I have been thinking on how to celebrate my birthday, I thought of inviting my parents to my favorite restaurant. When I brought it up, they were all upset “why don’t you invite us to your home? Why don’t you cook for us? Restaurant is all reheated food, home cooked fresh food is much better” etc. We have lived in Europe for almost my whole life, I don’t really understand what’s wrong with going out to eat or why they expect me to invite them to my house and prepare a festive meal on my birthday.
It’s more personal and shows live and care. Its special and tastes better.
I get it, but on the other hand I don’t want to spend half of my birthday in the kitchen
You see Ivan, birthday is for other people to eat, drink, and have fun, not for you.
Kinda like a big wedding in the US I guess? Bride and groom are not the ones having fun.
If you get it, then why are you asking?
I get the appeal of a home cooked meal, but that doesn’t automatically mean that going to a restaurant is a bad option. Also I don’t get the entitlement, where do their expectations come from?
Sure, but that’s an opinion, not a question. Clearly they consider it a bad (or at least less desirable) option.
If as you said this is a Russian thing and not a your parents thing, then presumably default social expectations. That’s what they’re used to, so that’s what they expect you to do, in the same way people in Western countries expect Christmas gifts. There’s no deeper answer unless you want the historical background or an explanation of why social expectations exist.
You had me until “it tasts better”.
That’s entirely dependent on the cook. And very few home cooked meals are better than average restaurants. There’s a reason restaurants and professional cooks can make a living. If home cooking was so much better so often, nobody would bother going out to eat.
I go put to eat because I can get a meal that’s almost as good as homemade with about four hours less preparation on my part. That’s why people go out to eat.
That’s your judgement of your food. It’s natural for you to have a number of biases to favor your own cooking. Most notably the 4 hours of effort it takes you.
But home cooking isn’t generally that. It’s the 20-40min one puts in right after getting home from work. Comparing your most intensive 4h hours of effort against something a restaurant cook does absent mindedly isn’t really a comparison. If they put in your effort you wouldn’t have a chance.
Well, to be fair, we are talking about “special occasion” food specifically, not weeknight goulash.
It takes very little knowledge or effort for a home cooked meal to cost 1/4 of, and taste better than, 90% of restaurants.
And after a few years of cooking that number rises to 98%+ of restaurants.
You can’t pay me to eat at a chain of any kind any more. At this point I have to go to a specialty place (where the entrees are $50 to $100) to eat better than I do at home.
Cheeper sure. Not a chance it’s better in blind taste tests. That’s all confirmation bias from you putting in the effort to make it yourself. You can’t be an objective judge of your own food.
If your food were really that much better than everyone else’s you’d be able to make a fortune with your own restaurant. And if you enjoyed it, you might be happier doing that for work instead of whatever you currently do.