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My view as a (6 ft 0 inch tall, 170 pound [182 cm, 77 kg], slightly athletic, frugal) American:

If I order an entree at a restaurant, I want that meal to be my biggest meal of the day, with rare exception. A meal at a restaurant is a special occasion, and should be a source of hospitality. The prime way for the restaurant to provide this hospitality is to accomodate my hunger! If I am still hungry at all after ordering and finishing an entree, then I am not satisfied.

I'm totally fine with eating a bunch of cheap filler sides (fries, rice, etc) to make me full. Often times, I feel like more expensive restaurants do a worse job at actually filling you up with the entree, because they want to tack on appetizers, small plates, etc. I leave these sorts of restaurants angry sometimes. Just give me food, dang it!

To reply to your thoughts, I always had read that restaurants and food in general were cheaper in the U.S. Curious that you found the opposite to be true.

This is the usual perspective I heear from fellow Americans, but I can't agree with it. What ever happened to a satisfying experience that didn't involve stuffing oneself?

He never said anything about "stuffing himself". He said he shouldn't leave the restaurant hungry. I don't see how this can be a controversial preference.

Probably because satiety isn't a constant thing...our bodies adapt. As an American, whenever I spend time in Europe or Asia, I spend the first week feeling hungry. But after that, I adapt and I'm fine. And when I get back to the States, I spend the next month making two meals out of every restaurant portion I buy until my body eventually adapts back.

In America, we stuff ourselves without realizing we're doing so.

In America, anything worth doing is worth overdoing. :)

(I live here too, I'm just poking fun at our culture)

Most of those types of restaurants are just feeding you cheap, deep fried, slop. If I got to a special occasion restaurant invariably the meals will be small. I'm usually paying for the location, the reputation of the chef and their team, and the presentation of the food. If I wanted deep fried filler I have a skillet and freezer full of that at home.

As an expat dining in the US is stupidly expensive. I've had 3-course lunches at french restaurants that didn't cost more than $20. I consider myself lucky if I can eke $30/pp at the local wingery after food, drinks, taxes, and gratuity.

>> To reply to your thoughts, I always had read that restaurants and food in general were cheaper in the U.S. Curious that you found the opposite to be true.

If you compare the same quality food, it is way more expensive in the US. I can get a very decent 3-course meal here (Netherlands) for $20, maybe $30 if you include drinks (wine, beer). To get the same quality food in CA (and I've visited many, many places there) I would have to spend at least $50 without drinks, without tips.

Of course I can get food for $20 or $30 in CA at every corner of the street as well, but the quality will be way below what I expect for that money. The difference in perspective is probably that in the US there seem to be 9 low-end places for every decend mid-range restaurant, while here it's more like 50-50. Not trying to be a snob here, that's just my perception.

At the high-end it's way worse even, by the way. For $100 I can get a royal 6-course high-cuisine meal with accompanying wines for every course here, even at some restaurants rated with a Michelin star. I've been to places in e.g. Palo Alto, which were pretty good, but nowhere near the level of even a single michelin star, and the bill would approach $200 per person after including drinks and tips. Portion size was not a problem in these cases, by the way ;-)

I assume by CA you mean SV. It's wildly inappropriate to generalize SV experiences to the US as a whole. It's about as applicable to the reality most people live in as Floridaman stories.

Not just SV, I've been all around the pacific coast, but also inland (Central Valley, San Bernadino, etc). You won't find a lot more than Denny's, KFC and McDonalds there anyway ;-)

Try the Midwest or South. If all you've experienced in the US is the west, you're missing a lot.

it's just harder to find the good, cheaper places in california because they don't have the budget to advertise like the expensive places (by that i mean acquiring "free" press from local food critics, newspapers, and the like, not just literally paying yelp).

also, good western european(?) food (spanish/french/italian/etc) is more expensive than, say, good asian or latin american food. the plating of food into courses will bias you toward those more expensive restaurants, by the way. my favorite restaurants are typically single plate/bowl by design, which you can then share family-style by ordering a few items.

i'd also echo the point that good food costs way more in northern california than in southern california. socal just has many more cheaper, good restaurants to choose from.

