How have your experiences been in respect of eating out in your own location or when travelling? Are you very cautious or do you take a calculated risk or two like me?
I love cooking too much to eat out when I'm home. It happens, of course, but very rarely. In the 5 years we've lived at this location, we still haven't tried all the 5 pizza places within walking distance, the kebab kiosk is on the no-go list since I saw them wipe off tables and then the spout of the water caraffe with the same rag, and the sushi restaurant menu looks boring... We did try the lunch restaurant before it closed, and were surprised. How can they have this many customers when the food is slops? And not even disguised by spices. Bland slops!
Then there is the cost. Why would I pay 5-10 times as much for a dish I can cook better myself? Sure, rent and staff wages and so on. But I know people in the business, and they tell me they pay 20-50% less for the ingredients than I do, next to nothing for the staff, some rent, and the rest goes to the owner. Or the bank. I can do the math. Buy ingredients for $5 and cook a meal for two plus leftovers enough for lunch the next day, or pay $25 per person for something bland, something adjusted to "everyman's tastebuds."
Even so, there are places I come back to. Or would if they still existed.
A café where I and my friends spent whole afternoons buying one cup of tea each, and a salad which we shared. The tea was loose leaf and came in round dip-in strainers, refills of boiling water were free. And there was enough tea in those balls to last for 3 or 4 cups!
A Chinese restaurant where any dish could be had in a vegetarian version, and they didn't mind if you ate slowly, ordered one dish at a time and shared it, and kept bothering them for more chili oil or hot sauces.
A "husmanskost" restaurant with dart boards. Husmanskost roughly translates as "traditional food" and that's what they served. In heaps! I can't claim they plated it prettily, but it was cheap and plentiful, and if you managed to finish it, sure enough there was a matron patting your shoulder and saying "you look hungry today dear, want a refill?" and the refill was included. I'm not usually a fan of traditional Swedish food, since it's bland, fatty, and salty, but this was really well cooked, and there was always something to lift it up - lingonberry jam, pickled beetroots, apple sauce, rhubarb compotte...
Oh, about that refill. Apparently there's an old law saying that when you buy food at an eatery, you don't have to pay unless you feel full. Or something like that. I doubt most restaurant goers or any of the service staff knows about it anymore, but it'd be nice to slap in the face of those people who serve 2 meatballs and half an asparagus as the main course. ;) I'll have to look it up some day!
As for travelling, I haven't done much of it lately. Some 5? 7? years ago I was forced to spend one day a month in another town, since my then boss loved face-to-face meetings. The first few times I went along with his "we all eat lunch here, I have booked tables and ordered the food" but after looking things up and talking to the union I realised he didn't have the right to tell me how to spend my lunch break. So I brought my own lunch instead. He retaliated by locking up the whole office so I'd have to eat outdoors or not at all. I retaliated by saving my lunch and nibbling it once the afternoon session got started... Even a room-temp falafel ball, fried the day before, makes a satisfyingly crunchy noise when eaten in an otherwise silent room. 😈
Sorry, I just realised that didn't really answer your question about caution, if by being cautious you mean trying to avoid food that might make you ill. We have very few instances of food poisoning here, so it's not something we take into account when eating out.
I went to the Canary Islands with my mom when I was 5 though, and someone gave me the advise to "drink some tap water once you get there. It might make you ill for a day or two, but after that you can eat anything." I did, I wasn't ill, I had a great week swimming around in the hotel pool and ordering the staff to give me orange ball ice creams for breakfast, lunch and dinner while my mom who hadn't drunk any water was spending the week on the loo. Same thing happened when she took me to Greece a few years later: I was happily running around everywhere, petting goats, cats, and donkeys, eating food from market stalls without washing my hands in between, bathing in the ocean, buying bread, feta cheese and vegs from the market, chopping them up with a certainly dirty knife and making my own sandwiches... while she got a stomach bug after one evening of pina coladas at some bar. 🤷
And just to try, let's see if this is worthy of a
!CTP