PrintIf the restaurant is so nice, why such small portions?
When you go to a nice restaurant you want atmosphere and food, am I right? Instead these days you get atmosphere and a tiny dab of brightly colored sauce with decorative stuff ontop? DONT YOU EVER WANT MORE? I mean we go to restaurnats to eat, so why not give us food? Basically Im saying that if you are going to go to a fancy place and spend almost $200 for a meal, you want a bit more food.
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26 Comments:
No. I don't want more. I go to a decent restaurant because I don't want to eat from the trough.
If you want food - go to Olive Garden or TGI Fridays. They will be more than happy to shovel food down your throat.
bravian at 8:12PM on 05/15/08
hmmm ... been a member all of an hour or so ...
It depends on where you go and what the concept is. But bravian is also correct in that flavor and style are also important in such places. There's an art to it, and they won't just slop it on your plate.
LunaPierCook at 8:21PM on 05/15/08
Wow... bravian... why so snitty?? Did you have a bad day or something? Truly, that was uncalled for!!
I tend to agree with culinarygenius- with a caveat or two. If I spend $200 on a meal I expect to be wowed by the entire experience. For $200 apiece I assume you did a chef's tasting. Which, by its very nature is a series of small bites- to allow you a sampling of the very best the chef has to offer. Any chef worth his chops (ha! no pun intended) should wow you and leave you sated at the end of the meal. The last time I dropped two bills per person at a restaurant we had the tasting menu and the accompanying wine selections.
If you spent that on a meal and merely got a tiny amount of food- no wine, etc... then you have every right to be upset. The one and only time that happened to me was at a newly opened, greatly hyped place that prided itself on being uber avant garde. It closed shortly after opening. Two tiny, albeit perfect, scallops artfully arranged on a plate doth not an entree make!!
sbelle at 8:33PM on 05/15/08
I have always found, if you do not have copious amounts of food on your plate, you will take your time and savour the flavor of the dish and appreciate the quality of the ingredients and the ability of the chef to give you a true food experience. Hope that makes sense to you, culinarygenius?
izatryt at 8:36PM on 05/15/08
Possibly the restaurants you are frequenting are only interested in elitist, haughty patrons who get their thrills from overpaying for foam and bragging about it.
If I'm paying $200 for food (not liquor), I have the highest expectations for flavor, style, service, ambiance and I do not expect to go home hungry.
PerkyMac at 8:38PM on 05/15/08
@Perky, ah yes, the foam of molecular gastronomy. Not even as good as aerosal non-dairy "whipped topping". ;-)
LunaPierCook at 8:43PM on 05/15/08
@LPC.....LOL out loud! It comes in aerosal now? Does Aunt Sandy know?
PerkyMac at 8:45PM on 05/15/08
You know how that stuff comes straight out the top of that can? My mom didn't. Least favorite uncle across the table, my legally-blind mom picks one up and says, "Boy, this'll be fun." The stuff streamed right into his lap! No, he never forgave her, but we never stopped laughing, either.
LunaPierCook at 8:50PM on 05/15/08
this thread reminds me of the commercial where a couple go out to dinner, leave hungry, & immediately head out for junk food. The guy called it, "elf food". lol
sbelle at 8:53PM on 05/15/08
I won't say what I'm thinking, but it's really funny if you heart the guy. I did the same thing once, but with a whole different reaction. Your uncle might not have appreciated it. There is a purpose for that stuff. My family had fun squirting it. Your Mom sounds like a fun lady!
Regarding foam - I thought Marcel from Top Chef might come out with his own aerosal cans of that snotty looking stuff. And I don't mean haughty snotty, but nasal snotty. Yuk!
Oops, sorry for being SO off topic. Ummmmm, I don't like being hungry after eating a meal.
PerkyMac at 9:03PM on 05/15/08
The most perfect meal I've ever had, both for content and quality, was the Chef's Tasting at One If By Land TIBS. My BF and I went last year. (The one linked doesn't include the Beef Wellington, their signature dish, but the one we had did.)
The parade of perfectly prepared and presented food, including dessert, seemed to go on forever, yet I didn't feel like a fatted calf when we left. I was definitely full, just not T-Giving full. Definitely not uncomfortably full.
