugal and earn a high wage, but I much prefer to bring my brown bread homemade sandwich with me instead of crappy processed over priced sandwiches at Dublin airport.

I agree.

I normally go for fish though or something complex or something new.

There is a huge cultural difference between Ireland and Europe that causes huge differences in price. In Europe many restaurants are open longer hours and have trade all day or at least a large lunch crowd. The volume of sales means they can sell cheaper as their overhead per customer is lower. In Ireland most restaurants only open in the evenings so overhead is much more expensive along with paying more for ingredients as they don't buy in volume.

Try buying a pint in Paris and you will see how expensive it is. The same economics are at play as with Ireland and food.

When you're eating out with other people that isn't always an option. 😉

Why are you eating out with other people? Because its a social activity? Because its work related? In either case its an expense of the activity. You would not take up golf if you were not prepared to pay the green fees and buy the equipment and clothing required - which would come to a lot more than a month or even a year's eating out expenses.

You have a choice, you can stay at home and cook your own meals and watch free to air television or read library books. Or you can accept that there are expenses to your lifestyle choices and pay them without fretting about it. If you can't afford it then, for now at any rate, you have to go down the staying at home route. If you have disposable income you decide does eating out give you more satisfaction than, say, buying rock climbing equipment or having the top range Sky package.

Trying to have it both ways, go out for meals but fretting and grousing about it is not doing you any favours at all.

Only you can decide whether you consider a basic pub carvery which will fill you up and provide nourishment is preferable to a 'fancy' restaurant where you get more sophisticated cooking and an ambiance that makes you feel good. Or you stay home and do your own cooking. In neither case is a business going to provide a decent meal at home cook prices - though when you take everything into account the carvery could come close. Your choice, eating out is not mandatory.

Who the fuck said it was?

Absolutely NOBODY has said such a thing.

Go away the pair of ye. 🙄

Fair enough, you're having a moan for the sake of it.

No. I'm complaining about recent price hikes and the decreasing value for money in goods and services in this country.

Read the bloody thread, instead of trying gaslight people and put words in their mouths.

No matter how good the food, that seems excessive. In my head, a main course from Chinese/Thai should be about 12-14 euro and a starter 5-7 euro so the range you'd expect to be 17-21 per head so between 50 and say 65 euro. It's food in a plastic container for 80 euro, it shouldn't be that expensive.

Thai was always expensive compared to say Chinese - It depends on just how good the Thai restaurant is but on the rare occasion I’ve had Thai takeaway in the past it’s been from a very good restaurant (name escapes me) and prices were close to 80 for 3 - maybe 75 -

It’s the Chinese meals that have really shot up (and this is from a takeaway that “doesn’t do cards”!- so you can just imagine what their profits are like as a cash only business- two chicken chow mein -EUR 20.80 - not duck, not beef- chicken - only a few years ago this dish was about eur7.50 - one of the cheapest on the menu .

I guess it shouldn’t really be a surprise to us- costs of things to produce food - energy meat etc- have sky rocketed - so I guess we have to pay at some time

More or less the same last night for Valentine's

2 'Angus' Fillet steaks €9.99

'Skin-on' fries done in the air fryer

Delicious bottle of Rioja €8.95

Not that we would EVER go out on Valentine's night - the worst night of the year to go out.

But we've been married for over 20 years and long ago agreed that Valentine's is a load of bollocks

Wouldn't dine out too often, but spent €150 last night for one starter, two mains, two drinks, and one dessert.

I've kinda come to expect to pay €45/50 for a nice steak in nice restaurant, but I dunno where they get off charging €6 for a small glass of beer. It's like if one thing is expensive, all things have to be expensive.