The importance of your Table getting their Meals at the same time ?
 

How important do you think it is for your table to get all its meals at the same time ? let's say a table of 6-8 people, not too big

What is an acceptable variance for you between say the first person getting their main course and the last person ?

In many parts of Asia, it is brought over immediately after it is ready. Some times I have finished my food while my wife's meal hasn't even arrived. I just learned to chew slow.

I prefer it this way, then the food is eaten hot instead of "warming" under some lamp in the kitchen so everybody can eat the meal at the same time.

Who eats at the same speed anyway?

at a well run restaurant any "warming" time is a minimal effect. At a Denny's or iHop, sure quite a bit.

Given the OP's statement of 6-8 people, I would say at a "traditional western" style restaurant, it is very important for everyone's food to arrive at the same time, especially in a business setting. Variance should be minimal, maybe a minute or two, tops.

If with an informal group of friends at a more ethnic type eatery (where amongst my friends & family it is expected you will share your meal (and we like it that way)) bringing the dishes out as they are ready is fine.

Unless it is completely expected that dishes will come whenever they do, a wait of anything more than 5 minutes is IMHO unacceptable.

I think they should try to make it so people get their food together. It's not at all uncommon for one person to want to wait until everybody has their food, which usually means you have six people staring at their food getting cold while one person is waiting.

If they order something that takes twice as long to cook that's a different story, but in most cases the kitchen should be able to get stuff to come out about the same time.

For the same reason, I hate it when they pick up my empty plate when other people are still eating, I feel it makes it seem like I am rushing them or something.

I personally will not start eating my meal until everyone has their meal. It just seem impolite to me to eat while others are waiting. Just my personal view.

I would hope that service would be such that people get served at the same time.

Unless a sharing protocol is in effect (as with many Asian places) the food should absolutely emerge simultaneously. The point of not going to dinner alone is to eat with someone, not to watch them eat or vice versa. If plates do not come out all at once, politeness dictates that those served not start until those not served get theirs, which makes things awkward and allows hot food to cool and/or congeal. Serving entrees at different times is a sign of a bad or at least chaotic kitchen.

I was taught the same thing. My mother would be mortified if I started (or horrors!, finished) before her meal was delivered. Even if someone urges me to start before it gets cold, I am reluctant. I break the rule if someone is missing a side dish. That's about it. So, all meals should arrive in less time than it takes for the first to lose its heat.

In Italy, the cook would be horrified if you sat with your plate in front of you and waited until the table was "complete." You eat food when it is given to you and is at its peak. Pasta continues to cook once removed from the water etc. In fact, I think that if you were out to eat, the others at your table would think there was something wrong if you sat there with a plate of food in front of you and waited.

I've found that I'm accustomed to this because most restaurants in the U.S. get the desire for entrees to be delivered at the same time and can usually handle it. Yesterday I went to brunch with 12 other folks, and the server got another server to help get everyone's food set down within a minute. Didn't seem to be a problem for the kitchen to get everything synchronized either, though that obviously depends on what is ordered.

Although we think that waiting for everyone to be served before starting is proper, etiquette says that hot food should be consumed when served.

Most better restaurants in usa and france use infra red heaters. a lot of the pre cooking is done hours earlier. the food is plated in stages, and held in an ir heater until all is ready.

at a tasting dinner, how you think 5 guys get all that food out for 50 people?

chefs can organize beautifully.

this does not work in italian or most oriental cuisine. the food is prepared from scratch, and ready NOW!!! risotto is going to take 30 min. most kitchens are not big enough to prepare 8 or 10 main courses to be ready at the same time.

Not sure about the US, but in most parts of Europe, proper etiquette is to wait if there are less than 6 people at the table.

I don't go to restaurants that can't manage to serve food simulataneously (McD seems to manage;))

Critically important -- there should be only a few minutes, maximum, before all diners are served. I won't start eating until everyone in my party is served -- that's simple courtesy. If, by the time the last diner is served, my meal is cold, I'll send it back.

On those rare occasions when an order was lost or forgotten, I will ask the server to take my plate back as I do not intend to eat while my dining partner is waiting.

Then by your logic, everyone else should then wait for you to have your food reheated while theirs gets cold. Yes restaurants should try and serve everyone together, but letting your food get cold sitting in front of you is ridiculous IMO.

I've walked out of restaurants that weren't capable of serving food at the same time. When I go out to eat with my wife, it's so we can eat together. Any chef who can't manage that isn't worthy of the title.

How do you handle restaurants in Asia? My experience is that food not coming out at once is the norm, not the exception.

When you take a member of the opposite sex to dinner and your plate arrives alone, do you eat it all up while she sits and watches?

