Over-Ordering at Restaurants

[lexy]

I don't over-order much (I don't have the money to eat out much, let alone over-order - unless someone else is picking up the bill ), but I am an incurable, compulsive over-shopper. Even though I'm cooking for myself only most of the time, I always buy more than I need - a cabbage big enough to feed me every night for a week, peanut butter by the pound, 3 or 4 carrots when I really only need one … it's like some survival mechanism in my brain stem takes over when I'm grocery shopping, and screams, "You've got to fill the burrow with food for when winter comes!"

[PurpleDingo99]

I am very careful not to overorder because my eyes are bigger than my stomach, but I'll clear the table anyways. Whenever there is some new or obscure place that I want to point to the menu and say "I'll take one," I usually just drag along someone to split the food (and bill. )

[Fat Guy]

Yes, I want to make clear for the record that when I say I over-order I mean I order an obscene amount of food. I don't mean I can't finish it. I assure you, I can and often do finish it.

[tommy]

i stopped at a steakhouse last night for a steak fix. instead of the usual app/entree/sides/dessert, we just ordered the porterhouse for 2 and a bottle of wine. it came with baked potato and a salad (which normally wouldn't deter the ordering of an app or 2).

i was amazed at how perfect the meal felt when we were done (leftover steak included, of course), and how inexpensive it turned out. usually a steakhouse might come to almost 100 a head. this was only 110 or so before tip.

i think i'm on to something. it only took 15 years to figure this out.

Edited May 3, 2005 by tommy (log)

[Chris Amirault]

Tommy, I've been having similar experiences lately, but there's something in my screwed up noggin that resists more often than not. I sometimes feel like (pathetic admission alert) The Man isn't gonna keep me from ordering that crab cake, dammit, that sort of thing. "Adolescent," I believe it is called.

Perhaps your own fifteen years of resistance can help those of us who still struggle confront the beast, eh?

[tommy]

Tommy, I've been having similar experiences lately, but there's something in my screwed up noggin that resists more often than not. I sometimes feel like (pathetic admission alert) The Man isn't gonna keep me from ordering that crab cake, dammit, that sort of thing. "Adolescent," I believe it is called.

Perhaps your own fifteen years of resistance can help those of us who still struggle confront the beast, eh?

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although i took from the experience a giddy sense of satisfaction, i'm afraid it took every ounce of will-power that i have to not order the shrimp cocktail and the creamed spinach. i'm afraid i have none left for even me, much less for the rest of you folks.

but i wish you luck and strength. we'll all need it.

[touaregsand]

I just visualized all of us over orderers getting together at a restaurant for a meal.

[Curlz]

Just had to share something that happened tonight...my brother, niece (see my signature) and I went for Vietnamese food. We ordered a small bowl of 'wonton' soup for her, an app, and one entree to start. We each had a small plate in front of us (as is the norm in a restaurant where we're sharing dishes) and about halfway through the meal, she stood up on her chair, looked around at a few tables nearby, and announced "Wow! We have a LOT of lunch on our table!" I lost it, partially b/c she's so damn funny and partially b/c the only thing I could think of was this thread. Can you tell we're related?

[Jujubee]

I only have this problem when I'm ordering chinese food. Growing up in a chinese family, my dad would always order for the entire family so we would have a nice balance of ingredients (meat/fish/veg/etc) and preparation methods (steamed/stir-fried/stewed/etc). When my mom cooked at home, there was always a variety of stuff including a meat, a seafood, maybe a tofu, a veg or two, soup, and of course rice at every dinner. It wasn't necessarily a large quantity of food, but it was a large variety. So now even though I live far away from my family and it's only my husband and myself, I feel the need to order a wide variety of dishes at chinese restaurants to get a proper sense of balance. We only end up eating about 2 bites of every dish, and the amount of food that sits on our table is absolutely obscene. But I don't know what else to do! Eating larger quantities of only one or two things at a chinese restaurant just seems to go against the spirit of balance in a chinese meal.

I don't have this problem in other types of restaurants though, maybe because I don't have a deeply ingrained sense of what is proper.

[Chris Amirault]

I don't have this problem in other types of restaurants though, maybe because I don't have a deeply ingrained sense of what is proper.

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Or maybe because you DO have a deeply ingrained sense of what is proper. I sure don't.

By the way, I think that this little fellow captures precisely the expression I make when the umpteenth order arrives at the table, everyone's thinking, "He's done it again," and I'm thinking, "Did I order that, too? ... Which is what, exactly?"