Restaurant Satsisfaction

I8A4RE

Was out for dinner and got so much food that I was too stuffed. The steak was for from medium and the rest of the food just tasted stodgy. The restaurant was good before but the food, and only the food has gone done in quality

Anyway it got me thinking is it better to have small amounts of very good food or leave the restaurant stuffed?

homemadecider

Eh... neither? Why don't you just stop eating when you're full? I hate the feeling of being stuffed but it is easy to avoid. Take a doggy bag if you've loads left on your plate.

Tiddlypeeps

homemadecider wrote: »

Eh... neither? Why don't you just stop eating when you're full? I hate the feeling of being stuffed but it is easy to avoid. Take a doggy bag if you've loads left on your plate.

Some people like feeling full. It's probably a bad thing and probably why the world is turning fat but the question was about satisfaction so weather it's healthy or not is probably irrelevant.

I have a friend who I'm convinced has no tastebuds and a bottomless pit where his stomach should be. His only metric for weather a meal is good or not is how much of it there is on the plate, even if it tastes like ash. I've seen him put away enough food for several people. He isn't fat either, somehow

Personally I would prefer small portions of something delicious than large portions of something mediocre.

pwurple

A doggy bag? Gross. And what are you supposed to do with that when you go for a drink afterwards? Rotting food stuffed into your handbag? The alternative being to bin it.

I prefer smaller portions, where I can order more if I want it. There are plenty of irish people who only consider a place to be worthwhile if they get A Good Feed. Nothing turns me off more than a mountain of food waste.

The Hill Billy

pwurple wrote: »

A doggy bag? Gross. And what are you supposed to do with that when you go for a drink afterwards? Rotting food stuffed into your handbag?...

It is not "rotting food" - it is just left overs. If you are going for a drink afterwards - don't get a doggy-bag.

I often get one - particularly for wings & the like, ie, grub that is easily reheated or just as good to eat cold.

pwurple

The Hill Billy wrote: »

It is not "rotting food" - it is just left overs. If you are going for a drink afterwards - don't get a doggy-bag.

I often get one - particularly for wings & the like, ie, grub that is easily reheated or just as good to eat cold.

Sorry hill billy, but leftovers scrapped off a plate, sitting in a bag is rotting food. Bacteria and fungi are growing away happily on it unless you are keeping it refrigerated, or hot during your transport. Yuck. Plus, why eat the same thing again so soon. Where is the variety in diet?

If I don't get a doggy bag as suggested, where does the food go instead? Landfill. What a waste of produce, energy, and my money! I really hate paying for things that go straight into a bin. If I'm binning food, there is something gone wrong and a decent restaurant will be asking why. Either there is something wrong with it, or I have over ordered, or a portion is way too big.

People are overeating like crazy... piles of food, enough for two meals on a plate as you say yourself. And yet some people finish them themselves in one go, clear the plates and expect this kind of thing to be the norm. It's fairly insidious, but it's happening in front of us. Portions increasing = Waistbands increasing. Thankfully it's nowhere near as bad here yet as it is in the US, where one dinner could feed a family of 4, but it's creeping up.

PirateShampoo

pwurple wrote: »

Sorry hill billy, but leftovers scrapped off a plate, sitting in a bag is rotting food. Bacteria and fungi are growing away happily on it unless you are keeping it refrigerated, or hot during your transport. Yuck. Plus, why eat the same thing again so soon. Where is the variety in diet?

If I don't get a doggy bag as suggested, where does the food go instead? Landfill. What a difference waste of produce, energy, and my money! I really hate paying for things that go straight into a bin. If I'm binning food, there is something gone wrong and a decent restaurant will be asking why. Either there is something wrong with it, or I have over ordered, or a portion is way too big.

People are overeating like crazy... piles of food, enough for two meals on a plate as you say yourself. And yet some people finish them themselves in one go, clear the plates and expect this kind of thing to be the norm. It's fairly insidious, but it's happening in front of us. Portions increasing = Waistbands increasing. Thankfully it's nowhere near as bad here yet as it is in the US, where one dinner could feed a family of 4, but it's creeping up.

So I'm assuming by the logic your using, you're eating food straight from the ground?

