Takeaway food

[Cloo]

I find it quite weird when I hear people talking about not getting takeaway meals as though this is some difficult proposition to turn down, you know like when people seem to 'discover' making food at home rather than getting a takeaway. Maybe it's more of an American thing than a UK one where more people might live further from a food store? To me it just seems a really expensive way to do things which is why I find it very easy not to get takeaways.

I'd say we do takeaway once or twice a month in our house. One of those is usually fish and chips, and the other varies between Indian, Thai, sushi, pizza and more rarely Chinese

 

[existentialist]

I live in a rural area, so the prospect of impulse takeaway options is somewhat less. After 9pm, about the only option around here is Pizzapoint, 4 miles up the road. They do the full range of kebab, pizza, fried chicken, all the usual default takeaway options, etc., and are pretty OK, so far as I know. But the cost isn't justifiable, and I have all kinds of stuff available if I want a curry, pizza, etc...

Hence my "never" vote. I'd probably do it more if, say, there was a really decent curry house in range.

 

[danny la rouge]

Once every two or three months.

 

[Thora]

There's quite a big difference between twice a month and twice a year

 

[weepiper]

I voted a couple of times a year but actually I can't remember the last time. I don't have disposable income for that sort of thing and also I don't massively enjoy the kinds of takeaway that are easily available to me here.

 

[Nivag]

Depends on how flush/lazy I am.
If money no object I'd probably get more than the 2/3 a month. Even this is an excessive waste of money but working random shifts means the laziness kicks in to feed myself.

 

[Hollis]

Never use Deliveroo, Just Eat or Uber Eats.

Used to get Chinese quite regularlarly - atleast once a week sometimes more. But then the shop closed down.. there's another takeaway about 50m further away, but its just not the same.

Get an Indian takeaway in the house maybe every 2-3 months - usually a Friday.. enough to last the weekend.

 

[farmerbarleymow]

I get a chippy tea a few times a year but that's it.

 

[iona]

Most weeks when I could get a really fucking good chippy tea from a van in the nearest village for under a fiver.

Pretty much never where I am now. Very occasionally get a £2 portion of disappointing chips on the way home as a snack but not a full takeaway meal.

I will sometimes get a breakfast roll or a hot pie or two rather than making food at home but that doesn't feel like it counts as A Takeaway?

 

[Epona]

Very occasional - probably between 2 and 6 times a year on average over the last few years.
It's quite expensive compared to cooking, and I enjoy cooking.
Usually Fish & Chips because we don't have a deep fat fryer and you can't really replicate a massive bit of battered deep fried fish at home without one.
Very occasionally a curry.

If I was working, we would probably have one a bit more frequently, or eat out a bit more regularly.
In general I'd rather have a sit down meal in restaurant than get a takeaway, but we don't do either that often.

(I do sometimes get a Greggs sausage roll or a McDonalds or Wendys cheeseburger if I'm out shopping, but I don't really count that as "getting a takeaway", it's just a snack)

 

[Puddy_Tat]

somewhere between 'never' and 'a couple of times a year' - can't remember the last time i did, but wouldn't say 'never' - more like 'once every year or two'

only take-away within walking distance is a chinese / chippy

 

[Looby]

There’s lots of reasons why people get takeaways though. Tired, busy, time poor but cash rich, ill, disabled etc etc
If Mr Looby didn’t do a lot of the day to day cooking I would probably get takeaways more because sometimes for various reasons I don’t have the mental energy for anything else when I log off/get home.

We have consciously reduced how many takeaways we have but it’s definitely been once a week at times.

Meal planning has helped so we’re not trying to decide what we’re eating at 6pm when we’re tired.

I try not to ever order something I can make better or nearly as good myself. So I rarely order Thai because it’s fairly easy to make a decent Thai curry with a paste and would never order a pasta takeaway.
My favourite curry house is much better than me, as is the Chinese takeaway.
We don’t order pizza much but sometimes I just want a dirty, thick crust dominos.

 

[Cloo]

There's quite a big difference between twice a month and twice a year

Good point, have added in 'every few months' as an option

 

[xenon]

Too much probably. Once or twice a week. Mostly kebabs. I do cook but if I'm doing it more than once a day find it onerous. OTOH I don't often eat prepacked lunches, sarnies, salads, so that is where my food prep fatigue comes in.

 

[xenon]

Yeah, I probably would cook more if I could see what I'm doing. Having to do it all by touch, the dropped onion peal... Again. etc. Is very wearing. It uses a lot of mental energy that I need for other things. If I could afford to I'd eat fresh sushi someone else had made every day though.

 

[mx wcfc]

Once a month. ish.

We had our normal takeaway Nepalese last night as it happens, and finished it off tonight. £40 feeds the three of us, twice, so it's not too extravagant. There's normally a reason/excuse, and it's normally from the Gurkhas Inn, unless our daughter is around, when it involves noodles. Two or three times a year we really go for it and get Dominos.

