Is this portion too small (pic)??? Should I complain?

[TeachyTeacher]

OK, a little 1st world problem-ish but we're really trying to budget and eat out rarely, as a treat. Went out over the weekend and ordered this pasta dish from a well known chain restaurant, costs around £15. Is it just me who thinks it's a kiddy portion? I took it up with the waitress who said it's the portion size and thats that... should I email a complaint?

Doesn't look like restaurants can win unless they can guess the exact tipping point between "where's the food?" and "a celebration of gluttony personally responsible for the world's obesity crisis that would feed me and my family for three weeks and the birds with the leftovers"

I go to chain restaurants because my DCs like the experience of social dining, having been exposed to it for their whole lives.

In terms of the quality of the ingredients and culinary skills, I am a much better cook than restaurant cooks (I call them 'cooks' rather than chefs because they are like school cooks in terms of expertise and I have had plenty of chef - prepared meals to know the difference).

Therefore, if they are now pricing their mains at around £25 as well as reducing portions, then it is the price point of a better restaurant and/or I would feel like a mug if I continued to give them my money.

Have you checked their Trip Advisor page for any similar comments?

I suspect there are a few things behind it.

• Prices are shooting up for everyone, including businesses, so to make a profit, they need to either raise prices or reduce portion sizes.
• The new calorie count thing on menus - maybe they think a dish like pesto pasta with chicken appeals to people trying to lose weight, so they want to keep it under a certain number of calories.
• They want you to order dessert/a side/a starter too - so smaller portions for mains mean you'll spend more money overall.

We used Tesco vouchers towards a Prezzo visit which came to about 70 for the 3 of us, so paid 40. Was shocked at that price. But have got used to making nice pasta dishes at home during lockdown. I would still go again as the service was good.

@Moochio

IT'S MASSIVE!!/THAT'S TINY!

My thoughts exactly

We went out for lunch at the weekend to a non-chain and the portions were tiny and cost £12-14 each. All but one was vegetarian too so no expensive meat or seafood. We're in Scotland too where there's no requirement to publish calorie counts. Pasta is so cheap to make that I really expect a decent plateful. Went home feeling hungry and ripped off.

It is really shocking how much restaurant prices have gone up in recent years and I agree there will come a tipping point soon where people just stop going as they feel the value for money is too poor.

I worked in restaurants for years so I know they're not being greedy, it's just costs skyrocketing. But I think a lot of average-y places and chains will find it's a bad long-term strategy as people will stop coming in.

We do love eating out so I do a lot of research these days to find reasonably priced options, meal deals, etc. Very rarely do chains, they all seem so overpriced (including the pubs).

I've noticed portion sizes going down because all costs are going through the roof, including typically cheap filler type ingredients normally used to bulk out a dish such as pasta or rice. The whole industry is due to contract and there will be more job losses unfortunately. I cannot justify the cost of eating out these days so I just have friends or family over to the house and we each bring a dish to make it less hassle for everyone.

@Soffit why does it have be chain restaurants you bring your children to? We eat out regularly with our children, and always have done, but apart from an occasional Nando’s or Supermacs (Irish fast food chain that is much better quality than McDonald’s), anywhere we go would be an independent restaurant. But perhaps we don’t have as many chain restaurants here.

I've noticed that vegetarian meals were almost always much smaller than meat options. As if not eating meat means not eating much of anything. I remember one Christmas dinner out everyone had more than they could eat except me who had a dinner like you'd expect in a primary school. I was still hungry after 3 courses. Now I'm gluten free too it's a case of any port in a storm when it comes to eating out. Unless places resort to serving half jacket potatoes or single leaf salads I'll be ok

£15 for pasta? It’s pennies for a pack of pasta. Did it have gold leaf added?

I think it’s very difficult for your budget/casual dining/chain restaurants to strike the right balance these days. For a lot of people value for money = large portions but the chain restaurants are also the ones who will be hit by the requirement to display calories and the concern for them would be that at least some of their customers will think twice about that cheap and easy to produce, creamy pasta dish if it’s hitting the 1500/2000 calorie mark!

All restaurants need some “cheap to produce, generates high profit” dishes and unless it’s handmade pasta, free range breast of chicken and pesto made from organically grown basil in the restaurant garden, the dish OP chose was always going to be one of them.

As has been pointed out the restaurant has lots of other costs besides the food itself so if eating out is a rare treat maybe it’s best to go somewhere the “value” is in the chefs skill in producing something you couldn’t easily and quickly do at home. Otherwise the value is in somebody else cooking the family’s choices to order and you not having to clean up after!

It's not just the cost of the pasta!! It's staffing, energy, rent, business rates, water and all the other costs that seem to spiral only upwards...

