The Formal, Fine and Atmospheric Dining Thread

Hate to burst your bubble on this one but Ruth's Chris is actually a rather large chain (135 locations).

Yeah - there are multiple locations in the Bay Area alone.

I think this is a difficult thread to follow because so many fine dining establishments are unique. I could list at least 10 restaurants that would qualify as fine dining that I've been to in the past few months alone - all of which are unique.

Zolek_sl said:

Hate to burst your bubble on this one but Ruth's Chris is actually a rather large chain (135 locations).

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Don't know what bubble you're bursting, he never said you couldn't name a chain.

Obligatory: The French Laundry in Yountville, CA. 3-Star Michelin rating, jacket required, French cuisine. Every day they serve two different nine-course tasting menus, none of which uses the same ingredient more than once. Meals can take 3-4 hours, and reservations are hard as hell to get. Meals are $270/person.

Rainforest Cafe. It's a wild place to shop and eat! Great Rainforest atmosphere complete with animatronic gorillas and birds. Price: $10 - $25.



Chuck E. Cheese. Best pizza you'll find, but you need a kid to get through the door so it's a pretty exclusive place. Great party atmosphere, however. Price: depends on how shitty you are at ski ball.

If you like a little steak with your butter then chris' is for you.

If I'm in the mood for a meat orgy I prefer fogo de chao

Otherwise I'll grill it myself

McCheese_sl said:

Chuck E. Cheese. Best pizza you'll find, but you need a kid to get through the door so it's a pretty exclusive place. Great party atmosphere, however. Price: depends on how shitty you are at ski ball.

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Chuck E. Cheese is the business, son.

McCheese_sl said:

Chuck E. Cheese. Best pizza you'll find, but you need a kid to get through the door so it's a pretty exclusive place. Great party atmosphere, however. Price: depends on how shitty you are at ski ball.

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Exclusive, indeed. I was once turned away from one of their fine establishments for being 17 and without an accompanying legal guardian.

Lenas_sl said:

Don't know what bubble you're bursting, he never said you couldn't name a chain.

Obligatory: The French Laundry in Yountville, CA. 3-Star Michelin rating, jacket required, French cuisine. Every day they serve two different nine-course tasting menus, none of which uses the same ingredient more than once. Meals can take 3-4 hours, and reservations are hard as hell to get. Meals are $270/person.

Spoiler

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I only tried a couple of 3 star restaurants so far, some in paris, some abroad, and I will say that there are three stars and three stars.
A few years ago I went tohttp://www.lemeurice.com/le-meurice-restaurantand between the room and the degustative menu, it was just a marvellous dinner ( expensive but for a food lover, it's worth it ).
Basically the bill was like 1000? for two, it was this expensive mainly because we ordered an extra dish with caviar (that dish was a let down, I expected something else, caviar was good but not 3 * greatness dish). I was happy to pay that much. Now set menu is around 280? per person, service included.
But nowadays, I avoid restaurants, too often than not, the food quality is dubious at best, badly cooked or just industrial foods, and expensive at that ( 10-40? for industrial/frozen food is fucked up).
On the other side, I am eating every meals at home, and with 120-180 CHF a week for two persons, really awesome and homemade ( including stock, pasta and about 30% of the sauce we are using ) meals.

The Olive Garden is where it's at. Take a classy broad there and you'll be getting a handy in the back of your Camero before you know it.

3-star michelin is incredibly overrated. Difference between a 3-star michelin restaurant and and 1-2 star restaurants is that you sign your $300+ per person bill with a montblanc pen and the bathroom attendant sits around waiting to spritz you with cologne after you piss into a gold plated urinal.

eek_sl said:

3-star michelin is incredibly overrated... you piss into a gold plated urinal.

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In what world could that possibly be overrated?

I definitely enjoy a good meal(I'm a fatty), and I've eaten at a lot of well know chefs restaurants, like Emeril, Booby Flay, Wolfgang Puck, Mario Batali, Tom Colicchio and Joel Robuchon(in Vegas, not France)

Expensive meals get to a point of diminishing returns pretty rapidly in my book. Was Joel Rubuchon's $800 tab for 2 people good? Hell, yes, it was amazing. Was it 8-10x better than going to a upper-end chain like Capital Grille or Ruth's Chris? Probably not. I'd take 8 meals at a Capital Grille without thinking twice over one meal at a 3* Michelin-reviewed restaurant. That being said, every decent sized city is going to have some local places that are better than Capital Grille, and possibly less expensive to boot, I just used that as a higher-end chain that many might be familiar with.

It's something that is fun to do once in your life just to say that you did it, but anyone that regularly spends close to 4-figures on a meal needs to get their head out of their ass. I did it once, and it was to celebrate my engagement with my now wife. Might consider doing it again for our 10 year anniversary or something big like that, but that's about it.

Every city worth it's salt has some awesome eating experiences where a $100 bill is way more than enough for 2 people.

I live in Doha, Qatar (highest GDP in the world) which is basically an extreme boom oil / natural gas country. They are the next Dubai in terms of westernization and the city is scattered with 5 star hotels all over the place. Gordon Ramsay has two restaurants here and one of them will do a 3 course lunch special on the weekends for the brunch crowd for 140QR ($38 USD). That is a starter, main, and dessert. Each course you will have two or three choices to choose from. It is by far the best value meals I have had for the quality.

Soygen_sl said:

One of my favorites in Ft. Lauderdale is Steak 954. Excellent steaks, but their seafood is amazing. It's on the very-expensive end of the spectrum though. Really nice atmosphere and it's attached to a very nice hotel(The W) right on Ft. Lauderdale beach. Great place for a romantic special occasion(or just a regular dinner if you roll like that).

http://www.starr-restaurant.com/steak954.com/

Whenever I'm in NY, though, it's all about Peter Luger's. Best steaks I've ever had. Anyone who likes steak owes it to themselves to try it at least once.

http://www.peterluger.com/

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A $26 dollar entree is "very expensive"? Fucking Outback Steakhouse has $24 entrees.

Soygen_sl said:

Uh, I'm not trying to start a pissing match on one's opinion of "very expensive", but I will definitely say that picking the cheapest entree on the menu to make your point is "very retarded". Is an 80 dollar meal expensive? Well that's on there too, high roller.

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Wasn't trying to be a dick, apologies if I came off that way.