Sneaky restaurant tricks: Your food's getting smaller
Posted
Apr 28 2008, 12:22 PM
by
Donna Freedman
Rating:
It's not your imagination: Restaurant meals are shrinking. According to a Washington Post article, restaurants are downsizing meats, retooling sauces and using trompe l'oeil trickery to make little shrimp look bigger. (Skewer 'em before boiling and they don't curl up!)
Portion sizes had previously gotten out of hand, so much so that many Americans are unable to perceive when they're overeating. Still, it's no fun to pay $25 for filet mignon and be served two petite steaklets, or to plunk down $6 for a dessert the size of the lid on the salt shaker. Cute food is irritating.
However, I was intrigued by the restaurateurs' survival tactics. Maybe we should apply them to our own kitchens.
The way of less flesh
The article noted that if filet mignon costs $20 a pound, or $1.25 per ounce, then an 8-ounce filet costs $2.50 less than a 10-ounce one.
I don't know a soul who buys $20-per-pound meat. But we can achieve the same effect. Cut back slightly on the meat you put in chili. Make one piece of chicken or beef serve two or three people by turning it into a stir-fry.
Or go meatless one or two days a week. Lots of people in the world cook this way and they've got some mighty interesting cuisines.
Restaurateurs disguise the size of the meat by heaping on side dishes. Try serving two veggies instead of one, or a slightly larger serving of potatoes, couscous or rice. (The recent buzz about rationed rice had to do with the imports. Supplies of American-grown rice are stable.)
Entrees may be smaller than they appear
One restaurant owner enhanced profits by buying smaller plates. Since chefs tend to dump on food until plates look full, a hubcap-sized dish means less profit.
I'm not suggesting you feed your family from saucers, but take a look at your own table. If your dinnerware is huge, maybe you are overserving. Try a smaller plate. They can always ask for seconds. It needn't cost a lot; the yard-sale season is coming up and you can always find dishes that way, or just get them in a thrift shop.
Chefs are tweaking recipes by using cheaper ingredients. At home that could mean simple hacks such as mixing fresh milk with powdered, or investing in lower-end spices like the kind that regularly go on sale two for $1 at Walgreens.
Look, a lot of you buy the pricey spice because you've been told it's "better." It may be better. It's definitely more expensive.
And if you really can't stand the idea of 50-cent oregano vs. $3.99 oregano, buy both and mix them up. Nobody has to know that you get your spices at Big Lots.
It just makes cents
The most interesting suggestion was raising entrée prices -- by only 4 cents. A "menu re-engineering and recipe development specialist" (honest!) explained that a $7.95 meal going up to $7.99 is barely noticeable. However, it can amount to $5,000 to $15,000 extra each year.
Consumers could retool this idea in a couple of ways. First, make it your mission to spend slightly less each time you shop. That sounds impossible these days, but give it a shot. Buy the store-brand baked beans instead of Bush's, or make your own with dried beans and a slow cooker. If a recipe calls for chopped onions, use the dehydrated ones you bought two for $1 at Walgreens. When you see marked-down meat in the butcher section, change your menu plan to accommodate it. (Or just freeze it for the next week.) Figure out what you saved and set at least $1 of it aside.
Or shop with cash, a la the "envelope system," and take a single dollar bill from the envelope before you start. If you're a coupon shopper, set aside $1 or more of your coupon savings.
This sounds impossibly low-rent, I know. But so does a 4-cent price increase, and look how that adds up. You won't go grocery shopping as often as Applebee's serves up a cheeseburger, but you will make progress.
Suppose you market just once a week. That's still a minimum of $4 per month, which becomes almost $50 a year. If you're really good with coupons and are a frugalvore in the bargain, it could be considerably more.
That's $50 or more toward your emergency fund. It could pay for your kid's school pictures, or school shoes. Or it could be seed money for a goal: a community college class, a car that doesn't break down all the time, decent shoes, maybe even a vacation.
Or, heck, use it to take yourself to an all-you-can-eat buffet once in a while. You can control your own portions there, or gleefully refuse to control them. If you do go, remember my dad's buffet rule: Never eat anything you can afford to eat at home.
