Dinner encounter

I had dinner by myself today. Was craving for some spicy food as I had not had that almost a month. There is this Hunan restaurant that we fancy a lot and my favorite is a spicy tofu dish.

So I have decided to have tofu with rice for dinner. The serving is probably quite a lot for one, but I thought I might be able to manage since it is a vegetarian dish.

It was peak dinner hour when I got to the restaurant, so I had to share a table with a young lady. Strangely there were two lonely girls eating in busy hunan restaurant. It was also quite funny watching how cautious the waitresses were in making sure they do not swap our order form and dishes. PS: Unlike HK, table sharing is quite rare in China.

So our food was served. I had my tofu and rice. And a pot (not a bowl) of soup was served to my "neighbor". Then later I saw another main dish brought to her. 10 minutes later, she asked for a dessert, and soon I saw a huge bowl of dessert soup brought to our table! Goodness, I began to wonder how much she could eat. She is only about my size.

My neighbor left before me. So I had the opportunity to snap a couple of pictures :D.

Top - Neighbor's dinner, which looks barely touched (from right to left - soup, main dish, dessert).
Bottom - My frugal meal, which I have almost sapu habis.














It's such a waste!! I don't care whether she is rich or not, but this is just not right!! Over ordering, or rather order lavishly, is a very bad habit of the Chinese. You see this all the time. Quite often when I have meals with the locals, we end up leaving the table with a half a table-full of unfinished food. For most of us, we are brought up being told to treasure our food and be thrifty. But here in this country which has gone through decades of hardship, why are people being so extravagant?!