Restaurant portion sizes are huge

[Paq]

Does anyone else find this? Went to a pub/restaurant last night and the portion sizes were insane. I managed a third of my salad, brought the rest home and shared it with DH for lunch today. DD got through half her curry and 6'1" hollow legged DH just about managed to finish his risotto but then felt overstuffed all night.

It isn't half the cost to produce half a portion. In fact the saving is sometimes only pennies, depending upon what the meal is.

But someone like me would order more courses if the portions were smaller. So they would sell more dishes. My family like three courses, I end up attempting to circumnavigate and order off menu with varying degrees of success. Added to this a more carefully constructed lower calorie main, with less starchy carbs, a slightly reduced meat portion and increased portions of greens could be the same price as a more calorific main - it would fill a good sized plate.

For example, serving a pasta dish which has more sauce and less pasta in it than usual with a side salad alongside, reduces calories but not overall meal size. It is satisfying without being too much to finish.

Serving a pie in a smaller dish which is essentially a casserole with a pastry disk for a lid (instead of being a complete pie), alongside a quarter of the amount or mash but more non starchy vegetables and plenty of gravy is lower in calories than the usual meal but again much less calorific and fills the plate.

grasstreeleaf your alternate suggestions would be more expensive though - pasta costs almost nothing, its the sauce ingredients which cost. Unfortunately its the simple carbohydrates which are cheap. The meals you suggest might be delicious and healthy, but your smaller portion would be more expensive than the standard dishes you describe.
You might be fine with that but as a mass market business model it might be less successful especially for the kind of somewhat cheaper restaurants which cater to a customer base who see big portions as value for money.

But salad and veg is generally far cheaper than meat. The meals I am taking about have half the plate filled with veg and the meat portion can be significantly reduced.

Obviously there already are plenty of restaurants serving smaller portions and aiming for a per head spend of £60 or £70 or more including wine and three courses and coffee... but those are not the restaurants serving big portions because that's what their market responds to with repeat business.

If it were meat in a sauce veg such as mushrooms could be added to that too.

And we cook this way at home and have reduced food costs. 🤷‍♀️

grasstreeleaf all those meals take a lot more preparation (chef's time) than the things you're replacing - staff costs tend to be a bigger percentage of running costs than ingredients. More ingredients per dish also means more food waste in the kitchen before the food is sold - meaning money thrown away in the form of food the customer doesn't pay for.

The meals you suggest wouldn't be cheaper than the standard ones - reducing simple carbohydrate bulk increases the price unless you simply leave it off the plate without replacing it with alternatives (in which case it still only saves pennies).

@grasstreeleaf

Serving a pie in a smaller dish which is essentially a casserole with a pastry disk for a lid (instead of being a complete pie), alongside a quarter of the amount or mash but more non starchy vegetables and plenty of gravy is lower in calories than the usual meal but again much less calorific and fills the plate.

That’s absolutely not what I’d want ordering pie and mash in a restaurant. There’s an expectation that it’s a plate full of stodge. Half the pastry missing and a quarter of a mash portion would put me off going back. Some meals just aren’t built to be healthy. They’re made to be eaten rarely.

grasstreeleaf you're not a restaurant though! Comparing home food costs is utterly meaningless - ingredient costs are only 20% of the running costs of a budget end restaurant (more for expensive restaurants). You can also use left overs and juggle recipies and meal plans so as not to throw stuff away - a restaurant can't tell the last table they have to order the things they still have half portions of.

If you can't understand the difference and don't want to then anyone talking to you will end up going around in circles...

I just think there is a market for it. Plenty of posters on here have agreed they would prefer a smaller portion. Some restaurants (popular Italian style food chains) already do this kind of thing along with smaller desserts and coffee.

There’s an expectation that it’s a plate full of stodge.

Well, you could just order the traditional full sized non low calorie version, couldn't you...