An entrée is not supposed to be a main dish...

Interesting note on that, the usage of “entree” has shifted over the past 100 years; the American meaning ‘main course’ is in line with the 19th century French definition.

http://languageoffood.blogspot.com/2009/08/entree.html?m=1

What about the French usage? The French use of the word entrée in Escoffier's 1921 Le Guide Culinaire was still the traditional one ('made' hot meat dishes served in the classic sequence before a roast). Escoffier classifies as entrées almost any dish that we would now consider a main course: steaks (entrecotes or filet de boeuf, tournedos), cassoulet, lamb or veal cutlets, ham, sausage, braised leg of lamb (gigot), stews or sautes of chicken, pigeon or turkey, braised goose, foie gras. Escoffier has over 500 pages of entrée recipes. Only roast fowl, and small game animals are classified as roasts, in a small 14 page roast section.

A "small" pizza in the US is for two or three people. If you are alone you need to order a "personal pan" pizza.

I don't know if it is still a thing, but last time I went to a TGI Fridays (a few years ago now) they had a menu option to make the portions smaller for a couple of bucks off. The caveat is that it didn't increase the quality of the food--and that's kind of a problem for a TGI Fridays.

Finally, if you're going to something that calls itself a diner, you normally aren't expecting fine dining. The expectation is a big old plate of greasy fried chow. There is an expectation mismatch that is going to generate a lot of complaints.

That said, I totally agree that way too many restaurants in the US subscribe to the "if we can't make it good, at least we can make it big" philosophy. There are certain establishments I won't even patronize because they're so ridiculous in this regard, like the Cheesecake Factory. "Here is your 4lb of spaghetti, but be sure to save room for the 2lb slice of cheesecake we are named for!"

Or order pizza 'by the slice'

I love finding restaurants that serve food in 'normal' portion sizes (normal being enough for a hungry single human being). I dunno about other posters here, but I was raised by parents who predated the current obesity epidemic and whose own parents went through the Great Depression and 'clean your plate' and 'children are starving in Africa' were common refrains.

I feel a great need to finish what I am served, and is has been a hard fought battle to not do that when the portion sizes are as ridiculously oversized as they can be in America.

Eating with my spouse helps, as we can always split plates, but still. Vastly prefer smaller portion sizes.

Back when I was having trouble with overeating at restaurants due to a similar "clean your plate" mentality, I got in the habit of just packing a Tupperware with me. When the food came, I'd pack up half of it and stick it under my chair before I started eating.

A bit gauche, I realize, but better that than overeating. Rather striking to have such a concrete illustration that restaurants were giving me fully twice as much food as I really needed to be eating, too.

There's few memories I have so vividly of my childhood.

The one that sticks out most is the emotional abuse I'd received from friends parent's when I couldn't finish my entire plate (but still ate a little bit of everything).

Fuck them for that.

One of the key metrics for US casual dining firms is the number of times that they can turn a table in a night. In the industry the metric is called table turns and is often talked about on quarterly conference calls with investors.

One thing that kills table turns are people who stay for dessert or coffee. On way to prevent that is to serve plates overloaded with cheap carb fillers (rice, fries, etc). People feel obligated to eat what is on the plate and when stuffed won’t linger.

Other tips are to use hard surfaces (floors, walls, ceilings) so that the acoustics make it hard to talk; move tables to the center of the room; have waiters show up with check-in-hand when they ask about desserts; drop the check early; keep the restaurant too cold (too hot, men complain, too cold women leave); and put TVs on the walls (kills conversations).

Funny enough you can order half-portions at many restaurants. That will bring the portions closer to a normal size.

Really? That never even occurred, since I've never seen that option on a menu.

As with splitting a plate between two people, it's not something you'd typically see on a menu, but they're usually happy to do it.

All the time around here - half a sandwich and soup for instance at lunchtime

The branding is "right sizing". It doesn't seem to have gained a lot of traction however.

