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This is something that always strikes me as very odd when visiting the US. The portions are just So.Frigging.Huge, to the point it becomes outright comical. If

• spicymaki 8y ago
  Funny enough you can order half-portions at many restaurants. That will bring the portions closer to a normal size.
  • saddestcatever 8y ago
    Really? That never even occurred, since I've never seen that option on a menu.
    • ceejayoz 8y ago
      As with splitting a plate between two people, it's not something you'd typically see on a menu, but they're usually happy to do it.
    • JoeAltmaier 8y ago
      All the time around here - half a sandwich and soup for instance at lunchtime
    • jandrese 8y ago
      The branding is "right sizing". It doesn't seem to have gained a lot of traction however.
    • spicymaki 8y ago
      Yes!!! You would be surprised what things you can negotiate in stores and restaurants. You need only ask. In restaurants you can even substitute unhealthy items for healthier items in your meal in many cases. Many local restaurants I go to even have items you can order that are not listed on the menu.
  • w0utert 8y ago
    I've not seen this in many places, actually. I also don't think it would really work for me, as I would never be able to guess whether a half-portion wouldn't be less than I wanted to eat. It would be so much easier if it was just what I'm used to here: if you just order food, you'll get enough for a 'normal' eater. You can always go bigger or smaller, depending on if you are a 'big eater' or not. The default in the US seems to be that the size of the standard order needs to satisfy a giant construction worker who hasn't eaten for two days. I remember ordering blueberry pancakes for breakfast once, and got a pile a that was almost a foot high. Even though the pancakes were actually pretty good, I think I finished less then 1/4th of them. That just makes no sense.
    • JoeAltmaier 8y ago
      The food is the smaller part of the cost - think about the brick-and-mortar, the employees waiting for us to come in and order, the insurance etc. A little flour and canned blueberries is peanuts. So by offering 'too much food' there's a perceived value by some
      • w0utert 8y ago
        Well yes of course, I understand the psychological tricks restaurants use to increase 'perceived value'. That doesn't mean I agree with them though, or that it makes the food any better. Maybe I'm atypical, but for me it actually decreases the value, because I know I will feel stuffed before my plate is empty, and my last memory of eating the food will be that I could hardly stomach any more of it before I stopped eating. This is not even considering the moral objections I have against throwing away perfectly good food, as someone else above me already mentioned as well.
        • JoeAltmaier 8y ago
          My local pancake house will sometimes have 'all you can eat' which means a modest serving with the option to order additional food at the same cost. Of course I never need any more, and that way no waste! And the same perceived value or better. Probably a much better solution.
  • SilasX 8y ago
    Even if true, I've never seen that advertised as an option, nor thought to ask.
  • vidanay 8y ago
    You can also ask for the meal to be split between yourself and your dining partner. Unfortunately, the few times my wife and I tried this, they split the main food (burger, steak, chicken, etc) but then the doubled up on all the starchy sides (fries, rice, pasta) so it doesn't really benefit the individual too much.
    • EADGBE 8y ago
      You'll sometimes get charged a "plate fee" for doing this, though.
      • cptskippy 8y ago
        Which is fine, it's not unlike coperto in Italy. The waiter is still servicing two people even if they're only eating one meal.
  • mnky9800n 8y ago
    Which restaurants?
• sillyquiet 8y ago
  I love finding restaurants that serve food in 'normal' portion sizes (normal being enough for a hungry single human being). I dunno about other posters here, but I was raised by parents who predated the current obesity epidemic and whose own parents went through the Great Depression and 'clean your plate' and 'children are starving in Africa' were common refrains. I feel a great need to finish what I am served, and is has been a hard fought battle to not do that when the portion sizes are as ridiculously oversized as they can be in America. Eating with my spouse helps, as we can always split plates, but still. Vastly prefer smaller portion sizes.
  • bunderbunder 8y ago
    Back when I was having trouble with overeating at restaurants due to a similar "clean your plate" mentality, I got in the habit of just packing a Tupperware with me. When the food came, I'd pack up half of it and stick it under my chair before I started eating. A bit gauche, I realize, but better that than overeating. Rather striking to have such a concrete illustration that restaurants were giving me fully twice as much food as I really needed to be eating, too.
  • EADGBE 8y ago
    There's few memories I have so vividly of my childhood. The one that sticks out most is the emotional abuse I'd received from friends parent's when I couldn't finish my entire plate (but still ate a little bit of everything). Fuck them for that.
• CompelTechnic 8y ago
  My view as a (6 ft 0 inch tall, 170 pound [182 cm, 77 kg], slightly athletic, frugal) American: If I order an entree at a restaurant, I want that meal to be my biggest meal of the day, with rare exception. A meal at a restaurant is a special occasion, and should be a source of hospitality. The prime way for the restaurant to provide this hospitality is to accomodate my hunger! If I am still hungry at all after ordering and finishing an entree, then I am not satisfied. I'm totally fine with eating a bunch of cheap filler sides (fries, rice, etc) to make me full. Often times, I feel like more expensive restaurants do a worse job at actually filling you up with the entree, because they want to tack on appetizers, small plates, etc. I leave these sorts of restaurants angry sometimes. Just give me food, dang it! To reply to your thoughts, I always had read that restaurants and food in general were cheaper in the U.S. Curious that you found the opposite to be true.