@grasstreeleaf

I just think there is a market for it. Plenty of posters on here have agreed they would prefer a smaller portion. Some restaurants (popular Italian style food chains) already do this kind of thing along with smaller desserts and coffee.

So why aren’t loads of restaurants doing healthy pie and mash and healthy fish and chips?

Let’s face it-anyone wanting a healthy option in a restaurant isn’t going to be ordering those things. They’ll be having massive salads.

Lower calorie, I should say...

The Hairy Bikers, Hairy Dieters book was very successful and did just this type of thing. I've had pies which just had a pastry lid several times before. Years ago mash potato was served in ice cream scoop sized balls and it wasn't uncommon to be just given one scoop.

grasstreeleaf there may be a market for it, but not for the whole menu in the kind of restaurants where the main customer base see large portions as value for money, and not as any sort of particularly useful answer to the oft chanted about obesity crisis - logically the customers who'd choose the dishes you describe would be unlikely to be the people you say are unaware that their portions are too big!

@grasstreeleaf

The Hairy Bikers, Hairy Dieters book was very successful and did just this type of thing. I've had pies which just had a pastry lid several times before. Years ago mash potato was served in ice cream scoop sized balls and it wasn't uncommon to be just given one scoop.

Stop diet splaining.

You seem to think those of us happy with restaurant portions being bigger than what we eat a home are all fat.

I’m a bloody size eight thank you very much. I cook and eat well most of the time at home. I just want a proper pie and a mountain of mash when I’m out.

I think I said, earlier on this thread, that there seems to be an inverse relationship between the expensiveness of a restaurant, and the size of the portions - the more it costs, the smaller the portion.

I’m lucky that, when Dh and I eat out, we can afford to go to pricier places, where we do get much smaller portions. And I do still feel satisfied afterwards - maybe because we take more time over the meal, eat slowly, and chat.

I have also had to get over my childhood training that you had to clear your plate - I still feel guilty if I leave food on my plate, but at least now I do leave food, rather than clearing it all.

@grasstreeleaf - at my junior school, the eldest kids had to help the dinner lady dish up the dinners, and I used to love dishing up the mash with the ice cream scoop - if I got to do that, it was the highlight of the day.

Sadly the potato was reconstituted mash, which had been transported in a thermos container from the secondary school 10 miles away, so it was luke warm too. Basically inedible. And we weren’t allowed to ask for a half portion of potatoes, because the dinner lady said “Ha,f souls never go to heaven!”

@PurpleDaisies

I’m a bloody size eight thank you very much. I cook and eat well most of the time at home. I just want a proper pie and a mountain of mash when I’m out.

Ditto apart from the way you like your pie. You said,

Some meals just aren’t built to be healthy. They’re made to be eaten rarely.

The meals I outlined could be eaten regularly without having to adjust your eating or exercise. to account for the extra.

Sadly the potato was reconstituted mash, which had been transported in a thermos container from the secondary school 10 miles away, so it was luke warm too. Basically inedible

Sadly our mash was grey, dry, lumpy (made from real potatoes though you could see the eyes!) and equally inedible too. We were told to eat it all too. Made me hate the stuff for over a decade until I had it prepared properly.

@PurpleDaisies, so if the meals I outline could be eaten regularly and outside of Covid I used to eat out once a week and you like to eat out rarely to enjoy a rare treat, then surely the meals I outlined could be happily consumed more often and would be...

Room for both I think.

I’m lucky that, when Dh and I eat out, we can afford to go to pricier places, where we do get much smaller portions. And I do still feel satisfied afterwards - maybe because we take more time over the meal, eat slowly, and chat.

I actually think it is also the type of food. Higher saturated fat and protein satiates more than copious carbs cooked in vegetable oils according to Jason Fung's research.

I have also had to get over my childhood training that you had to clear your plate - I still feel guilty if I leave food on my plate, but at least now I do leave food, rather than clearing it all.

Yes, this is something I mentioned as common but which was disputed upthread. @SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius