Never eat a mediocre meal again!

I saw this recently and wanted to get the board's input.

http://www.washingtonian.com/blogs/bestbites/todd-kliman-otherwise/the-principle-for-dining-out-never-eat-a-bad-meal-again.php

The author advises going only to diners/dives/ethnic mom-n-pops and high end places (places where you get memorable food and service, essentially places that cost more than 200 bucks for two). Avoid the middle.

I don't want to debate the advice itself. What I want to get the board's input on is what would you consider to be the restaurants that would fit the upper end, can't miss field.

Now I am further constrained by the fact that I am a Vegetarian and have made a decision to avoid places that don't have at least a third of their menu vegetarian. I feel there is not point going to restaurants that have one or two 'vegetarian options'; because most restaurant people know by now that in a party of six, there is bound to be at least one vegetarian( ); and offer these options almost grudgingly. So if you could add the places that would fit vegetarian friendly in the upper end suggestions, it would help me. But you don't need to restrict yourselves for my sake. You can suggest examples of the second kind that are meat centric only.

Also, maybe we can add this qualifier to our GNR list.

L -- Low end (15 bucks entree limit)
M- the Vast middle
H- Upper end (25 and Over).

So you're looking for price classifications for low, middle, and high? I pretty much agree with your low limit, but I would probably push my definition of "high" at least $5 over to $25 for a main dish, probably even to $35 or $40. I don't dine at upper end restaurants pretty much ever, and even the mid-level restaurants get to the $25-ish price point.

As a matter of organization and presentation, ordering the GNR's by price range would be nice, although any discrete boundaries are bound to cause disagreements. Also, after such a scathing article on the "vast middle," deserving restaurants in that price range would reasonably suffer some prejudice.

--Digression--
Setting: Los Angeles, 2011
My friends and I ate at a new restaurant for lunch every day for a year on basically school lunch budget ($4/meal) and a 50-minute lunch break. We ended up going to >100 different places. Though there were a few gems, I think the idea of the "cheap ethnic pho joint" is a bit overromanticized. I guess it's all in the eye of the beholder (growing up, KFC was mid-range and Applebee's was solidly high end for our family)

Blahblahblah. Lazy food critic, I feel so bad for you. Total BS. Yes, chasing every "hot new thing" will yield mediocrity and wasted $$ but finding a wonderful mid like Anteprima or Vera makes this jag's hypotheses sound pretty lame.

Something tells me I will be eating another mediocre meal soon, and nobody will care if I write about it on the internet.

Tyrgyzistan wrote:Something tells me I will be eating another mediocre meal soon, and nobody will care if I write about it on the internet.

Haha . . . I try very hard to never eat any mediocre meals and when I do, I feel violated and complain about it for days. My wife loves me for it.

=R=

ronnie_suburban wrote:

Tyrgyzistan wrote:Something tells me I will be eating another mediocre meal soon, and nobody will care if I write about it on the internet.

Haha . . . I try very hard to never eat any mediocre meals and when I do, I feel violated and complain about it for days. My wife loves me for it.

=R=

As long as you get the clicks, babe - you're cool.

NEXT - why banh mi kale bacon cronuts are THE meal to treat your boss to ...

ronnie_suburban wrote:

Tyrgyzistan wrote:Something tells me I will be eating another mediocre meal soon, and nobody will care if I write about it on the internet.

Haha . . . I try very hard to never eat any mediocre meals and when I do, I feel violated and complain about it for days. My wife loves me for it.

=R=

To me, a bad meal is a wasted opportunity, one you'll never get back, and like Master Suburban, I bust a pout and bitch accordingly.

Words to live by -- The LTHer's Lament: (S)he who has not eaten a bad restaurant meal lately is not trying enough new restaurants.

Now THERE'S the way to avoid mediocre restaurants--never eat anywhere that's been open for less than a year--If it's still getting good notices a year later, they'll be in the groove and worth whatever money--high, medium or low. Chasing the hot new thing, unless you're a restaurant critic and get paid for it, seems silly to me these days.

Not that money is the only thing, I'd also put in time. I'd love to go to many places but can't due to time constraints (usually kid's bedtime or my bedtime due to the kids waking very early). Some ethnic joints, even a place like Five Guys or Meatheads, can take longer that 30 minutes. God forbid I take a baby to Alinea There's a parallel to a thread on another Website about how you have to be rich to own a cheap car (basically you have to be able to afford to have the car breakdown and have the time and energy to fix it yourself, you can miss work, etc).

Then again if you can't afford the time to sit and eat, then you might be forced to eat a mediocre meal. Perhaps another thread on food that you can eat on the run

boudreaulicious wrote:Blahblahblah. Lazy food critic, I feel so bad for you. Total BS. Yes, chasing every "hot new thing" will yield mediocrity and wasted $$ but finding a wonderful mid like Anteprima or Vera makes this jag's hypotheses sound pretty lame.

Where is the "like" button for Boudreaulicious' post?
I am literally LOL