Friday, April 11, 2008

Eating in China is a group thing

Finish this all by myself? No way!!

On of the (very few) downsides with Chinese food in restaurants is that when you go alone you cannot really have the same nice meal as you can if you go in a group. Yeah sure, u can start ordering 4-5 different dishes but then u might receive some curious glances from the wait staff. On the other hand, ordering only ONE dish is an even bigger no-no. A friend of mine once tried and the wait staff wouldn’t leave his table before he ordered himself something else too.

Those times I’ve gone for lunch alone I always end up with way too much food, and still I just order 2 dishes (which are normally some veggies –eg cabbage or broccoli) and then a tofu or a beef dish. But if I would go for a third one there would be an overwhelming amount of food on the table and I would be very likely to overeat… So how do you guys do it, if you are lonesome lunchers in China? Do you order a bunch of dishes or do you just not go when you are alone? Or, do you order lots and then take what u cannot finish home/back to the office with you?

1 comment:

E said...

this diary deserves a reply. 3 years have gone by since you asked this and you might already have an answer.
for me, a bowl of beef noodles/pho with some appetizers was the perfect choice when i had to eat alone in china. also, i found traditional chinese snacks like baozi were quite tasty and substantial.

p.s. sorry if my comment made you feel odd.