Small Plates, Big Problems

By: Angela Alcorn (Née Randall)

I don’t know how it is where you people live, but lately dining out in Los Angeles has made me think that all the restaurants have banded together and decided I’m too fat and are now serving me portions they believe are the only size portions I should eat,  and in fact, are making me share those portions with my friends.

Every time I walk into a new restaurant in L.A. – which by the way is often because I’m a bougie bitch – I am told the same thing by my actress waitress (who I would really like to start acting like waitresses because if one more of them gives me some cute lip that she thinks is some sort of audition – we’re gonna have some fucking problems.) Anyway they all say the same thing – “it’s all small plates so you can share!”

Okay – first of all – shouldn’t it be – it’s all giant plates the size of your head so you can share? Do you know how hard it is to cut one pea tendril steamed in kale juice with currants and apricots? I don’t get the small plates concept at all. There is not enough food on a small plate for me to eat let alone divide between the six people I’m dining with. (Don’t be judgy – I have friends) The whole small plates thing is taking over in Los Angeles to the point where the only place I can get a full sized plate of food – i.e. an actual piece of fish – is Denny’s – and while I love what they’ve done with the place over the years (nothing) – I’m not hungry enough to eat an entire Eggs Over My Hammy by myself.

On the one hand, I order food like I buy shoes, so I do enjoy tasting as much as possible on a menu when I first go to a new restaurant, but I’d like more than a spoonful of something that I then have to divide among friends. If there are more than two of you – you have to order two of everything. It’s a scam people!! Am I the only one seeing this?? I mean, I haven’t had an entire square of ravioli in years! I don’t even know what a full piece of toast looks like anymore, and quite frankly, the amount of small plates on my table at the end of a meal is making my table look like the kitchen and I’m on dish duty.

Oh, how I long for a big plate of something, anything – other than salad which seems to be the only thing restaurants are willing to heap on your plate. This is like offering me free water. And don’t even get me started on the amount of water types I now have to choose from. Tap, filtered, sparkling, flavored through a squirrel’s ass – I mean – it’s water – stop it.

By: ghost of anja

If all of this is supposed to teach us about portion contro,l it’s not working. I mean – it’s working while I’m at a restaurant and eat one quarter of a taco but the second I get home I’m trawling through the left side of the refrigerator or worse, I’m stopping at the supermarket on the way home and yelling “fuck it” as I throw open the freezer door and pull out the Jenni’s Ice Cream. (It’s the best if you haven’t had it – I recommend the salted caramel mixed with dark chocolate)

So – hello, LA chefs – I’m hungry. Until you start changing things up on your menus and treating me like a nice Jewish mother by greeting me the words “let me make you a nice plate” – I’m done dining with at your small plate establishments. I learned a long time ago in my yellow bedroom back in Staten Island when my friend wanted to borrow one of my favorite Barbie’s coolest outfits – I don’t like to share.

For more stories like these, check out my book, Welcome to Heidi

Share this Post:

10 thoughts on “Small Plates, Big Problems”

  1. If all Humor outcasts could get together, I could make everybody a lot of something tasty. I like gourmet food, but it often means a tiny portion of expensive food.

  2. My Italian grandmother never gave out stingy portions.

    The world should learn from the Italians.

  3. some of the chains offer way huge portions, like Maggianos–that you are not intended to finish. I’m happy for small! But prices need to reflect that. And they usually don’t.

Comments are closed.