More would have been less.
If I want "more," I go to a rib joint or a Mexican restaurant. Expensive ingredients are not likely to be heaped onto a dinner plate.
chiff0nade at 9:40PM on 05/15/08
Usually, when you pay upwards of 200$ for food and wine it's for a tasting. Tasting equals many many many many 'bites', all of which add up. Some places I got to basically try to kill you with good food, though I'm not complaining.
...either that or the restaurants you've been going to have been treating you crap. Most decent places give you that lovely celebratory overindulgent feeling you get after 10 or so courses...
jazzinx at 12:22AM on 05/16/08
There is a certain logic to smaller portions in an upscale restaurant. Usually (and hopefully) the quality of ingredients tend to be better and the dish tends to be richer, or more well-seasoned, or intensely flavored. A smaller amount suffices. Blander fare tends to encourage overcomsuption--i.e. I can eat an absolute crapload (and that is the technical term) of things like macaroni and cheese and chicken-fried steak and buscuits with white gravy. Generally, with the flavor profiles themselves being more satisfying, an upscale place can "get away" with smaller, more intricate portions.
All that being said, one should never need to leave a $200/plate dinner hungry. Ever. Small portions or not.
rosezilla at 12:46AM on 05/16/08
It depends what is being served. Never tell people where to eat bravian it's rude. We agree to disagree here but the jerky comment is not needed.
Sometimes I like to savor a few different small plates and other times I want a big plate or bowl of something. There are places where I will order something I like in small order because that is enough and other times I want to drag some home. If you spent 200 bucks and walked away hungry survey says was more pretension and less substance.
JerzeeTomato at 4:24AM on 05/16/08
i dont remember reading where culinarygenius said they wanted food shoveled down their throat....or that they wanted to eat from a trough.....a very nasty comment that doesent belong on here....i do agree that if a person goes to a restaurant they should leave satisfied....not hungry.....no matter what the price....
http://matththebutcher.com/
onepercent99 at 7:56AM on 05/16/08
Yes, I'd rather not leave a restaurant hungry. That said, a small portion, bursting with flavor, is more satisfying to me than a humongous portion of gelatinous crap.
Smaller is better. If it's exquisite tasting, wait 20 minutes before eating anything else. Your stomach, your arteries and your psyche will thank you.
TikiPundit at 9:33AM on 05/16/08
Usually if the meal has cost $200 I figure most of that sum is the cost of the atmosphere. The actors, actresses, director, producer (oops I mean the restaurant staff, owners, cooks, chef) have been complicit in setting out to entertain me. Money well spent, as long as the food is good too.
As far as portion sizes go, different people like different sizes. I guess part of the reason for that would be physiology where it is not emotion.
But in the end, really, if I'd already spent $200 and was still hungry (unlikely, for the portion size I prefer is very small unless it's spaghetti or cheesecake - two things for which there should be no boundaries in life) I'd probably be willing, able, and eager to spend another 5.99 on the six dollar burger combo at Hardee's which could keep a small country alive for about a week. Then I'd be full and would only have had to toss about some spare change to accomplish it.
Karen Resta at 10:53AM on 05/16/08
I chuckled reading this and thought of one of the last times my mother was able to go out to eat before she died ~15 years ago. We went to Roy's, a fairly nice restaurant in Hawaii and near where we lived.
On the menu was a rack of lamb with garlic mashed potatoes and asparagus that my father immediately picked out. I got a pasta dish with salmon, and my mother picked ahi with lemongrass. We had to order our dessert (3 cobblers) at the start of the meal or it would not come out in time. I don't recall what our appetizers were, but we ordered 2 platters to share.
Enter: our entrees in large white platters. My entree, the cheapest on the menu ~$20, filled the plate, looked and was tasty IIRC. My mother's dish was ~$25, and the fish was enormous (I thought it tasted like ass though - she may have too...she only ate 3-4 bites...or she was too ill to eat much). Dun dun duuuun, my father's platter...presentation was pretty amazing. For $39, you'd expect it.
My father looked at his dish, my dish, and then at me. I giggled when I saw the look on my father's face...then laughed when the servers left.