  • myrloc 8y ago
    This is the usual perspective I heear from fellow Americans, but I can't agree with it. What ever happened to a satisfying experience that didn't involve stuffing oneself?
    • swimfar 8y ago
      He never said anything about "stuffing himself". He said he shouldn't leave the restaurant hungry. I don't see how this can be a controversial preference.
      • curun1r 8y ago
        Probably because satiety isn't a constant thing...our bodies adapt. As an American, whenever I spend time in Europe or Asia, I spend the first week feeling hungry. But after that, I adapt and I'm fine. And when I get back to the States, I spend the next month making two meals out of every restaurant portion I buy until my body eventually adapts back. In America, we stuff ourselves without realizing we're doing so.
    • Haul4ss 8y ago
      In America, anything worth doing is worth overdoing. :) (I live here too, I'm just poking fun at our culture)
• galago 8y ago
  In US urban areas, rent is a dominant cost, so low end/casual restaurants are trying to keep purchases in the $10-15 range. A Chipotle in a business district may only be able to handle a fixed number of customers, so its difficult if people purchase items a la carte. The 'solution' is to provide larger portions than the average customer wants even though there's diminishing returns. At the low end burger restaurants struggle when people are purchasing off of 'value menus.'
  • cptskippy 8y ago
    What you said doesn't make any sense to me at all. You seem to be drawing conclusions and making assertions by conflating low end casual dining with fast good. You state that it's difficult for a fast food restaurant to manage a la carte purchases when that's exactly what they are designed to do. Their entire business model is based around an a la carte menu. You then justify larger portions as a means to mitigate customers ordering additional portions. The reality is that for most casual or low end dining the customer knows what to expect and orders appropriately. At best your assertion about large portions would only work to satisfy first time customers.
    • saltcured 8y ago
      A core problem is a customer thinking that serving size and price should be proportional. Most of the real costs are independent of portion size, i.e. real estate, capital, and labor. The raw ingredients in restaurant food just aren't that much of the total cost. The rest of the differences between fast food or fine dining come down to the quest to find local maxima in this problem space. Fast food can bring the total cost closer to the raw ingredients by increasing the utilization of real estate, capital, and labor. A fine dining restaurant needs to dedicate much more real estate and staff to each customer, since they cannot serve as many customers in one time period. At the same time, they probably need at least some higher cost ingredients to satisfy the different expectations of a customer willing to pay higher prices.
• jandrese 8y ago
  A "small" pizza in the US is for two or three people. If you are alone you need to order a "personal pan" pizza. I don't know if it is still a thing, but last time I went to a TGI Fridays (a few years ago now) they had a menu option to make the portions smaller for a couple of bucks off. The caveat is that it didn't increase the quality of the food--and that's kind of a problem for a TGI Fridays. Finally, if you're going to something that calls itself a diner, you normally aren't expecting fine dining. The expectation is a big old plate of greasy fried chow. There is an expectation mismatch that is going to generate a lot of complaints. That said, I totally agree that way too many restaurants in the US subscribe to the "if we can't make it good, at least we can make it big" philosophy. There are certain establishments I won't even patronize because they're so ridiculous in this regard, like the Cheesecake Factory. "Here is your 4lb of spaghetti, but be sure to save room for the 2lb slice of cheesecake we are named for!"
  • ethagknight 8y ago
    Or order pizza 'by the slice'
• SerLava 8y ago
  You're not supposed to eat a whole American pizza. That's why you can get different toppings on either side of the pizza- so two people don't have to buy two separate pizzas.
  • pascalxus 8y ago
    this is correct. i don't know why they down voted you.
  • cableshaft 8y ago
    We got a large pan pizza the other day and it was enough for five people, who each got two slices. To have one person tackle that would have been crazy.
• pascalxus 8y ago
  Well, you can think of it as a double meal. Just get 1 meal and split it with the wife and kid. then the quantity is just about right. Only problem is, if you like different things, it won't work out.
• slv77 8y ago
  One of the key metrics for US casual dining firms is the number of times that they can turn a table in a night. In the industry the metric is called table turns and is often talked about on quarterly conference calls with investors. One thing that kills table turns are people who stay for dessert or coffee. On way to prevent that is to serve plates overloaded with cheap carb fillers (rice, fries, etc). People feel obligated to eat what is on the plate and when stuffed won’t linger. Other tips are to use hard surfaces (floors, walls, ceilings) so that the acoustics make it hard to talk; move tables to the center of the room; have waiters show up with check-in-hand when they ask about desserts; drop the check early; keep the restaurant too cold (too hot, men complain, too cold women leave); and put TVs on the walls (kills conversations).