Yes!!! You would be surprised what things you can negotiate in stores and restaurants. You need only ask. In restaurants you can even substitute unhealthy items for healthier items in your meal in many cases. Many local restaurants I go to even have items you can order that are not listed on the menu.

I've not seen this in many places, actually. I also don't think it would really work for me, as I would never be able to guess whether a half-portion wouldn't be less than I wanted to eat.

It would be so much easier if it was just what I'm used to here: if you just order food, you'll get enough for a 'normal' eater. You can always go bigger or smaller, depending on if you are a 'big eater' or not. The default in the US seems to be that the size of the standard order needs to satisfy a giant construction worker who hasn't eaten for two days.

I remember ordering blueberry pancakes for breakfast once, and got a pile a that was almost a foot high. Even though the pancakes were actually pretty good, I think I finished less then 1/4th of them. That just makes no sense.

The food is the smaller part of the cost - think about the brick-and-mortar, the employees waiting for us to come in and order, the insurance etc. A little flour and canned blueberries is peanuts. So by offering 'too much food' there's a perceived value by some

Well yes of course, I understand the psychological tricks restaurants use to increase 'perceived value'. That doesn't mean I agree with them though, or that it makes the food any better. Maybe I'm atypical, but for me it actually decreases the value, because I know I will feel stuffed before my plate is empty, and my last memory of eating the food will be that I could hardly stomach any more of it before I stopped eating. This is not even considering the moral objections I have against throwing away perfectly good food, as someone else above me already mentioned as well.

My local pancake house will sometimes have 'all you can eat' which means a modest serving with the option to order additional food at the same cost. Of course I never need any more, and that way no waste! And the same perceived value or better. Probably a much better solution.

Even if true, I've never seen that advertised as an option, nor thought to ask.

You can also ask for the meal to be split between yourself and your dining partner. Unfortunately, the few times my wife and I tried this, they split the main food (burger, steak, chicken, etc) but then the doubled up on all the starchy sides (fries, rice, pasta) so it doesn't really benefit the individual too much.

You'll sometimes get charged a "plate fee" for doing this, though.

Which is fine, it's not unlike coperto in Italy. The waiter is still servicing two people even if they're only eating one meal.

Which restaurants?

You're not supposed to eat a whole American pizza.

That's why you can get different toppings on either side of the pizza- so two people don't have to buy two separate pizzas.

this is correct. i don't know why they down voted you.

We got a large pan pizza the other day and it was enough for five people, who each got two slices. To have one person tackle that would have been crazy.

Well, you can think of it as a double meal. Just get 1 meal and split it with the wife and kid. then the quantity is just about right. Only problem is, if you like different things, it won't work out.

In US urban areas, rent is a dominant cost, so low end/casual restaurants are trying to keep purchases in the $10-15 range. A Chipotle in a business district may only be able to handle a fixed number of customers, so its difficult if people purchase items a la carte. The 'solution' is to provide larger portions than the average customer wants even though there's diminishing returns. At the low end burger restaurants struggle when people are purchasing off of 'value menus.'

What you said doesn't make any sense to me at all. You seem to be drawing conclusions and making assertions by conflating low end casual dining with fast good.

You state that it's difficult for a fast food restaurant to manage a la carte purchases when that's exactly what they are designed to do. Their entire business model is based around an a la carte menu.

You then justify larger portions as a means to mitigate customers ordering additional portions. The reality is that for most casual or low end dining the customer knows what to expect and orders appropriately. At best your assertion about large portions would only work to satisfy first time customers.

A core problem is a customer thinking that serving size and price should be proportional. Most of the real costs are independent of portion size, i.e. real estate, capital, and labor. The raw ingredients in restaurant food just aren't that much of the total cost. The rest of the differences between fast food or fine dining come down to the quest to find local maxima in this problem space.

Fast food can bring the total cost closer to the raw ingredients by increasing the utilization of real estate, capital, and labor. A fine dining restaurant needs to dedicate much more real estate and staff to each customer, since they cannot serve as many customers in one time period. At the same time, they probably need at least some higher cost ingredients to satisfy the different expectations of a customer willing to pay higher prices.