Wow. I can’t remember the last time a server boxed food for me. I must eat pretty low-brow, I’m always boxing my own food. (and I always win, sometimes by KO, sometimes by decision.)
We rarely take food home, either because we don’t think it’s very good reheated or because we are usually pigs and eat everything in sight, but if we do box it up, I prefer that the server do it in the kitchen. Usually I’ll give precise instructions for it, along the lines of “Just the meat and the potato, don’t bother with the rest.”
Just to let you know, when I’m packing up your food and I’m really hungry, I’ll eat some of it as I pack it! It’s finger-lick’in-good!
My favorite Chinese restaurant puts the leftovers in the containers for me. When I get them home each time, I just know I didn’t get everything I left. But their food is awesome, so I go back anyway. I think next time I’ll ask if I can do it myself.
You are addicted to their secret weapon…the deep fryer.
I don’t think I’ve ever been anywhere that has offered to box my own food. In fact, I think I would probably take offense to it if a server magically whisked away my food and returned with it in a container… I’m kinda paranoid when it comes to food.
Where are some of the places you guys eat where this is a common practice?
Depends on the place.
When I’m eating out at someplace half-decent at all. . .entrees in excess of $12 to give it a line. . .I don’t want to sit there like some schmuck in front of other diners scraping food into a big box, and I don’t want to look over while I’m dining and see some half-eaten portion of stuff being scraped off a plate by some other diner.
Remove my plate, and come back with a box.
At the casual, laid-back eateries where I more frequently eat, I don’t mind either way, but probably prefer they do it.
Am I the last person in America who either eats it all or leaves it all?
You know they were all over your food before it came to the table, right?
And denquixote, looking around, you are certainly not the last American to eat everything that didn’t run away, no.
I’ve actually been to restaurants where they say by law they are not allowed to do the boxing. They bring the box - I have to put the food in myself.
Susan
No you’re not. I never bring anything back. Ever.
Well, if it’s a chain restaurant with parcooked foods delivered frozen and assembled on site according to charts and books and corporate guidelines, then there would only be foil in the kitchen if the corporate guidelines required foil for food prep. It’s not like your kitchen where you have a bunch of stuff you may or may not use regularly – they don’t have storage space for (nor usually the ability to order) anything that is not called for in their books.
So, yeah. There’s probably no foil in the kitchen.
Word on this. I’ve worked in kitchens that didn’t use foil for anything. If the kitchen has no regular need for it, they have no reason to stock it.
I prefer to do it myself, if only because I’ve had servers mix up the boxes with those of my friends at the table and I only realized it the next day when I was ready to eat my food for lunch at the office (and my friends have TERRIBLE taste in dishes 
). When I box it, I know I’ve got the right stuff.
Is this a geographic thing? Growing up in the Boston area, I never once encountered any restaurant-- from the swankiest bistro to the cheapest joint-- that would have you pack up your leftovers yourself, until I moved to Houston and never went to a single restaurant (again running the gamut of fanciness) that would pack it up for you.
I definitely prefer to do it myself.
This whole thread is confusing the crap out of me. I have lived in the Boston area for 10 years now and I didn’t know that boxing things up yourself was a normal option anywhere. I won’t claim that I have never seen it but it doesn’t sound very familiar. Maybe it is the way we phrase it too. I always just hand over the plates and point out the parts to take home. It comes back a few minutes later. That is all I really know.
Nope a local restaurant… we usually don’t eat at chains around here because there is lots better stuff to be had. They have foil, I have gotten it on occasion but sometimes I have to settle for the hateful Styrofoam box.
If it’s one of the wait staff that has been there a while (we have been going to this place for over 5 years) They will ask if I want foil or a box.
I wouldn’t expect to get foil from Applebees.
Would you believe that in this friggin’ state (Victoria) we are not allowed to take away any partially eaten food because of legislated food handling requirements. This includes pizza etc, which is a fair pain and makes you want to tell the restaurant to bash their food up their arse.