The rack consisted of a lamb 'rack,' meat portion consisted of two 2" x 2" pieces. Mashed potatoes was a dollar coin-sized dollop, and he had one asparagus spear. Artfully arranged, but not what he expected, especially when he saw our dishes and the price difference.
After we shared our food amongst each other, he was left with one morsel of lamb, half an asparagus, and a bite of mashed potatoes.
He enjoyed the flavors, but also gobbled up his cobbler. In addition, we stopped by Burger King on the way home, and he grabbed a Whopper.
Funny thing is, I hazily remember what I and my mother ate, but clearly remember what he (sorta) ate. :P
Cassaendra at 12:12PM on 05/16/08
...oh, while my mother and I brought home leftovers. I was STUFFED.
Cassaendra at 12:17PM on 05/16/08
back in the day my parents liked to celebrate special occasions at this fancy-pants hotel by our house. the restaurant opened with a tapas menu, and everything was exquisite. the chef said that was his favorite way to cook, because after a few bites, you're no longer tasting the food but just eating to be full. but if you keep eating different things, you get to still enjoy tasting new things.
billyburgwife at 1:53PM on 05/16/08
I know what you mean, I've left some very expensive dinners hoping that my favorite pizza parlor is still open so that I could supplement my $200 dinner with a $2 slice.
However, I know that what you pay at a restaurant reflects more than just the food on your plate. That $2 slice was almost as filling as that $200 dinner, but it also took about 3 minutes from ordering to biting whereas the expensive dinner took about 3 hours from cocktails to cordials. The pizza was a simple, albeit delicious, cheese pizza; whereas my dinner earlier included fresh oysters, some caviar, some foie, dover sole, cheese & salad courses, dessert and coffee. The pizza was served on a white paper plate while the multiple courses at 1 North were served on fine china (sorry I didn't pick up the plate to see if it was Limoges or Noritake, but I was tempted--LOL) with appropriate silverware for each course and appropriate stemware with each wine pairing. Also at the pizza parlor there is a steady stream of carry out and delivery orders, the tables turn within the hour; whereas at 1 North, the dining room will seat about 55-60 at once and it is unlikely they will have a full second seating. All this and I haven't mentioned the staff and the time the staff spends with you or doing things for you.
And the kicker is that since I know both the pizza parlor owner and the French restaurant owner, I know that the pizza parlor clears more profit than the French restaurant.
Yes, we go to restaurants to eat, but to the point, we go to fine restaurants to dine. The dining experience is more than just eating.
wookie at 1:56PM on 05/16/08
As long as I don't go home hungry (which I never have been from a chef's tasting menu e.g per se, daniel, ramsay, eleven madison park, bouley) I'm fine.
There are times when small to very small portions are fine and expected (chef tasting menus).
And then there are times when it's just haughty, snobby, off putting, and a rip-off (the only place that comes to mind is TAILOR).
fascfoo at 5:06PM on 05/16/08
And Bravian, there CAN be a middle ground between high quality, well thought out food presented in a portion that should satisfy the average dinner goer and "food shoveling" at the nearest Applebees. Ugh.
fascfoo at 5:11PM on 05/16/08
Most chefs I know give portions that are really too big for one person to eat at one meal. However, I have encountered the ones you're talking about. Given a choice, though, I would rather leave a meal so memorable I would like more, but satisifed so as to not eat more.
beth1 at 10:50PM on 05/16/08
@fascfoo, well said. There's no need to be snotty. This reminds me of the time my family and I were at a fancy restaurant, and I was STARVING so I ordered tortellini. It came and it was a huge dish with EIGHT TINY, decent tasting but completely uninteresting tortellini. For $25. I think it depends on what they're serving, because there are a lot of delicacies I'd eat to taste, like on a tasting menu, but not to satisfy my appetite. I personally don't think it's humanly possible to be satisfied with a meal as tiny as some things I've seen served, and I definitely find that with a lot of upscale places, the taste isn't worth the price. (example 2 - two shrimp with dipping sauce. TWO.)
embolini9 at 12:41PM on 05/19/08
Reminds me of the time my husband ordered a steak at an upscale restaurant where the menu description said it came with "baby carrots." The steak was a fine size, and quite delicious, but it came with ONE baby carrot. Cut in half.
QueenHerm at 12:12PM on 05/25/08