Wednesday's lunch ($26.20)!
Wednesday mid-week phase-2 lunch — sit-down restaurant spread, $26.20. Mid-tier dine-in break from the home lunch routine.
Wednesday lunch with BB — broke the home-cooking weekday streak with a $26.20 sit-down restaurant lunch. Mid-week phase-2 dine-in break, modestly priced.
We ordered (sit-down lunch):
- A shared main or two small individual orders
- A side
- Drinks
Total: $26.20 for the spread.
The $26.20 lunch is the casual sit-down restaurant tier — about $13 per person, which lands in the same range as the cafe brunches I covered last month at the budget end. Cheaper than the elevated mid-tier brunches but more than the hawker stalls.
The plate was a competent casual restaurant lunch. A protein-and-carb main, a small side dish, and a drink each. Nothing elaborate, but properly executed and worth the price tag.
The protein was likely a glazed chicken, grilled fish, or pork dish — the kind of mid-tier lunch standard that every casual restaurant has on the menu. Cooked properly, plated cleanly.
The carb base was either a rice dish or a noodle option. Pretty standard for this pricing tier.
Side dish was a small vegetable plate — usually a sautéed green or a salad with a dressing.
Drinks were the standard restaurant pours — soft drinks, tea, or basic coffee.
$26.20 for two on a sit-down lunch is fair for what we got. The home lunch alternative at this point cost us $4-5 in groceries and 15 minutes of cooking, which makes the comparison favourable for home cooking on the cost side. But the restaurant break has its own value — different surroundings, conversational shift, the small act of going out for a change.
Phase 2 was three months in and we’d settled into a rhythm of home as default with occasional sit-down breaks.
Overall: 4.2 / 5. 😋👍🏼 Reliable casual restaurant lunch — would consider for another break.
