$100 NYC Food Challenge

[jaking1979]

I am convinced that one can eat out every night in NY and actually spend LESS than if you buy groceries and cook at home. So, in order to test this theory, I have developed the following challenge:

- You must eat out every night of the week.
- The total budget for 7 days of eating is $100.
- Only dinner is part of the challenge. Breakfast and lunch meals don't count (mostly that's because the majority of our grocery purchases are for evening meals. You're not going to top the cost of a box of cereal, I'm aware of that.).
- The challenge is for 2 people, so if you eat with more than 2 people, you can just count your cost, but you can't order the most expensive thing and then just split the bill to reduce your cost.
- Alcohol doesn't count against you, neither does dessert. Those are personal choices.
- Tax and tip do count against your budget.
- You can't go for the same meal every night. And, 5 dumplings doesn't count as a meal. You have to have a real meal that will fill up the average person.
- Travel for food is OK, but be reasonable. Going from Manhattan to Brighton Beach, for example, is fine, but not every day.

A few other notes:
* The budget was picked because I think that's how much my wife and I spend on groceries and eating out maybe 2x per week. She thinks I'm over-estimating, but she's not great at keeping track of her spending.
* The goal is not only to get under $100, but to see how much under $100 you can get, while having a variety of high quality foods.

Good luck, I look forward to reading your results.

[roro1831]

Not sure if that actually belongs on the What's My Craving Board, but I know I couldn't do it nor would i want to. I spend roughly $70 a week on average on groceries. That will feed my wife and I lunch and dinner for the week. I tend to cook most days as I find it's more economical and I cook better than most places I can eat at.
When I do go out to eat, It will typically cost anywhere from 25-50 per entree depending on where we are eating, so I would blow either half or all of the budget in one sitting.
Saying that tip is included in the challenge is really limiting as well. If I get good service I choose to tip higher than I would if the service was bad. Tipping is a bit of a personal choice in my opinion, at least the % is. Unless you are talking about those places where they have a tip jar on the counter and you can put your change in those if you want.

I know lots of people that can get filled up on 5 dumplings, myself included. I don't go out to eat to stuff myself to a point where I am uncomfortable, I go out to eat to take a break from cooking, try something new and have someone wait on me.

[jaking1979]

No need to trash the challenge! If you choose to spend about $200 per week on food, that is your prerogative. For those of us who don't have access to that money, but still want to go out and experience food in the best eating city in the world, this is a good challenge and will result in a very nice and very usable list of resources (i.e., see canstopeating's post below. thanks for that, btw).