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Q: Are food portions in Chinese restaurant too big for you?
I've had this issue of late where I've gone into my local noodle hole or fried rice joint for a spot of lunch or whatever and have been surprisingly large portions. Not one to waste food, I tend to eat it all up though often leave feeling too full. Although it's not quite super-size, I've been a bit surprised at the sizes of food portions I've had at times. One bowl of noodles will often have me feeling full (uncomfortably so) for a long time. Is this normal for you as well? I was under the impression portions would generally be smaller as, well you know, the locals are generally smaller than us.
i agree. In summer when i have less of an appetite (due to the heat), i am paying for food that i couldn't possibly manage to eat.
I was brought up to finish everything on the plate (or bowl).
knowing the size of the portions, i find that summer in China means i am only eating 2 meals a day, as any more would make me uncomfortable.
Good question by the OP, and the answer is "Yes".
You either get people ordering lots of different dishes and wasting half of it, or you get someone ordering one or two which are massive in size, or you get somewhere in-between.
I am on a trip to Beijing at the moment, and only today I saw a group of girls being given two more plates of food to go with what they had. The plates of food were large. They would have made me full, and I cna eat, despite being full.
The two plates were turned away.
The excessively large portions are usually only noodles and fried rice/gaifan (rice with the dish served on top). It doesn't cost that much for the restaurant to prepare, since what makes most of the plate/bowl is the rice or noodles. People will usually eat the part with the dish and leave the rest of the rice, which can sometimes be half of the portion. Even the LaMian noodles are an illusion: the good part has only two thin slices of meat and turnip then it's served with tons of noodles.
it's just like those 50rmb all you can eat restaurants. You think to yourself, damn that's so much food for only 50kuai! But you actually end up eating for only 25kuai
That depends.
Mounds and mounds of rice, noodles and bones.
But when it comes to meat, almost nothing. Just more bones.
GuilinRaf:
I was talking about this with my girfriend today, so it was still fresh in my mind....
The street food portions aren't too big. Portions in restaurants are bigger but meant to be shared. I can never get my point across that I hate plain rice that comes with a meal. I'd rather have fried rice. If its meat, then there is never enough, like my Peking Duck. I was expecting meat, looked beautiful but someone stole my meat.
