Dining
You might think it's an unusual thing to complain about, but we're getting tired of dining out all the time. We look forward to having a kitchen of our own. For one, we're still paying with dollars, so whatever the listed price is, we know we're paying almost double in dollars, and the prices here aren't much lower. Dinners are generally 7 to 15 pounds per person.
But the bigger difficulty is finding a place for dinner. Breakfasts are taken care of, of course: staying at bed & breakfasts as we've been, we've come to expect the standard English breakfast across the UK. It's a great start to the day. Lunches are easy because the High Streets of cities everywhere are full of great options.
But come dinnertime, the available choices dwindle rapidly. At 5pm the High Streets empty as shops, and all the family-friendly restaurants, close up. Most places that do serve dinner don't start serving until 5.30 or 6, so you briefly enter a no-man's-land of hunger.
And when dinner is served, we've found our options are very limited. Things seem to fall into these categories:
- Pubs. This is by far the largest category. Entering a pub, the atmosphere will be universally smoky. There may be a nonsmoking section. If we pass this hurdle, we see if children are allowed. Then we see if dinner is being served; often there's no dinner on certain nights of the week. When we do get dinner, it will be hasty: fish and chips that were frozen and dropped in a deep frier; peas that may have been microwaved; and perhaps a few shreds of iceberg lettuce and a few veggies. But there's cider on tap, and if we're lucky, a non-lager beer with some substance to it.
- Chippies. Fish and chips for take-home only. We haven't tried this yet; it's difficult to eat take-out in a B & B as you have no table, chairs, dishes, nor silverware.
- Proper restaurants. So far these are almost always Indian, Chinese, or perhaps Italian. There's no smoking and the food is great, but this is an expensive option so we do it sparingly. They're usually a decent walk also.
- American restaurants like McDonalds, Pizza Hut, Burger King. There's usually no smoking, the food is inexpensive, and we can occasionally get a drink (for example, cheap wine at Pizza Hut), but the food is crap and we try to avoid it. We went to a Pizza Hut last night, and Margo and I both lost sleep due to indigestion.
- Another option we're looking at is getting deli food before closing time (5-6 pm). This is moderately inexpensive, fresh, and healthy, and we can buy our own bottles/cans of drink. We'll try this tonight, I think.
But the bigger difficulty is finding a place for dinner. Breakfasts are taken care of, of course: staying at bed & breakfasts as we've been, we've come to expect the standard English breakfast across the UK. It's a great start to the day. Lunches are easy because the High Streets of cities everywhere are full of great options.
But come dinnertime, the available choices dwindle rapidly. At 5pm the High Streets empty as shops, and all the family-friendly restaurants, close up. Most places that do serve dinner don't start serving until 5.30 or 6, so you briefly enter a no-man's-land of hunger.
And when dinner is served, we've found our options are very limited. Things seem to fall into these categories:
- Pubs. This is by far the largest category. Entering a pub, the atmosphere will be universally smoky. There may be a nonsmoking section. If we pass this hurdle, we see if children are allowed. Then we see if dinner is being served; often there's no dinner on certain nights of the week. When we do get dinner, it will be hasty: fish and chips that were frozen and dropped in a deep frier; peas that may have been microwaved; and perhaps a few shreds of iceberg lettuce and a few veggies. But there's cider on tap, and if we're lucky, a non-lager beer with some substance to it.
- Chippies. Fish and chips for take-home only. We haven't tried this yet; it's difficult to eat take-out in a B & B as you have no table, chairs, dishes, nor silverware.
- Proper restaurants. So far these are almost always Indian, Chinese, or perhaps Italian. There's no smoking and the food is great, but this is an expensive option so we do it sparingly. They're usually a decent walk also.
- American restaurants like McDonalds, Pizza Hut, Burger King. There's usually no smoking, the food is inexpensive, and we can occasionally get a drink (for example, cheap wine at Pizza Hut), but the food is crap and we try to avoid it. We went to a Pizza Hut last night, and Margo and I both lost sleep due to indigestion.
- Another option we're looking at is getting deli food before closing time (5-6 pm). This is moderately inexpensive, fresh, and healthy, and we can buy our own bottles/cans of drink. We'll try this tonight, I think.
posted by Michael Nelson at 10:01 am
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