You do realise that in this day and age the fresh food your buying from the supermarket is probably a week or two old already and steaks are more that likely older than that.

Faith

pwurple wrote: »

Sorry hill billy, but leftovers scrapped off a plate, sitting in a bag is rotting food. Bacteria and fungi are growing away happily on it unless you are keeping it refrigerated, or hot during your transport. Yuck. Plus, why eat the same thing again so soon. Where is the variety in diet?

What do you think people do with doggy bags? Leave it sit in the car for hours? It's no more rotting on it's way back to your house than it is on your plate while you eat it. Plate -> sealed plastic tub (usually) -> fridge or belly. That's like saying anyone who brings their lunch to work is eating rotting food. Or making food for a picnic and not eating until you've gotten to the picnic spot is eating rotting food. Honestly, that's just being hysterical IMO.

the beer revolu

I agree and disagree with pwurple here.

I hate over filled plates. Too big a portion put in front of me and I loose my appetite instantly. It is such a waste.

On the other hand, I will always take a doggy bag if I have a decent bit of, say, meat or fish left over -premium produce, if you will, or sometimes dessert (if suitable for bagging).
I don't consider it rotting food any more than the bit of steak I might leave on the counter top at home after dinner for a few hours is rotting food.

I don't understand how you could abhor waste, yet consider produce that one minute is dinner to be rotting food the next minute.

homemadecider

LOL, "rotting food". Do you only eat freshly baked bread with wheat that you cut and ground yourself?

pwurple

I guess i do things differently. I normally don't go straight home after a meal. I'd go for a walk, or for a drink with buddies. it would be a good few hours of carrying tepid food around if I was to do it. Logistics wouldn't work at all for me.

I have a cooler box for picnics. There are obviously loads of things that are non perishable at room temp, but warm moist restaurant food would not be on that list.

Maybe it's a hangover from student days... I've seen too many plates of leftovers left on counters growing into mini-cities. Ew. I prefer to get the portions right in the first place and just not have that waste. There are plenty of times where you want things to be growing away happily themselves. A sourdough starter, live yoghurt or fermenting beer. But leftovers, not really.

(And yeah, i do grow my own veg and bake my own bread. I like fresh food to be fresh. Biltong is a different story. )

Anyway, each to their own. I just prefer one portion to arrive on my plate rather than two.

JONJO THE MISER

To be honest i like a good quality feed, the more the better for me.
When i get a steak i expect a mountain of fries not 5-6 like some places.
Remember going to 1 restaurant and ordered the steak, got the steak on a plate with 2 small spuds on a side plate:eek:, it was expensive as well, while the steak was very good they were having a laugh, had to got to a takeaway afterwards and get a proper feed.
There's 1 place in Galway that does it right, you get chicken wings a steak with all the trimmings and plenty of them and a pint for 16 Eur.

rubadub

This is the main reason I was looking forward to the proposed requirement for restaurants to display calories, so I could gauge the portion size I would get there. It would put you in a far better position to complain if you got small portions, and if you saw something was massive calories you could ask for it in a fraction you would prefer, e.g. half or 2/3 size of the quoted portion/calorie size.

bringupthebook

I think if you have a well balanced well made meal you dont get that very stuffed feeling after. If you are overloading on carbs or stodge then you will.

I had a lovely meal over the weekend. I dont eat big meals generally but I packed away a lot and I felt nicely contented after. For me thats a mark of a good meal.

If you think about it any junk food makes you feel stuffed very quickly but you might feel hungry a few hours later.

Frank Black

I stayed in the Ornmore Lodge hotel about 18months ago - got a dinner, bed, breakfast deal quite cheap. The restaurant was pretty nice, but I was really struck by the sheer quantity of food. We were given our mains on a plate each (obvioulsy) but there were also 2 separate large trays provided with potatoes and veg. Including the potato which came on my main plate, there were four types of potatoes served with the meal (chips, boiled, mash and garlic) along with mountains of carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, etc., not to mention the slabs of meat, stuffing and other bits on our main plates.
I wrote to the hotel afterwards, saying how much we enjoyed our stay but pointing out that the portion sizes for 2 people were OTT. Got a letter back thanking me for my comments and saying they would review.
I hate to see waste, and it's probably something people should bring to restaurant's attention more.