I never thought it would happen. I used to look forward to eating out at high-end restaurants. Now after years of eating all over the world in top-end restaurants (yeah poor baby :-) ) I am becoming numb to fine dining. I don't get excited about food anymore. I don't get excited about amazing interiors or superb service. In fact, these days I get more excited about cheap food and street food. Chipotle, random meat satays in Bangkok, etc. appeal to my tastes buds more so then Kobe beef or cavier. Has anyone else become numb to fine dining?

Brother, I wish I had your problem. I say embrace it. Street food and delicious bargains have their own charm. Nobody says you have to stick to filet mignon or <insert high-end gourmet specialty of given culture here> for the rest of your life. Take pride in finding those dirt-cheap yet fantastic meals -- they can be just as memorable as the ones for which you pay through the nose!

Boy, what a bloody showoff!
I bet you would come back to really up scale authentic chinese food after you have a chance to try that (Not general Tso's chicken or mushu beef you get at PF Chang.- errrr). Things like live snakes just de-skined, monkey brains (now pretty much banned everywhere) or slow broiled shark fins are just too good to pass up!

I think that might be the key - to try new foods and new types of cuisine. I have had chiense meals with whole briased shark fin and swallows nest, and that did pique my interest. I'm far from a food snob, but I think I need somethign to jumpstart my interest in food again.

Now you're talking. You are now becoming a real foodie.

Seriously, I always think certain food can only be appreciated at cheap prices, e.g. hot dogs, satay, steamed tofu, fish ball noodles, chilly fried crab, grilled octopus. The simplier the food, the more it is about techniques & freshness. Which means the cook had to have experience doing the same thing day in day out, with very fresh ingredients. You can pay tons of money to eat at Le Bernadin (which is great), but simple seafood is still fresher & a ton more satisfying at that Hong Kong hole in wall dig.

I must admit, I feel the same way sometimes. Although my travel is limited to certain areas (Southern US and Massachusetts, along with Metro Houston, TX USA), I always find myself at the nicest places in the city of my work, always sitting at the bar to eat, and always thinking about how much I would like to cook a meal for myself!

In the end-all-to-end-all, I have found my eating out experiences in....of all places....New Orleans (the cradle of French Creole cooking (my second favorite food)...to be old hat...sort of! I eat it Monday through Friday, and sometimes it just gets old. My favorite food (American Cajun) is right next door in the Lake Charles/Lafayette/Baton Rouge, Louisiana area, and I might even be seeing signs of burnout in my near future (but not until crawfish goes out of season )!!

This makes me sound like a real stuck-up guy, but I'm sure that miost people can understand. It's like anything else...when you do it a lot, it becomes routine. One of the best neighborhood restaurants in Houston (my residence) is just a 5-minute walk from my front door, and I don't care to go most times! I order a pizza and watch HBO, and that is cool with me. Oh well...I guess that business travel has it's good and bad.

Okay, the ony real bad is that all this good food goes right to my gut, but one has to have something to complain about, no?

yes, I would agree to a certain extent. I still get excited about food.

For awhile I was dining quite frequently at top-end restaurants and like you, now relish finding an out of the way spot that serves tremendous food. I'm just about to post in the Florida forum about a "restaurant" in a convenience store in Orlando that served some of the best mofongo with roast pork I've ever had, all for $7 ^

That being said, I still have plans this summer to drop some serious coin on Alinea in Chicago as Chef Achatz has produced incredible meals for Mrs Sweet Willie and I when he was at Trio in Evanston.

I also need to give Charlie Trotter's a try again as I haven't been for a LONG time and figure he is still getting some good reveiws.

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Are you tired of the Kobe Beef/Caviar circuit, or are you also bored to death of French Haut Cuisine, European game season, Italian fresh, Nouvo american italian, pan asian and pan asian fusion(everhad french haut done in thai style), all hundred styles of indian, and indonesian/malaysian for starters?

I'm 70, been eating for a long time, still got a ways to go. did caviar 10 days in a row in petersburg, and got tired of it, but lots of other things.

I had to fire my personal chef for this same reason. Give me Mac and Dons.. that's all I have to say!

I do understand the sentiment, actually. It pushed me for awhile to mostly hole-in-the-wall ethnic places in the DC suburbs. Probably overreacted, and mrs. gleff started insisting that we go any place that's not in a strip mall

I know exactly where you're coming from. Have thought the same thing many times. Although I'm retired now and out of the rat race, a goodly share of my time in my professional career was spent either in entertaining others or being entertained in fine dining establishments. After awhile it just became matter of fact, almost a chore. Numbness to the expense was part of that, I think, and now when I go somewhere very nice for dinner on my own dime, I always question the value proposition. I'm thinking, what else could I have done with this $xxx?

I have to admit that I do suffer a bit of withdrawl from this now, but as other's have mentioned, I derive actually more pleasure out of simple, local things very well done, or experiencing the creative thrill of cooking up fine eats in my own kitchen to be enjoyed with close friends.

I feel the same way,Especially here in SoCal.What paases for fine dining at very highy prices is often so BORING-with more emphisis on plating than food prep.A grilled piece of fish with a squiggle of sauce with some raw green on top=$40?nope sorry-BORING and expensive.

I think part of it comes from knowing food and being a pretty good cook with an unlimmited budget.When I dine out I want something other than what I cook at home.

Hmmm, I haven't become numb in general, but I have certainly become numb in the short term. When I first started traveling on an expense account on weekly trips, I would just not be hungry on Fridays, how can you possible eat anymore after ordering every course at dinner every night?!? I also get sick of eating 'out' everyday for extended periods of time, however, now that my travel and business eating has slowed a little bit, and I am lucky enough to have been traveling to places that have a great variety of food I haven't had any issues recently.

I couldn't agree more. ^ I've been traveling on businesss for more than a couple of years and could care less about "fine dining". It feels too pompus for my tastes and the "experience" shallow. Maybe that's why I like Anthony Bourdain's show so much. It strips away the "dining" experience of all its cliche'(s).

Agree. The trick isn't finding good food, it's finding good, cheap, freshly prepared and innovative food. You won't find that in any "fine dining" restaurants.

More generally, after years of traveling I'm just plain tired of restaurants, all of them (and never mind airline food). When I get home I want nothing more than a fresh salad (arugula, Belgian endive and radicchio) with a dressing of olive oil, red wine vinegar and freshly ground black pepper, with maybe a sprinkling of parmesan cheese and a few sliced mushrooms on top, and a glass of cheap Chilean or Argentine red wine on the side. Now that's fine dining!

Just wish my wife agreed with my dislike for restaurants.