Early Show Correspondent Tracy Smith (CBS) turned up in Tallahassee on assignment. Her goal was to find a dish from a real chef at a real restaurant that she could duplicate at home and compare the costs of the two.
For her meals, she chose Angelo's of Tallahassee., a restaurant where the food is fancy, but you can still pronounce everything on the menu. There are two house specials.
“It's a fresh filet of black grouper,” says Angelo’s owner George Joanos. Dish number one: Nine and-a-half ounces of black grouper with a mixture of kalamata olives and tomatoes and a few other things - like a nice white wine - thrown in.
Dish number two: veal sauteed in butter and topped with crabmeat and Bernaise sauce.
Now it was Smith’s turn to try to do it at home. “It’s easy. you just need a high quality product. You can't mess it up,” Joanos says.
Smith went to her mom’s house to do the cooking. The first problem: "You sometimes have to buy 'way more than you need,” Smith says.
Smith and her mom managed to come up with dishes that at least looked like the real thing at Angeleo's. And it tasted almost as good.
But was it more or less expensive? Here is the cost break down:
At Angelo's:
Grouper Mykonos: $17.95
Veal Oscar: $16.95
7% tax $2.44
15% tip $5.24
Total: $ 42.58
Do it yourself
Grocery Store: $36.61
Fish Store: $25.29
Total: $61.90
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