It Looks So Good in the Photographs, But …

I know that people are being urged to have restaurant meals delivered during the quarantine, and I know that restaurants have to survive somehow, but it’s just not the same. When the food is delivered, it is by someone who is not associated with the restaurant and does not care in the slightest what you think of the meal. Even if you pick up yourself, you seem to be one remove farther away from the person who assembled the meal.

Yes, that’s it! The food is merely assembled, and it is not the same high quality it was when you ate at the restaurant. And the food is usually assembled in a slipshod manner emphasizing speed over taste or looks.

Today I had a Japanese meal of pork gyoza with chashu rice rolls. I couldn’t finish it, as it had an off taste. Oh, it was prepared quickly all right, but I have no intention of ever going back there.

A secondary problem is that every take-out or delivered meal comes with a ton of plastic waste. If Martine and I ate that way on a regular basis, we would not only be spending a fortune, but having to take out our garbage every other day rather than twice a week when I prepare food at home myself.

No doubt there are outstanding exceptions among L.A. restaurants. When doing take-out, however, I am confined to the restaurants in my West L.A. neighborhood.