One other bit of side advice for visitors to America: When you get your meal at a sit-down restaurant, plan on cutting it in half and packing the other half to-go right off the bat.
No it's not compulsory, but I think there's the idea that a tip generally needs to be earned as well. Not to mention... unlike waiting staff who can legally be underpaid because they're expected to make the difference up in tips... fast food employees are paid minimum wage or better generally speaking.
We should start tipping the workers that really need it.... the factory slaves that assemble our clothes/phones/transformers.
Call me naive, but why don't American restaurants have 'normal' sized meals? That ought to help with cost & health benefits. I'm not a fan of re-heating left overs unless it's casserole, stew & the like, where it taste better the next day.
Seems to be a cultural thing here in the US. Offer large portions to make people think they're getting as big a bang for their buck as possible. I read an interesting article a couple of years ago that talked about how American restaurants used to give normal sized portions at both conventional and fast food restaurant. It talked about how over time competition for patrons saw different companies increasing the portions offered as a form of showing better value than their competitors. Amusingly it mentioned that it isn't just an issue of portions at restaurants but also the portions available at grocery stores.
You should go to an expensive restaurant in NYC. You pay a ton, but get little on your plate! But I dunno, depends where you go. I eat a lot and like to stuff myself till I'm full if possible since I burn so many calories, but not many places that give a ton of food these days in the NYC area per serving.
That’s happening all over with the increase in costs. There are many places where one portion would feed two, but that’s over now. Maybe, we’ll all get a bit thinner and healthier. Personally, eating out (even fast food) is getting too expensive. Restaurants are putting 15-18% as default tip percentages even on take-out orders. I don’t mind cooking. Besides, cost-cutting is also affecting flavors. I haven’t eaten anything truly delicious at a restaurant in a while.
There are also folks with weird hours who rely on nontraditional eating patterns, say one huge heavy meal and then snacks through the day--if I was planning a day at a theme park, I'd load most of the day's needs at breakfast before hitting the gate then just have small snacks through the day to keep blood sugar steady. Then again, in my teens and twenties I was the dude who'd kill an entire large pizza all by myself and burn it all without an inch of waistline gain... when you're built like Wayne Knight in Seinfeld trying to perform like Clint Eastwood in In The Line of Fire, it makes for some SCARY calorie burn rates, and equally scary wear and tear on the joints. (Even in my forties I still start two mornings a week banging out a pair of ten-minute miles... the catch is after the second of those, I'm not getting home without a stop to shovel coal for the ol' boiler. (Hence my previously discussed relationship with the sandwich shop...)
Worse, here in Seattle they're trying to push 18-20-22% "recommended." On TOP of "we want a $30/hour minimum wage!"... never mind the Econ 101 Fail factor.
I love to see this on mayday. Although truly, I think the factory workers that do most of the work should own the factory and mutually democratically control it (worker co-op for example) Surely I don't like it when my toys are Staind with blood of workers
