6 Dishes You Should Never Order for Delivery

There are some pleasures better left to the dining room.

We live in a time when practically anything can be delivered to our doorstep. From toothpaste to burritos, all it takes is a series of clicks and it’s on the way. For those who never cook and only use their ovens as extra storage, it can be a blessing and a curse. Between DoorDash, Uber Eats, Seamless and dozens of other food delivery apps, there are so many options, but what to order for dinner? There are some things that are meant to be delivered, like pizza or noodles, but so many other foods that will slap your face with disappointment the second it shows up at your door.

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Fried anything

We can land a rover on Mars, but we can’t keep french fries crispy when they’re delivered three blocks away. Entombing them inside a cardboard box to swelter in their own steam makes them limper than an overcooked noodle on a humid day. Anything that’s fried and going inside a to-go box needs a little ventilation if there’s any hope of it staying crispy. Some restaurants will manage to get it right, but most won’t. The fries that do stay crispy probably have a coat of seasoning on them or are highly processed. Fried calamari is so scrumptious, but chewy calamari with the breading falling off in soft chunks is so not. Fried foods never travel well.

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Nachos

When they first leave the kitchen, nachos are a thing of beauty: piles of refried beans and other toppings clinging to a mountain of crispy tortillas shells, smothered in velvety melted cheese. But once they go into a box for delivery, it’s a jumble of congealed regret. The cheese takes a stranglehold on everything underneath it, the sour cream separates, and the chips get as soggy as a biscuit covered in gravy. Save the nachos for when you can eat in the restaurant and have the guacamole delivered instead.

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Breakfast

Unless you’re ordering a bagel, let go of the idea of breakfast being delivered. Omelets and eggs Benedict have a shelf life of about two minutes and will be history before they’re even picked up by the delivery person. Pancakes and waffles turn into lukewarm hockey pucks and bacon either gets more sodden as it sits in its own grease or it morphs into something close to a processed Bac’n Bit. If you must order eggs and bacon, order a wrap so it can be swaddled with care inside a flour tortilla where it will stay nice and warm.

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Steak

If you absolutely must order a steak to be delivered, don’t expect it to be anything close to the temperature you asked for. Once it goes into the box, it will continue cooking as it travels to your home. No chef or line cook is going to create a scientific equation to determine how much more it will cook after it leaves the restaurant and then adjust how long the steak stays on the grill. It rarely works out. Putting a perfectly cooked steak into a foam container is like putting it into a pine casket and that poor bovine died in vain.

Related: Our 35 Best Steak Recipes

Fish

See above.

Some desserts

Not all confections are created equal and not all of them are going to get to your home intact. A slice of cake, a dessert will make, but ice cream cake is a big mistake. Anything with ice cream is a bad idea and restaurants should just stop offering it to-go. Creme brûlée won’t work because you’ll miss breaking up that warm, caramelized sugar and stirring it into the coolness of the custard. That’ll happen when it’s scooped out of the ramekin it was baked in and transferred to a paper cup. Stick to cookies and cakes, and prepare to eat the frosting from the inside of the lid.

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