Hi guys,

I understand that RT, TGI etc. may not look very favourable once you have gotten used to dine at high class restaurants all along. However I wonder if this disgust aims at the entire kind of restaurant, or if there are brands that range in the same price class but would be considered better?
Outback seems to be one of these places and I agree on that, but what other places do you recommend?
Personally I find it sort of hard to find new good restaurants in the US (while restricted by budget and not in larger cities). Somehow I find it less hard in Germany, which makes sense as I can simply judge better what a place will be like, it also is much easier to just walk around and find a place - in the US you usually need to plan a ahead and go by car. I have had bad experiences with "family" restaurants - these usually stand for meshed potatoes out of the bag, hamburger patties from K-Mart and mediocre service. Actually I just had breakfast at Grandma Something's Pancake House - there was nothing there I couldn't have had at Denny's.

So, are you just glad you are able to avoid dining at any place that comes at less than 20$ for dinner or do you actually have recommendations (if important: northern Chicagoland)?