What are different ways to serve food?

Answer 1

Food can be served "family style" where all the meat servings are on one platter, all the side dish servings or salad servings are in large bowls and each person serves themselves from there.

Another style is "plated", like in a restaurant, where individual servings of the meat and side dishes are put onto one plate per person.

A third way is "buffet style" where larger quantities of food are set out on a long table with plates and utensils at hand and people serve themselves or attendants serve them onto the plates as they pick which items they want.

Answer 2

Serving food depends on the type of meal setting.

For family style, each food is placed on a plate or in a bowl, then placed on the table. Diners sit at the table and pass the food around the table and each person takes their own portion from the plate or bowl.

For a formal dinner, each servant or wait staff will bring the food to the diners. One server will bring one kind of food around to each diner and either place the portion of food on the plate or in the bowl or allow the diner to serve themselves. The server might bring an individual serving of something, such as dessert, to each diner. In this type of meal, the food is generally served to the diner's left to allow them to serve themselves from the tray.

For a buffet meal, the diners go through a line and are either served a portion by the servers or make their own choices from the items presented.

For a banquet where the menu is the same for all diners, the servers will bring one serving of food already plated to each diner. In this case, the preplated food should be served on the diner's right and plates cleared from the diner's right.