What's your favorite restaurant chain?

[Galaxy]

Originally Posted by Marc Vaughan

I love eating out .... hmmmm ...

Outback Steakhouse
Nandos (UK)
Bob Evans
The Melting Pot (special occassions only)
Fuyiyama (think thats how you spell it)
TGI Fridays
Wendy's (only junk food place I like really)

Most of the places I love in the UK aren't chains though - they're one off restaurants or pubs ...

How do you compare the restaurant scene here in the US to one in the UK?

[Karlifornia]

Melting Pot in SJ closed down. I never had the chance to eat there.

[Marc Vaughan]

Originally Posted by Galaxy

How do you compare the restaurant scene here in the US to one in the UK?

Swings and roundabouts really.

The UK has a fair few chain restaurants but its predominantly (esp. in small towns) independant restaurants.

For example in the tinpot town of Royston (10k people) I lived in back home we had no chain restaurants but 3 indian restaurants, 2 chinese restaurants, 1 thai restaurant, 1 classy italian restaurant, 2 pizza parlours, 1 general american style junk food joint, 2 fish and chip shops and about 10 pubs (serviving various types of english style lunches and dinners) ....

I find the independants are a bit more varied and interesting than chains - their menu's have variety even if the type of restaurant is the same as another. Oh and one of vital thing about the UK - you can walk to/from most restaurants easily, meaning you can eat out, drink and wander home without driving ... over here I've never worked out why places serve alcohol, you can't get home apart from driving so you can't drink ....

Over here its mainly chains, although some are fantastic (a few of which I've listed) and I have found some very good independant restaurants (inc. a sushi restaurant near Cocoa on US-1 which is incredible) ... just the balance here seems more towards chains than independants (to be honest this appears largely to be the 'american way' with most things, the UK has more independant stores than America does generally - just a cultural thing and undoubtably biased by Geography as much as anything - ie. the UK is an small island comparatively to the size of America so its harder to get the cost efficiencies you can in America when shipping is involved etc.).

[General Mike]

Cheeseburger in Paradise.