CYPRUS GOURMET: Size does matter

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It seems so. In the past couple of weeks I have listened to grumbles from restaurant owners and chefs on the one hand, and diners-out on the other about the size of portions served in most restaurants. To paraphrase an old popular song: “They’re either too small or too large”.
It seems that there are two schools of thought: one comprising most male Cypriots and a lot of mostly younger British people, and the other one is the rest of us. The first group don’t consider they have had a good meal unless the main course consists of meat, meat and more meat. The second prefers smaller quantities. My hairdresser, a young lady, tells me that she can only go to a modern (and good) restaurant with girl friends, because the husbands don’t like the place by virtue of the fact that it doesn’t serve plate-covering slabs of meat or piles of kebabs. A hotel chef tells me that because of the large amounts of uneaten meat coming back to the kitchen (mostly from non Cypriots and local women) he tried reducing the size of steaks from 250 grams to 200. Result? Immediate complaints. A fellow reviewer down-marked another noted eatery because of the huge chunks of beef (and smothered in sauce, he said!).
So what to do?
The answer seems simple to me, but only a few steak houses do it. Offer different sized portions. “Standard” and “Premium” for example. There are lots of ways of doing it. So, one wonders, why isn’t it? It seems logical that, in these times of rising costs and prices, sizes of portion the customer wants should be available, leading to less food thrown away.
Which brings me to sauce. With the Nouvelle Vague cuisine with its foam and re-constructions, you may be lucky to get any at all. In a more traditional restaurant you may be lucky if you can see the chicken, beef or whatever for a blanket of sauce. Again, there must be a middle way. Like serving the sauce separately perhaps?
In my humble opinion our caterers are not thinking enough about the customer.

Patrick Skinner