| Hi, everybody! Welcome back to Top Words. |
| My name is Alisha, and today, we’re going to talk about 20 useful phrases for ordering food. |
| Let’s get started. |
| First... |
| 1. Can I see the menu? |
| “Can I see the menu?” |
| When you first arrive at the restaurant and you sit down at the table or at your seat and there’s no menu nearby, you can say to the wait staff, “Can I see the menu?” or “Can I have a menu?” which means I want a menu, give it to me, please. Remember, just use this phrase if there’s no menu near you or if you don’t see one. |
| Next is… |
| 2. Can we pay separately? |
| “Can we pay separately?” |
| This is a request to the staff at the restaurant to pay for your food separate from another person. So if you go with someone else or if you go with a group of people and each person wants to pay for the things they ate, you can use this question, “Can we pay separately?” |
| In some cases, it might be a good idea to make this request before you order so that the staff can prepare. |
| “Can we pay separately?” |
| This is a good one to know. |
| Okay. Next expression… |
| 3. Do you have any vegetarian dishes? |
| “Do you have any vegetarian dishes?” |
| So, if you are a vegetarian or if someone in your group is a vegetarian, you can ask the staff about their vegetarian dishes which means the food that they have available that is vegetarian. If you’re a vegan, you can substitute that for vegetarian in this question, like “Do you have any vegan dishes?” You can use whatever type of dietary restriction you have in this question. |
| Okay. Next is… |
| 4. What do you recommend? |
| “What do you recommend?” |
| So, if you come to a restaurant and it’s the first time there maybe and you can’t decide or you’re feeling very open, you can ask the staff for a recommendation. You can say, “What do you recommend?” or “What’s your recommendation?” The staff might not have a good idea, so they might ask you some followup questions, like what do you usually like to eat or what are you in the mood for, or is there anything that you don’t like? So be prepared to answer a couple of followup questions after this. But if you can’t choose, you can say, “What do you recommend?” |
| Okay. Next is… |
| 5. Does it contain meat? |
| “Does it contain meat?” |
| If you want to ask if a dish has meat in it, you can ask this question, “Does it contain meat?” Or you might also hear someone say, “Is there meat in this?” or “Is there meat in that?” |
| So, if you’re a vegetarian or a vegan or maybe you have some other kind of dietary restriction, you might want to remember this question. |
| “Does this contain meat?” |
| Okay, next is… |
| 6. I will have this one, please. |
| “I will have this one, please.” |
| When you make your decision at the restaurant and you want to point to something on the menu, you can say, “I’ll have this one, please.” Or if it’s clear that it’s just one option on the menu, you don’t need to use “one” in this expression. “I’ll have this, please” is also fine. You can also use this if you’re not pointing at a menu, if you’re pointing at a selection of, like maybe an ice cream store. You can say, “I’ll have this one, please” to be very specific, this one type of ice cream. |
| So it’s up to you to point and make it very clear which thing you’re talking about. |
| Okay, next expression… |
| 7. How spicy is it? |
| “How spicy is it?” |
| This is a really good expression to know if you know that you can’t handle spicy foods. So that means if spicy food makes you feel really sick or if spicy food makes you feel really hot, you should probably know this question, “How spicy is it?” Or you could say, “How hot is it as well?” |
| So, someone might say, it’s really, really hot or it’s not so bad, it’s pretty mild, they’ll give you some kind of rating to respond to this question, but if you have a hard time with spicy food, you should probably remember this. |
| “How spicy is it?” |
| Okay, next is… |
| 8. Do you serve any cold dishes? |
| “Do you serve any cold dishes?” |
| So maybe you go to someplace like a grill or perhaps some kind of burger shop, something like that where hot dishes are the focus. But if you’re in the mood for something cool or cold, you can ask this question, “Do you have any cold dishes?” Maybe you like a salad, for example. You can ask this to the staff to see if there’s anything else they can prepare. |
| Okay, next is… |
| 9. Is there any dish we could share? |
| “Is there any dish we could share?” |
| If you go to a restaurant with a group of people or maybe just with one other person, and you want to ask about a dish that’s easy to share, you can ask this question. You can ask, “Is there any dish we could share?” or “Can we share this dish?” You can make it clear to the staff there that you plan to share something, so they don’t just bring one plate. They might bring an extra plate to make sure everybody at the table can have some of which you order. |
| Okay, next is… |
| 10. What starters do you recommend? |
| “What starters do you recommend?” |
| Okay. “Starter” is another word for appetizer, those small, kind of snacks that you have before the main meal. So when you arrive at the restaurant and you’re thinking of what kind of things you might want to have a bite of before the main course, you can ask for a recommendation with this expression. |
| “What starters do you recommend?” |
| Of course, you can also say: |
| “What appetizers do you recommend?” |
| Or “What appetizers are good.” |
| You can use either word. “Starter” sounds a little bit more casual, perhaps, in some cases, but both words are fine to use. |
| Okay, let’s go to the next one. |
| 11. Can we have a bottle of wine with the meal? |
| “Can we have a bottle of wine with the meal?” |
