Restaurant etiquette - Portion size/When do you complain?

Primrose

iBag raises an interesting argument and I've no idea what the answer is but when I think of all the restaurants who in the past have got away with serving miniscule portions, i.e. a poncy carved tomato on a tablespoon of mashed potato and a sprinkling of parsley surrounded by raindrops of sauce dotted around the plate, I suspect that a restaurant can probably get away with virtually anything as long as it's food and it's not tainted. There is no law which says a portion should be of reasonable size to satisfy the hunger of the diner but maybe there ought to be some way of indicating to the diner first what the size of portion might be. I've had some meals which I've been overwhelmed by the amount of food on the plate;(not recently though !); others I've felt I've needed a microscope to see it. I guess the only thing one can do before ordering is to say you're really hungry, ask what size the portion is and whether it will be enough to satisfy you. Restaurants may not like to be asked this question but I feel it's a reasonable one for a customer to ask. I suppose one could always be cheeky if you feel your hunger has not been satisfied by saying "That meal left me still feeling very hungry. Is there any chance of a top up portion?" but I don't know whether a customer would feel happy doing that.

PolishBigSpender

Actually, a very common thing in Eastern Europe is to tell you the weight of the food on the menu. I'm surprised they don't do this in the UK, as it avoids all doubts.