[quote Anoisagusaris]@Soffit why does it have be chain restaurants you bring your children to? We eat out regularly with our children, and always have done, but apart from an occasional Nando’s or Supermacs (Irish fast food chain that is much better quality than McDonald’s), anywhere we go would be an independent restaurant. But perhaps we don’t have as many chain restaurants here.[/quote]
We do all of those as well. Basically, until the pandemic, the majority of their lives have been rather nomadic, living in hotels out of suitcases in different countries and eating out several times a day for weeks at a time. It has been hard to suddenly adjust to a more normal pattern of life.

They like to meet their friends at these chain restaurants. I think that the chains are a step up from Kfc and Mc Donalds (which I would not allow). However, I cannot say for sure!

@Pipsquiggle

A pic would help, however, 2 things to consider over the past couple of weeks:

1. All restaurants have to have a calorie amount stated for each dish on the menu. This means that each dish will probably be more stringently weighed / checked than before. So essentially for your dish they may have been trying to get below a certain calorie amount and therefore one of the ways to do is restrict the portion size

1. Cost of goods is just mental and therefore passing cost onto the customer

Calorie counts only have to be on menus if the company employs more than 250 people.

That effectively means only the chains in most cases. Small independents are not affected but of course may choose to do so voluntarily

Putting aside the size, £15 for a pasta meal is excessive or is this how much eating out has increased?

DH is off today and we've decided to go out for lunch. We're walking out to partly save on cost of our treat, but I better look at the menu, as like many we mentally have a budget of how much we can justify spending.

@DesidaCrick

It's not just the cost of the pasta!! It's staffing, energy, rent, business rates, water and all the other costs that seem to spiral only upwards...

We know that!! But it doesn't stop £15 for a small bowl of food that doesn't involve time, skill, unusual or expensive ingredients or following a recipe being considered poor value for money by most people.

@DesidaCrick

It's not just the cost of the pasta!! It's staffing, energy, rent, business rates, water and all the other costs that seem to spiral only upwards...

People are aware of that.

But there's only a certain amount you can charge for a relatively plain pasta dish without people feeling like you're ripping them off.

There's no way I would pay £15 for pasta with pesto and a piece of chicken - I could make it at home for probably less than a fifth of that price.

And yes, I know you're paying for the "experience" and that staff and utility costs need to be paid for, but if you're at the stage where you need to charge £15 for a really basic bowl of pasta, maybe you need to re-jig your menu or think about whether your business is actually viable long-term.

I rarely order pasta out either. I do appreciate that they are cooking it etc but unless it has a decent amount of an expensive ingredient, then It's usually much more of a rip off than other meals. Even lovely fresh made pasta in a restaurant costs buttons to make and cook.

if you compare it to something like a steak for example. You might get that on a menu in a gastro pub with all the trimmings and sauce for £25ish. The steak bought by yourself will be over £10 and then add in all the rest, usually some nice vine tomatoes, chips, onion rings, maybe salad or mushrooms and a peppercorn or other sauce, all cooked and served etc with ingredients probably about £15. Pasta will have cost them about 50p tops and the sauce could be a couple of quid at most. No more skill or time to cook than making the steak dish. In fact in a pub type situation you might pay the same for a burger with all the trimmings as you'd pay for pasta and that probably won't even be fresh pasta.

We went to Cote recently, not sure if they are national but def a chain. I had a duck confit cassoulet main, for £19 and it was TINY. For a duck leg and beans. DH had fish and ended up with a bag of chips on the way home.

I just don't think it's worth it anymore. Paid £170 for 2 adults and two kids at our local family Italian recently, two starters, four adult mains (pasta), water, a beer and two glasses of wine. I understand why they have to do it but I can cook pasta just as well at home. Ditto steak, and sunday roasts. New pub has just opened and it £21 for a roast, £84 for 4 without drinks / desert / service. I'd rather spend the money in the local butcher and do it myself.

Ah shame you can’t post a picture as I would have loved to see the usual comments of ‘thats a massive portion OP, I would eat that all week.. whats wrong with just having a lettuce leaf and water!?’

Either way, i do think eating italian food is always disappointing as i too find most portions very small for what they actually serve…

I remember a few years ago going to Piccolino in sheffield and had the blandest plate of pasta ever. Probably around £15 mark. My friends like their food but I am a keen cook and I'm not english so am used to more flavour. Even the most basic of bars in Spain for example serve delicious meals better than most restaurants around here anyway.

Had lunch in Tampopo in the trafford last week. £40 for 2 of us and left half of it as it was inedible. The rice was tasteless (like I imagine some frozen ready meal to be like). The coconut prawns were dry. The sticky chicken wings were sickly and salty and the only delicious thing were the mushroom gyozas because I imagine they were ready made. My 11 year cooks better.

I’m invested now and need the photo !

But it wouldn’t surprise me tbh. I had ravioli recently- 3 ravioli to be exact.