What is with kosher restaurants?

As a preface, It's no secret to my close family and friends that I took a giant leap into kosher eating and cooking about 6 months ago. Even though I had not cooked traif (pork, shellfish, etc.) for several years in my house, I still ate it out, and even would carry it in. I always felt funny about keeping any kind of kosher, because it seems so hard to right and fully. And if you're going to do it, can you do some of it, but not all?

After a lot of encouragement from my clergy and kosher friends, I gave up on cooking with milk and any kind of meat, so now we have either dairy meals or meat meals. I buy only kosher meat. I eat fish or vegetarian dairy when we go out. (Although I've been known to slip "off the wagon" and eat non-kosher meat. So sue me.)

This has led me to explore of the great world of kosher dining. I personally don't care for kosher dairy restaurants, as I will eat vegetarian out, but we have friends who prefer to eat kosher when they go out, so we go too. Suffice to say, we have been less than thrilled with the kosher dining options we have, and we have a good number to choose from.

The problem is Captive Audience syndrome. Kosher places know that they will always have a certain number of customers who have to eat kosher. Does this inspire them to serve the best possible food to this group in the most pleasant and helpful way? No, not really. The food at most kosher restaurants is mediocre, at best, and the service is just slightly worse. Put that on top of paying for kosher, which is always a little more (to a lot more) money than an equivalent non kosher place. But the mediocre places pack 'em in, so maybe I'm the idiot!

The one exception we've found is Taboun Grill, located on California near Devon in Chicago. The service is good, the food is delicious, and not outrageously priced, either. So that's a keeper.