 

[hitmouse]

It's relatively rare for me to actually eat takeaways at home, that's maybe a once or twice a month thing, but I voted "once a weekish" because what happens more commonly is that I have something on in the evening, so I don't have time to cook a proper meal and so get a felafel wrap or chippy tea or similar.

And back during lockdown I got into a habit of having takeaway once a week as a ritual thing to give a bit of structure to the week/end, but all that's a fair way in the past now.

 

[Humberto]

Can't justify the salt and sugar in most of them. A boring once a year. Tapas.

/mingebag

 

[moomoo]

We never have takeaways here because a) I wouldn’t eat from anywhere around here and b) we live in a second floor apartment in a gated building so it would be far too much faff but when I stay at my daughters we occasionally get a chippie or a Chinese takeaway as a treat.

 

[Silas Loom]

Once or twice a week each for the daughters, maybe once a month for us. It’s increasingly likely to be a disappointment, particularly for Indian, Chinese, pizza and chippy meals, which presumably are the ones hardest hit by mismatches between consumer pricing expectations and operational costs. Japanese takeaways seem to suffer less from quality erosion.

 

[JimW]

Used to be never, but the supermarket in the next village has added a hot food stand so sometimes at the weekend me and the kids share two portions of fried noodles between the three of us, or I get them 肉夹馍 which is meat in bread much like a burger only not as shit. Cheap too, 20 yuan for two portions of noodles that easily feeds us all in only about 2.50.
Eat out far more often, presuming we're making a distinction here, also mostly cheap noodle joints etc, sometimes also breakfast places as the dough sticks and filled dumplings aren't something i can make at home.

 

[Mrs Miggins]

I used to eat a lot more but the value proposition has gone through the floor.

Indian used to be a treat but I stopped getting it a while back when the restaurants I usually buy from started sending much less good food. I can cook better myself.

There is no decent Chinese food to be had locally to me. Believe me. I’ve tried.

When you use Deliveroo/Just Eat/Uber Eats, everything arrives stone cold. That’s fine if it’s curry or pizza or something you can warm up in the microwave or oven but that doesn’t work for e.g. burgers

I used to get Papa Johns pizzas as a filthy treat but they went nasty a year or so ago and the cost went through the roof.

The only things I’ll buy now are pizzas from the 2 really good local pizza places we can order from or the one good noodle place. It costs around £30 when delivery etc is added on so I don’t do that often.

 

[seeformiles]

We have friends who come over for a curry every couple of months as there’s a great Indian takeaway near us but I’ll make all the chapattis, naans and rice so we only order mains to save cash. During the pandemic when we were both made redundant and scarily skint, I worked on replicating our favourite Chinese and Indian dishes and the habit has stuck.

 

[Maggot]

Usually every couple of weeks. We get a veg box every 2 weeks, so towards the end of the 2nd week when the veg is running out we will often get one. There's a great pizza place nearby which is better and cheaper than the franchises. Also Indian and Thai.

 

[Steel Icarus]

I think we average one a month - payday takeaway - but no more. It's a lot of money innit.

 

[mentalchik]

Never, can't afford it and i live on the fifth floor so quite a journey to go all the way down in the lift and along the ground floor to get to the front door. Now and again when i visit my middle son he treats me to a chinese but that's it...do have a McDonalds very close but it's so expensive for what it is i don't bother.

I don't understand how people afford it, i know some that have 2-3 a week

 

[Plumdaff]

Once or twice a month, for some reason our motivation to cook wanes around payday and three weeks into the month is incredibly high .

The other two in my household are big fans of the chippy tea; I'm trying to be healthier so if they go for that I'll normally order Thai or Vietnamese - my favourite local takeaway is a Korean place but I'm kidding myself if once I've had the pancakes and rice cakes etc it's really all that good for me. Always have some nutritious kimchi though, and it is bloody delicious.

 

[moose]

I'd far rather go out to eat, so I generally save my money for that, although we have a very occasional curry delivery.

 

[Steel Icarus]

I'd far rather go out to eat, so I generally save my money for that, although we have a very occasional curry delivery.

I would, but there's seven of us to buy for.

We DO go out two or three times a year to eat for birthdays.

 

[Spymaster]

One of the great benefits of living close to Central London is having several thousand delivery joints within half an hour. We have Uber One, so delivery and service fees are mostly included and there are always offers like 2 for 1, free dishes etc.

I cook most weekdays but we get sushi/sashimi once a week, usually on Friday nights if we're staying in; and get breakfast delivered occasionally if I've been slack and not done the shopping. There are quite a few restaurants that only deliver too, so occasionally use those for something different, our favourites being Malaysian and Singaporean.