Taking food home from a pub/restaurant

[storminabuttercup]

My grandma often does this, say for example she orders a roast beef baguette and she can't finish it, she wraps the other half and pops in in her handbag. Years ago this would have really embarrassed me, but she did it today and it didn't bother me, was I being unreasonable before to be embarrassed or now to not care I wonder?

Thought I'd pass it over to the mn jury! :-)

Of course, as long as I can dip mine in soy sauce. [slaver and drool emoticon]

People leave WINE??

But?

Huh?

It was a very nice slice of 'Black Gold' beef. Omnomnom. Worth saving, although DH was mortified and thinks the front of house lady saw me. We have not returned to the restaurant since.

On the 'wine' topic, I once asked for the cork in a Chinese restaurant so I could take home the full bottle of wine that I was too pissed full to drink. I shamelessly took it home on the bus. It would be very wrong to leave wine.

emsyj, see, that's why openness in asking for food to be wrapped up is the best policy. Then you don't need to try to sneak it out, or worry that they'll see you sneaking it out.

Some establishments might think you may be sneaking the food out to be 'analysed' like in Watchdog or something.

I didn't mind being caught really, it was DH that refused to let me ask them to wrap it - foolishly believing that I would never do something so disgusting as wrapping it in a random bit of loo roll that I had in my bag for nose wiping and sneaking it out!

He knows better now and doesn't protest when I ask at the Indian restaurant, 'could you wrap it up please?'

I don't know why people are shy about taking food home - if I had leftovers from dinner I would put them to one side to eat later/reheat the next day, I rarely bin food. It's no different to take home food from a restaurant that would otherwise be wasted.

I used to waitress a lot as a teenager.

I made foil swans when I wrapped up the leftovers for diners.

«fancy»

As others have said, it is the norm in the USA to do this. I am in the UK though, and do this now if there is a reasonable amount left over. We go to a cafe that does the biggest portions I have ever known, and even if you ask for a childs portion, and tell them you are happy to pay the full price, they still pile it sky high. For example, ham egg and chips comes with about 8 slices of ham, 3 eggs and a mountain of chips. I used to find it over-facing, but now that I am in the habit of asking for a doggy bag, it doesnt bother me too much.

Even if it just gets fed to the dog or the foxes it is better than it going in the bin.

I remember wrapping leftovers for all sorts of people back in the day.

I'd have been at anyone taking wine from other diners' tables though. As has been mentioned already, leftover wine is a staff perk.

Do the staff drink leftover wine? But they don't know what may have been done to it.

Well not the wine left in glasses, no

But in the bottles? What could have been done to it?

I mean, obviously if I saw someone skulking back from the toilets with it...

I don't know, maybe slugged some out of the bottle maybe. Or know that it's a staff perk and didn't like the meal or service so put something in it? I have a very untrusting nature, plus I have never left any wine.

In the US some people don't have proper kitchens and just eat out every other day and have the doggy bag food every other day. Some of the waiting staff were offended when we didn't want to take doggy bags in the US, but we were on expenses so had no intention of eating leftovers.

I paid for it- it's mine.

Mmmcoffee , yes I suppose they could refuse to let us have the wine, but as dreamingbohemian says they would only neck it themselves or chuck it away, or, I suppose in less reputable establishments, sell it off by the glass later. Whatever, no problems so far, (probably because not too many people have the cheek to ask) and yes people do leave wine behind.
Not us, obviously.

My mum got embarrassed once when I asked for a box to take home her leftover pizza from Pizza Express. She'd left half of it, I wasn't going to let her walk away without it.

She seemed to think it was the height of shame to ask for it to go. It wasn't, and now she'll always take it home.

I don't understand leaving that much food. It'll go in the bin otherwise.

I am really glad that everyone is saying I was being ur before but not now! I'm just a teeny bit surprised that not one person has said that it's wrong though!!

The chef in our pub refuses to take responsibility for food once it has left the premises - because he says it could be stored or reheated unhygenically and eaten several days later, and we could still be sued. So we have come to a compromise where we happily package up left over food for people to take home but add a sticker regarding storage/reheating/consummation within 24 hours. It irks me - but it's better than saying 'no you can't take what you've paid for!'

Fnarrr at 'consummation' :o

That seems mad hells you dont get warnings on takeaway food! I think putting a warning on could be worse, they could still mess it up and say 'but they said do this, this and that and I'm now ill'

I used to weep (well almost) at the amount of food we threw away when I was working in my friends pub as a waitress. I only helped out when one of his staff called in sick or he had a big do on, and in one evening alone enough food would be thrown away to feed my family for a week.

Take it home PLEASE if only to feed to animals or to put in your brown bin as alot of restaurant food waste isnt sorted and sent for composting and goes in with general waste.

My mum does this, especially with the eat all you can Chineese buffet, she cleared most of the spring rolls, wrapped them up in a paper napkin and put them into her bag for later .

As for left over wine - that is pretty rare - but when it is left we just chuck it. I would not contemplate resellling it by the glass. I've never seen anyone take a half finished bottle left behind - but my instinct would be to discourage this, because a) I'd rather each table of customers bought a fresh round of drinks and b) what if something had been added to it eg salt or pepper? - would you then complain that it was 'off'?

Oh and re wine...

My friends restaurant is attached to his pub/hotel and we loved it when his italian regulars stayed for work as they would always order a bottle of really expensive wine, take one small glass each and leave the waitress the rest as a tip, usually about half a bottle! As head waitress when I worked, I always made sure I got that table and gave up my measly 2 or 3 quid worth of tips for it. The others didnt mind as they were alot younger and wanted lager not fine wine and were happy to have a bit of extra cash!