| So, if you go to a restaurant and you want to order a bottle of wine to go with your dinner, you can ask this question, “Can we order a bottle of wine to go with the meal?” Another really common way to do this is just to ask for the wine list. If you want to order a glass of wine, you can do this, or if you want to order a bottle of wine, you can do this. You can just ask the staff person, “Can I see the wine list, please?” or “Can I have the wine list, please?” If there’s one available, they will bring it to you and you can choose a glass or a bottle to go along with your meal. |
| Okay, next is… |
| 12. Can I have a glass of water, please? |
| “Can I have a glass of water, please? |
| Okay. So, depending on the country and depending on the restaurant that you go to, staff might not automatically provide water at the restaurant you visit. If you need to ask the staff for water, you can say, “Can I have a glass of water please?” Or you might just say, “Can I have some water, please?” Or just, “Water, please.” |
| Something simple like that is the best way to ask for water at your table. |
| Okay, next expression… |
| 13. Can I get one more serving, please? |
| “Can I get one more serving, please?” |
| So this is a very polite way to say “One more of this, please.” If you have one dish and you ate it at your table and you want another one, you can say, “Can I have one more serving of this?” if you want to be really polite. I would probably say something like, “Can I have another one of these?” or “Can we have one more of these?” or you could even name the dish, like “Can we have one more of this appetizer?” You can ask for one more or one more serving when you want another one of something you’ve already ordered. |
| 14. What’s the special for today? |
| “What’s the special for today?” |
| Some restaurants might have what’s called a “special.” That means it’s one dish or maybe a couple of dishes on the menu that are not part of the regular menu. So the restaurant has prepared some new special dish with some ingredients they have in the kitchen that day. So if you want to ask about this dish, you can say, “What’s the special today?” Keep in mind, not all restaurants have specials. Usually, the waiter or waitress will let you know about the special when you arrive, but if you want to check, you can say, “What’s the special for today?” or “Do you have a special?” |
| Okay, next expression… |
| 15. Do you have any desserts? |
| “Do you have any desserts?” |
| So when you get to the end of your meal, if you want to ask about dessert options at the restaurant, you can say, “Do you have any desserts?” or you could also ask, “Do you have a dessert menu?” or you can ask something like, “What sounds good for dessert?” to the person that you’re at the restaurant with. There are lots of kind of sneaky ways to ask about desserts at the end of the meal, but this is a good polite question to know. |
| Okay, next expression… |
| 16. Could I see the wine list, please? |
| “Could I see the wine list, please?” |
| Okay. I talked about this a little bit earlier. If you want to have wine with your meal, you can ask for the wine list. So, depending on the restaurant that you go to, the wine list might be very short or it might be a whole book of wines. If you want to check out all of the information they have available, you should request the wine list. “Can I have the wine list, please?” |
| Okay, next is… |
| 17. What is the soup of the day? |
| “What’s the soup of the day?” |
| This question refers to a soup that is available on that day. So that means it might not be part of the restaurant’s regular menu. Maybe they have a seasonal soup or a kind of special soup and you want to ask about that. You could say, “What’s the soup of the day?” or even just, “What’s the soup today?” Both are fine. |
| Okay, next expression… |
| 18. I’m on a diet. |
| “I’m on a diet.” |
| So, this is maybe an expression you wouldn’t say to the staff at the restaurant. You might say this to the person that you’re having a dinner with or having lunch with. Maybe you want to talk a little bit about your food choice for the day. You might say, I’m on a diet, I’m going to eat something healthy. Or you might say this to the staff if you are looking for a healthy recommendation. You might say something like, “I’m on a diet. I don’t want to eat a lot of bread, so can you recommend something for me?” In those cases, you might need to use this expression, “I’m on a diet.” |
| Okay, next is… |
| 19. What does this dish contain? |
| “What does this dish contain?” |
| This is a very polite way of saying, “What is in this dish?” or “What are the ingredients in this dish?” Generally, in casual situations, we just say, “What’s in this?” or “What’s in this dish?” If you want to sound more polite, you can use this question, “What does this dish contain?” This could be really important if you have an allergy or some other kind of food reaction that the staff needs to know about. You can say, “What does this dish contain?” to make sure everything is clear before you order. |
| Okay, next expression… |
| 20. I am allergic to nuts. |
| “I’m allergic to nuts.” |
| Okay. A very important question pattern, if you have a food allergy, you can replace “nuts” for any other food in this sentence. “I’m allergic to bread,” for example or “I’m allergic to (something, something).” Whatever food you’re allergic to, whichever food causes an allergic reaction, you can use this expression to describe that. Another very common one is shellfish. “I’m allergic to shellfish.” So make sure to tell the staff before you order, so that they can make sure that they don’t give you anything that might contain that ingredient. |
| Okay. That brings us to the end of 20 useful phrases for ordering food. What did you think? You can let us know in the comments. Thanks very much for watching this episode and I will see you again in the next video. Bye! |
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