Last night (Saturday), desperately in search of leavened matter
at the conclusion of Passover, we entered La Famiglia Marco (1032
Beacon St, near St. Mary's) at 8:45 and were promptly seated. At
around 9:00, we ordered. Initially, the order was for a small
soup for me, a small salad for my wife, and a large ("Abondanza,"
in Marco-speak) order of chicken, broccoli, and ziti for the two
of us. The waitress explained to us that there was a $4 fee for
sharing, so we changed the order to a small chicken/broccoli/ziti
and a spinach and cheese calzone.
My impression is that Italian restaurants introduced large
portions to encourage sharing, with the notion that much of the
cost of an order was preparation, and cooking one large order
took much less time and was much less effort than cooking two
small orders. Hence, the small chicken/broccoli/ziti was priced
at $12 and the large at $20. Looking at neighboring tables, it
was clear that even the small portions consisted of more food
than the average diner would like to eat.
The small order of pasta e fagiola soup was served in a coffee
mug, making it the smallest portion of soup I have ever received;
the price of $3.50 was far from the least I have ever been
charged for soup. The small salad was more or less what one
would expect for $2.50.
Then we waited. At 9:55, the waitress, perhaps seeing that I was
increasing annoyed, explained that the kitchen was backed up with
pizza orders and offered to bring the ziti right away and the
calzone later. We declined that suggestion. At 10:15, with no
dinner in view, I asked for the check and we went to Chef Chang's
for an order of house special fried rice.
My suspicion is that some bean-counting consultant decided that
too many people were sharing large orders and that more money
could be made by forcing diners to get smaller orders instead.
What the consultant didn't notice was that the kitchen now can't
deal with the influx of different orders.
I wouldn't recommend that you try the restaurant at a busy time,
and I have no intention of going back at any time.--RobBoston, MA