Family style/individual eating in restaurants?

[LMF]

Well, my family is weird. We don't eat at the table. We just eat anytime we want.

I prefer just individual dining.

[Nosauz]

Pretty much the only time when I think individual eating is really necessary is when you have Burgers/Sandwiches, pretty much every other occassion family style just seems more economical for the variety that you get, I highly suspect that Asians/Italians/Arabs will agree with this philosophy more so than Americans/non italian europeans, espeically when you consider traditional French cuisine is generally never served family style.

[Kafriel]

My vacations this year were to the island that is said to have the best food in my country - and apparently it does indeed. Everything was just amazing, but anyway, to get on topic:
We were a party of three, went for communal sharing, BUT ended up ordering too much everyday, because the third person is used to having a lot to eat. So, in the end, we did get to try out many different kinds of food, but I would have preferred ordering less (5 freaking main dishes for three people, and that's without hors d'oeuvres!) and the bill ended up pretty steep everyday, so I felt it wasn't really fair to the other two, who got the least of it anyway.
Despite all that, I'm pro meal sharing under normal conditions but I will never object if someone wants to get something for themselves and enjoy it 100%, I'm doing that as well, after all.
2 cents for the culture: people here are very picky when it comes to food, sharing is actually pretty rare.

[Kotohono]

Originally Posted by Komari

When me and my family eat out, we all single-style, as in we all stick to our own dishes. We may ask for a taste of someone else's dish, but that's really rare. XD

This is pretty much how my family has been whenever we go out to eat, or when I've eaten out with friends before.

Originally Posted by synaesthetic

The one nice thing about eating socially?

You eat slower, because you're busy chatting it up.

So you eat less.

When you're alone? You eat faster, you end up eating more before feeling full. So it's likely a lot better for your gut to eat socially more often!

Well if you can take the rest home or just order less that is good, but if you can't then that's just bit uneconomical since you're wasting food by talking :P.

[EnchantingPrincess]

Originally Posted by LMF

Well, my family is weird. We don't eat at the table. We just eat anytime we want.

I prefer just individual dining.

Same here we eat when we want and anywhere we want.
Its rare to find us at the table eating together....

[Reckoner]

Originally Posted by synaesthetic

The one nice thing about eating socially?

You eat slower, because you're busy chatting it up.

So you eat less.

When you're alone? You eat faster, you end up eating more before feeling full. So it's likely a lot better for your gut to eat socially more often!

I'm the complete opposite. People always bother me to hurry up in social eating since I just keep getting more and more food. The extra time spent talking just makes my stomach bigger .

[EnchantingPrincess]

Whether I am talking or not I chow down my food, I got that habit from my older brother whose bite is 3/4 of the food. He just swallows.....
Thats bad it will catch up to me when I get older I eat so much...

[fukarming]

Ordering for shared meal is a difficult art to master. If you just go for the "everyone order one dish and share" method, you are likely to get too much food and too little variety as you might end up 3 different styles of poultry and no seafood...etc

So the best way to order is to put complete trust(?) to one person and let that person dictate the meal. But then it put enormous pressure on the order person. That person needs to balance budget, variety, portions....etc. A real art that takes years to master.

[Unos Hambalos]

Well, I seldom go to restaurants with friends and when I do, we usually share. It's more fun I think.