In China, where most of my Asian experience lies, dishes are communal so it is not an issue.

No, you call for the maitre d' or the manager and ask for some logical explanation (of which there may be one, but I ain't heard many in a long career of asking).

Other than in the case of special food orders or extra courses for one or more diners, inability to serve courses for all at the table simultaneously is a grievous fault. I won't even accept a total re-do of an unsatisfactorily prepared dish, wanting it removed from the bill (and if we're just two dining, I want the entire bill removed, or at least the full cost of the course for which one example was poorly done).

If a few more diners were simply willing to get up and walk out the door, some, no many restaurants would do better. I'm no "Ramsey", but I was a newspaper food critic for 5 years, and have witnessed too much atrocious treatment of folks paying for food to be very tolerant of chefs, kitchens and waitstaff incapable of coordinating service.

If there's problem, I want the server (or someone higher up) to come and tell me about it, and act upon my response which will be graduated based on my perception of how it will alter my dining pleasure.

I would agree w/most of this. A well run kitchen w/good chefs shouldn't have too much of a problem getting all the plates for a table to the runner in a short window of time... unless they've really fallen into the weeds. I would argue that the very best of the restaurants and chefs do not use IR heaters though.

And yes, much of the key is precooking/staging some of the dishes during the 3-5 o'clock hours so that they only have to be 'finished' as the orders come in.

If your date is worth enough to you, I assume you are spending your $$$ at a restaurant that is at least pretty good. Of those restaurants, I would assume that something like this would happen VERY rarely. That is a major faux pa. One of the worst of 'em and they won't let it happen.

i have been in a number of 2 &3* kitchens in France. they all had and used IR warmers to hold food temps.

Is that a minor faux pas? :D

For me, an allowable wait would be one for the server to go right back into the kitchen to pick up the remaining plate(s) and return, which should be a proposition lasting not more than 1 to 2 minutes. For non-communal dining, anything more is really not acceptable.

I think it happens more often than you think -- and the politeness issue remains whether you are dining at L'Aureole or California Pizza Kitchen.

That is for sure. Consumers get intimidated into accepting bad products and services in the fine-dining business more than any other business. I think it is harder to get satisfaction in linen-and-crystal places, in fact, than modest chain places.

I found Asian restaurants in Asia were very poor at serving "Western" meals, because the Asian custom is to serve food in series, not in parallel. We had 10 people at a dinner, and it was 20 minutes from the first person's meal to the last.

The OPs query stated 6 to 8 people at the table, not 2. Big difference.

Just as important as the food being delicious.

the way the game is played, is that most appetisers are pretty much premade, only need to be wacked for a few minutes. they all come out at once. in the mean time, the main courses can be generated. the first done lays around someplace until the all are done, and then the serving wench hauls them out. if a high quality restaurant, two people haul them out.

from reading threads in dining, it appears that the majority of the people eat steak, or "american" food, no matter where. banging out 8 steaks and 8 baked potatoes is a piece of cake. trust me, the potatoes are pre cooked, and usually, so are the steaks.

the greatest meals that i have had are either in french countryside 2*'s (or equivalent) where small courses of many different foods just arrived, or almost any italian restaurant where again, food arrived very piecemeal.

the same has been true in southeast asian restaurants in london(includes indian, Bangladeshi and Pakistani)

In a non-communal dining situation at a decent restaurant, I would only tolerate about a minute delay: about the time for the server(s) to walk back to the pass and bring back the missing plate(s). Any decent chef or expediter will wait to send out the plates in parallel. Many restaurants will use heat lamps. Some top restaurants will refuse, and instead refire dishes if they sit too long while waiting for a delinquent cook to finish something.

I guess I usually dine at decent Western restaurants, so I can't remember the last time I've experienced this particular problem.

It's not a question of how long something takes to cook, it's (among other things) the job of the expediter to fire the orders to the kitchen at the right time so that they all come out at the proper time. If the lady’s risotto takes 30 minutes to cook, and the guy’s steak takes 10, then the steak should get fired 20 minutes after the risotto. That way, nothing sits on the slide for too long, and the order is garnished and ready for pick-up by the server all together.

Slightly OT but I'm amazed at the ability of restaurants to (usually) get this right. When you're dining with 3 other people and everyone has ordered something different, it is amazing that they can coordinate in the kitchen so that everything comes out at once. Multiply that by about 15 or 20 for the number of tables and it really is amazing.

+1 This is how I feel too, notwithstanding what I have heard about etiquette (see below).

I had always heard that the rule is that once at least half the table has received their food, you may start eating. (This is for reasonably sized tables, not very large groups.)

Someone with a Miss Manners book could probably tell us what their book says.