Leftover Issues

A few months ago, Jen and I had dinner at Aristocrat. It was a busy Saturday night, a lot of families were out dining along Roxas Boulevard, and the restaurant was packed.

While we were waiting for our food to arrive, Jen motioned me over to look at a Pinoy family seated at a nearby table. They just paid their bills and were starting to leave the restaurant. The waiters started cleaning up the table and we noticed that there were a lot of leftovers.

We watched as the waiters dumped all the food together. The family could have taken all these food as doggie bags, but they chose to leave it in the restaurant. In the end, the waiters managed to salvage one and a half plate full of java rice, three pieces of chicken barbecue (slightly eaten), and some kare-kare.

Both of us felt that the family was throwing away their money by wasting all these food. Part of me thought that they were probably doing it out of habit. I know that it is a tradition for some Filipinos to leave some leftovers in their plates – this would guarantee that they would have something to eat in the future. Some of my ex-officemates do that – order a cup of rice or porkchop, and eat only half. But it this still practical in these times?

Or maybe it's just the way we were brought up as Filipino Chinese. Our parents would scold us whenever we have leftovers. They insisted that we finish everything in our plates. It was good training for us, so that we'd only put as much food in our plates, without wasting or having any leftovers.