I was so happy to come across this post, even though it dates back to 2009. My 12 year old daughter has been bugging me to try Five Guys since they opened a store here in our Ohio town. I’ve heard they were expensive so I waited for a day when just she and I could do lunch and yesterday, we finally tried it. The fries were, as mentioned here, very good. Hand cut and crispy and loads of them. We ordered single cheeseburgers, hers was plain, mine had mustard, pickles and lettuce. First bite and I was disappointed big time. It was so bland. Mostly it just tasted like the mustard. It was like any burger I could have whipped up in a skillet, only more bland. I know some people are trying to find a burger that tastes “homemade” but to me, that’s like going out to a nice dinner and ordering meatloaf. I don’t want something that tastes like I made it, I want something exceptional that I can’t really duplicate in my own kitchen. My favorite example is Culver’s, their burgers are amazing. Sadly we don’t have one nearby, or is that good considering the calories? Anyway, just two regular cheeseburgers, one large fries to split, two sodas and a shake to go for my daughter, set me back $33.00. That’s ridiculous for what we got. I can guarantee we won’t be dining there ever again. We can find the hand cut fries much cheaper elsewhere too so no need to make a trip for those. I would not recommend this restaurant to anyone and actually will discourage anyone who hasn’t been there yet.
Culvers is one thing I will miss since I moved west. Burgerville is fine, but it isn’t Culvers.
Also welcome, hopefully you like the community here more than a Five Guys burger.
Yea that’s… not how you Five Guys. If your burger doesn’t have at a minimum the top row of ingredients then you’re doing it wrong.
I really like Five Guys, but their buns are topping averse. They fall apart really easily, especially when you get a hunk of lettuce and a big tomato slice in there. My go to is a bacon cheeseburger with mushrooms, onions, mayo, ketchup.
Oh and cajun fries all the way.
Right on. I agree. The only thing that makes a Five Guys Burger remotely interesting is what type of toppings you put on it. The actual burger itself is very plain and bland.
Huh. I, on the other hand, really don’t get what people think is so special about Culvers burgers. They just taste like generic, dried out burgers to me. Oh, with butter on them.
Psssst. Let me let you on a little secret:
My favorite is the angry bird.
Well, here in Orlando I prefer BurgerFi.
I pass by Mr Bento Teriyaki every day, as it’s maybe 3/4 a mile from my house. Didn’t even realize there was a burger spot.
May have to try it next time we eat out.
Excellent thought that I totally abide by as well. If I go out I want to get something I wouldn’t/couldn’t cook at home.
This is my deal with food in general. I once had lunch with someone who ordered at $15 grilled cheese (this isn’t San Francisco - $15 is still a semi-spendy lunch). It came, and it was a fucking grilled cheese. Not made with some weird, rare Himalayan goat cheese or something. Nope, just literally toast and melted cheese.
I have a similar issue with ordering salads. Like, unless there’s something pretty unique about it, I can make the salad at home. I don’t need to spend $18 for chopped up apples, walnuts, and feta cheese on spinach.
Yeah, what you can do at home is always different for everyone though. Back when my brother was an Alton Brown fanatic and a bachelor, he showed me the grilled cheese episode, and how you use two cast iron skillets to make the perfect grilled cheese. And then we did it, just like that. He even had a bread maker, so we even made our own bread before we did the sandwich. It was amazing. Better than anything I’ve had outside.
But when I got back to Seattle, I bought two cast iron skillets, but I never got around to making the grilled cheese that way. It’s a pain in the ass. It’s easier just to order one when you’re at a diner.
Same with salads. The thing I’m most lazy about at home usually wasn’t the cooking, it was the chopping. So to me, the most impressive part of going to subway is that they’ve already chopped up everything and have it ready to put onto your sandwich. That’s the hard part that I’m willing to pay for.
My aunt came up with the solution to that when I was a bachelor. I chopped everything when I was in the chopping mood that I’d need for cooking (onions, garlic, celery, bell peppers, etc) and then freeze them all in little plastic bags.
That way when it was time to cook, I’d put oil on a skillet and put the ingredients on there from the freezer. No chopping required, overcoming my laziness when it comes to the chopping.
I understand that, and admittedly, some of that factors into the price. Like, I will pay something for someone else’s labor in chopping things up. But if I’m going to be paying $15-20 for something, it has to be more than an ordinary salad.
I go to Subway for the same reason you do, but if Subway were to cost $15, I wouldn’t be going to Subway.
I think it’s fair to say the line of home/out is different for everyone, depending on abilities and patience.
I have the opposite problem: There’s lots of things I want to eat that I really can’t get at a restaurant, and I have to make it at home if I want it to be at the right quality.
I too was one of those Alton Brown acolytes back when his show was on. I’m now also a serious eats reader who DOES follow the recipe, and is happy to spend hours cooking on the weekend if it’s something I want to eat - and I cook ~ 5-7 things a week.
Going out isn’t just about the food though, at least not for me. It’s hanging out with friends and family, catching up, enjoying whatever. If that’s grilled cheese, fine. If it’s something “fancy,” then fine. During the week, it might just be a quick wanna get something in-between all this other stuff I have to do and the last thing I want to do is cook and clean and then eat in 10 minutes before my next obligation.
Really I tolerate a lot just to hang out… it’s the only reason I go to Olive Garden around here. I hate that restaurant.
I’ve had two salads, one at a fairly spendy fish place in Portland (Maine), the other just recently at a genuine French restaurant in London, that were so much better than any salad I’ve ever made it’s just ridiculous. Neither was “deluxe” in terms of ingredients or anything. They were just perfectly made. It’s all about balance, and I don’t have it.
I’m lucky enough to live somewhere where we have a lot of choice, so there are plenty of places that are have both good food AND you can hang out.
For example, I can NOT make the best quality ramen at home. Mine is good mind you, but there are so many styles to choose from that are great…
One of these is home made:
We have an okay ramen place here, but I haven’t been able to find a excellent one since I left Japan. Sushi, plenty of choices, but not ramen. Also, there are several in our group that don’t prefer Japanese cuisine, so sometimes we wind up at these weird fusion places where nothing tastes right. I’d rather do Olive Garden.
I used to hate Olive Garden too, but then I tried their most basic menu: the soup and salad. Both are great. I love their gnocchi soup, and I love their bottomless house salad. In both cases you can eat as much as you want. Plus I’ve never had a bad server at an Olive Garden. I don’t know how they train them, but every single time I’ve had them engage me and my wife in very pleasant conversation, which has never happened at any place other than Olive Garden.
This is really true: I hadn’t been to an Olive Garden in years, but I had heard they had kinda reinvented themselves,so my wife and I tried it a few weeks ago.
By the end of our meal we knew more about the young lady college student who served us than I know about most of my relatives.