I've noticed I am getting ruined for eating out at a lot of places but less so because of travel and more because of where I live. While I appreciate cheaper restaurants as much as the fine dining places, in order to survive in Napa a restaurant had better be good because its the locals that keep them alive during the off season.

Unfortunately, since moving here I have noticed that I have to search for really outstanding places when I travel, because too often I will hear something is good and it won't be up to the quality I am used to. (Part of that may come from living in California and our always available fresh produce, but sadly I've had it start to happen when comparing restaurants from my old hometown, San Francisco.)

A slight detour ......

What really frustrated home "fine dining" for years was a lack of good sources of local fresh produce. This even goes for our second home from which we can see across the bay one of the UK's premier fish ports. Fish - even in the local fish shops was variable. Fish simply wasn't always fresh - particlarly less popular fish ie premium fish.

Boringly my favourite food is fresh bread ..... to the extent I become quite obsessive with it ... even to making fresh pizza at home using Caputo flour imported from Naples..... and keeping a sour dough bigga starter going in the fridge to feed the fresh pizza supply ...... but that's a different story!

Recently an outfit in the UK called Ocado started to deliver to our area and we now get a delivery every third day. We pay a monthly fee of £9.99 and deliveries are then free. This includes very fresh fish from a counter (bream, sea bass etc) very good beef (dry aged Aberdeen rib steaks!) and fresh bread including excellent sourdough including varieties. As I'm able to get deliveries at around 07:00 in ther morning it means very fresh bread at least twice a week for breakfast (coffee from the automatic Gaggia) and wonderful fresh fish at least twice a week which we grill. Who can beat very fresh bream grilled with some salad some home made vinegarette and fresh bread ...... Even when we were snowed in a while ago for a couple of weeks and 4x4's couldn't move in or out somehow or other the Ocado Mercedes vans chugged up the hill with our goodies ..... And now ... as the cook also does the shopping (me) wastage is reduced and meals planned properly and arguments and tiffs about substitutions avoided!

It is suprising how decent supply sources changes ones lives.

I still cannot believe that shopping is completed by 07:30 The only thing that has ever tempted me to live in France is the baker shops and local small markets and now at least I have Ocado which has stopped the longing ..... and my wife would say the whining.

Thank God, I can cook pretty good.

"fine dining" is synonymous with "haute dining". i find neither to be correlated with food quality and satisfaction. some of my favorite places to eat in the world are texas barbecue joints that are really just large b.y.o.b brick sheds

I'm not sure that I'd call a charred lump of meat with french fries fine dining. I do get your point though. For me, it's why go to a few half-assed places when I could eat out less often and go somewhere that is nice. There's plenty of good, inexpensive peasant food that can be eaten in between if you want to go out.

I've become a decent home cook, cooking almost every weeknight for my fiancee and myself. I source good produce from the local farmers markets every weekend. I have accumulated a solid background in French and Chinese cooking techniques, and rarely have to agonize what to make for dinner sans recipe.

These days, I rarely think about eating at the mid to mid-high end places anymore (main dish at $15-28 in SF). With a few exceptions, these places just don't offer an interesting or good value dining experience anymore. The level of technique is often average, with typical proteins served in a boring manner. For this, I also get to deal with hit-or-miss service, SF parking and terrible wine lists.

I much rather eat at hole-in-the-wall places where the food is simple but shows good technique from that ethnic cuisine. Peasant food. Easily enjoyable and easier on the wallet also.

I still like to occasionally splurge on the really high end places ($100+ tasting menus) but it's no longer my raison d'etre.

When traveling, it can be even more depressing, because coworkers or friends will recommend places that are supposedly really good/interesting, but the restaurants would most likely not make it in SF.

its not fine dining, its great dining. absolutely charred, but none of these places will ever have anything like french fries.

http://www.jonathanhayes.com/slidesh...-Images/33.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3033/...8a4e9e96f8.jpg

we have in-state locals who make the 200, 300 mile pilgrimage for this stuff :)
ive flown a few times just for this purpose

I could write a book about all the crappy, overpriced meals I've had in London over the years. FT has so far been the absolute best source of good recommendations for me. In fact, all of my great meals in London recently have come from FT recommendations. I only wish it had been around when I lived there..

Where are these places? I'm going to be all over the place in July; maybe I'll be nearby at one point.

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPad; U; CPU OS 3_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/531.21.10 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.4 Mobile/7B367 Safari/531.21.10)

Looks like Lockhart, TX to me. Yummmmmmm. ;)

You got that just by looking at the pictures?? I am duly impressed.

Dont be, unless I am right ;)

I am late to this thread, but had to jump in. I have found lately that "fine dining" is not enjoyable for me when I travel due to really bad, lazy service. Not necessarily bad food, but bad service for the price paid and level of service received. Now I have to admit I live in Sonoma County and I agree with TEHJ, maybe I am spoiled due to service having to be good at local restaurants in order to survive in wine country. But I was raised in Chicago, so I am not a wine snob.

Case in point, last week Las Vegas, "fine dining" restaurant at "high end" hotel on strip, (I was entertaining clients, it was their pick) they served a cheese course to the table, plopped down the plate and left. No utensils, no markers, no description of any thing on the plate, no matter how tasty it was it was not fully enjoyed due to the lack of service (we all tried to serve ourselves with our own silverware, not very sanitary).

But what really blew me away was when we heard a high "ping" and the woman sitting at the table next to me is holding her wine glass stem in her hand with no bottom (on the wine glass, I am sure she had her bottom!). The wine glass had "ping" broken in half, as these things happen, and the waitstaff came over, looked at her and said "here is a new wineglass so you can pour the rest of your wine into it". HUH! She sat there looking at her hand to see if was cut or any shards were in it, and NO ONE from the restaurant came over to see if she was OK, or ask how the could compensate her. I was stunned! The lack of common courtesy really ruined the restaurant for me. Again, maybe it's me, but it seems like this should be really basic service at a "fine dining" restaurant.

Just my little vent :D

In response to the OP: I can enjoy a wide range of food, I adjust my expectations to the level of the restaurant. I can enjoy simple comfort food as delicious when it's good and I enjoy an incredible meal at real fine dining restaurant. A real fine dining restaurant can provide more surprises and swooning over great combinations and unique textures and flavors though I still enjoy other food.

In response to LongingForORD, I think that a lot of restaurants position themselves and are sometimes regarded as fine dining restaurants when they are not really that, a wolf in sheeps clothing if you will. That's one of the difficulties in traveling, finding real fine dining that meets one's own tastes. It's often hard to gauge recommendations in other cities since you may not know much about the recommender.

They are all 1-3 hours away from Austin, Houston, San Antonio, and Dallas.

The cities are: Lockhart, Luling, Llano, Taylor, Lexington

It's quite contentious what the best places are but few people would disagree City Market of Luling is at the very top. I also like Louie Mueller's of Taylor. Snow's in Lexington is a recent fad. Franklin Barbecue (in Austin!!!) is the newest fad.

others:
Cooper's (llano)
Smitty's (lockhart)
Blacks (lockhart)
Kreutz (lockhart)
Taylor Cafe (taylor)
Salt Lick (austin hill country)

check the open times because some of these places have very limited opening hours, and/or they run out of food EARLY.

as a backup, the Rudys BBQ chain is very very reliable and easily accessible

stay away from anything in the actual city of houston and dallas