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[sevenlayermuddle]

Anybody else getting frustrated by portion sizes?

For all my adult life, I’ve enjoyed a take away Indian meal as often as conscience permitted.   Thirty-forty years ago, my takeaway treat would be a starter, a main course, a side dish, rice and a naan bread.  I’d eat the lot, never any waste, and I was quite a skinny person then.   These days, even when sharing between two of us, we are physically incapable of consuming that much food.  And I am, most emphatically, no longer skinny.

When ordering for myself alone these days, most I can order is one main and a rice, and guarantee there’ll be some left over for breakfast.   Which is a shame, as I used to enjoy the variety of all the different things in a single meal.

Mind you, I can recommend that cold chicken dhansak, straight from the fridge, makes quite a tasty breakfast.   

[Weaver]

Is it American influence?

[sevenlayermuddle]

Is it American influence?

Possibly so.   In my entire life I have very rarely ventured  a McDonalds, but not ‘never’.   One time I did eat there was in rural Louisiana, and I was absolutely stunned by the food portions that were being served, and eaten.

I think a problem is though, restaurants have to remain competitive with one another.   I suspect once a restaurant starts serving gigantic portions that are big enough to share, it’ll become the goto place for family takeaways, as it appears to be ‘good value’.   So in order to keep their customers, all the other eateries in town follow suit.

Assuming many of these massive meals don’t actually get eaten, I wonder how much simply goes in the bin?   Or in this age of PC, goes in the “food waste disposal caddy” provided by local authorities, making it all right?

[Ronski]

Can't say I've noticed any difference in size over the years. I think as we get older we do tend to eat smaller portions, unless of course we're used to massive portions all the time.

Take-aways always used to use tin foil containers, now they mainly use plastic, the sizes of those have been the same for a very long time.

[j0hn]

Take-aways always used to use tin foil containers, now they mainly use plastic, the sizes of those have been the same for a very long time.

This matches my experience.
Portion sizes have dropped here as the plastic tubs they use are smaller than the foil containers they used to use 5-10 years ago yet the price is either the same or higher.

I used to buy a foil container of fried rice and a foil container of beef, green pepper and black bean sauce and it would give me 2 plates full.
I could never eat it in 1 sitting.
Now they use the plastic tubs for both I can scran the lot in 1 sitting.

Exact same from all the local Chinese, Indian, and Italian takeaways.
They all switched from the foil containers to the plastic tubs but kept the price the same.

[sevenlayermuddle]

the sizes of those have been the same for a very long time.

I disagree.

A few decades ago (say 70's, 80's, 90's) all Indian restaurants seemed to use the same sized foil containers and with very few exceptions, a side dish used the same sized container as a main dish.  The only difference was that a main dish container would be fairly full, a side dish only half full.

Over the past 10-20 years, most have started using a much larger container for main dishes, which are crammed full.   The traditional smaller containers are still used, but only for side dishes and rice.

That is based on observations at the various Indian restaurants I have set up home over the years, around Scotland and around south of England.  I can't speak with the same confidence for Chinese food as my passion has been for Indian, but I seem to remember the same applied.

A few are indeed shifting to plastic containers.  My experience of these is limited as I have only lived one place since that transition but around here at least, they generally match the size of the recent (larger) foil containers.

[Weaver]

My wife and I have both always had a passion for Indian veggie food; used to regularly go out for dosas after work in the the West End of London.

[sevenlayermuddle]

Best Indian dish of all time, imho, is traditional Glasgow Vegetable Pakora.  Yes, I know Glasgow is not officially part of India, but its Pakora is unique.   Like onion bhajis, pakora is made from deep fried (yes, we are in Glasgow) vegetables in a  gram flour batter.  But there the similarity ends, traditional Glasgow pakoras neither looked nor tasted anything like the onion bhajis served down south.  They were much, much nicer.

You will  see Pakoras on Indian menus everywhere but, unless you are in Glasgow, chances are you'll be served something quite different to the Glasgow version, often just a variation on an onion bhaji.  Which might be very nice, but just not Glasgow pakora.  Even in Glasgow unfortunately, genuine old-style pakoras are getting hard to find. But they'll always rank highly among things I miss most about 'home'.

[Weaver]

I love bhel puri, aloo chaat and - I’ve gone blank - the gorgeous, rock hard hollow balls served with chickpeas and a delicious thin sauce, what are they called? I would usually just order a load of starters because I couldn’t deprive myself of this or that.

—
My wife reminds me : pani puri

[sevenlayermuddle]

I don't recall ever seeing Pani Puri on our local menus, was that in London?

I know there are some excellent Indian Restaurants in London, and they tend to be a bit more adventurous with their menus.   Best was one somewhere in Croydon that I visited with some friends, when a lot younger.  We didn't know it, but it turned out the chef was quite famous, a bit of a TV celebrity in his day.  He came out to welcome us and, having assessed we were newcomers, suggested we ignore the menus and just trust him to cook a selection of his favourite dishes.  And by golly, they were nice.  But I have no idea, then or now, what they would have been called on a menu.   

[sevenlayermuddle]

Always one to sacrifice myself in the interests of scientific debate, I went out earlier and collected a takeaway Indian meal.   This allowed me to measure the foil containers, with the help of tap water and a measuring jug.

My chicken dhansak was in one of the new style, big, foil containers, full to the brim.  It measures 550ml of water.

My Bhindi Bhaji was in one of the smaller foil containers, the size that would have been used for above chicken dhansak, 20 years ago.   It measures 350ml.

So there we have it, scientific evidence that a chicken dhansak is at least 57% (550/350) bigger than 20 years ago.     Might be more than that if the containers were less full in olden days, but that can’t be proven, so at least 57% must the conclusion.   

[g3uiss]

I’ve just ordered mine ! My Indian takeouts really hasn’t changed too much, I tend like @weaver to get an assortment of starters and a NaN. I’m a pig 🐷 in terms of eating so rarely nothing left. Likewise I’m 2 stone more than 20years ago !

As age marches on, I’m tempted to enjoy what I want !

Life is a difficult balance

Tony

[burakkucat]

Two and a half hours ago I enjoyed a chicken biryani. 

[g3uiss]

 

[Ronski]

Stop you lot, you're making me feel hungry!

Just measured one of our plastic containers from the Chinese we use and filled to the brim its 550ml. My wife said they've got smaller if anything, but I think they are pretty much the same size they've been for around the last 25 years, basically as long as I can remember.

Occasionally we may have a bigger container, but I think that's ribs or a biriani, not often we have Indian, normally Chinese, although I do really like Indian.