Restaurant
A restaurant is a retail establishment that serves prepared food to customers. Service is generally for eating on premises, though the term has been used to describe take-out establishments and food delivery services. The term covers many types of venues and a diversity of styles of cuisine and service.A restaurant owner is called a restaurateur; both words derive from the French verb restaurer, meaning to restore.
China
Types of restaurantsRestaurants in Greek islands are often situated right on the beach. This is an example from Astipalea.The Piz Gloria in the Swiss Alps, a revolving restaurant offering panoramic views.Restaurants range from unpretentious lunching or dining places catering to people working nearby, with simple food served in simple settings at low prices, to expensive establishments serving refined food and wines in a formal setting.
In the former case, customers usually wear casual clothing. In the latter case, depending on culture and local traditions, customers might wear semi-casual, semi-formal, or even in rare cases formal wear.Typically, customers sit at tables, their orders are taken by a waiter, who brings the food when it is ready, and the customers pay the bill before leaving. In finer restaurants there will be a host or hostess or even a maître d'hôtel to welcome customers and to seat them. Other staff waiting on customers include busboys and sommeliers.Restaurants often specialize in certain types of food or present a certain unifying, and often entertaining, theme. For example, there are seafood restaurants, vegetarian restaurants or ethnic restaurants. Generally speaking, restaurants selling "local" food are simply called restaurants, while restaurants selling food of foreign origin are called accordingly, for example, a Chinese restaurant and a French restaurant.
Restaurant regulations:-
Due to a controversy over oils and grease, restaurants are required by United States law that oils' contents must be animal free, or otherwise state so on the menu. There has also been more talk about restaurants either frying or using the same oils and grease on certain food due to cases of allergic reaction to certain minerals or other substances of the food. While most restaurants are not forced to do this by law, they are required to state so on their menu.Depending on local customs and the establishment, restaurants may or may not serve alcohol. Restaurants are often prohibited from selling alcohol without a meal by alcohol sale laws; such sale is considered to be activity for bars, which are meant to have more severe restrictions. Some restaurants are licensed to serve alcohol ("fully licensed"), and/or permit customers to "bring your own" alcohol (BYO / BYOB). In some places restaurant licenses may restrict service to beer, or wine and beer.Restaurant guidesRestaurants offering ethnic food have spread all over North America and Australia in the past few decades. One of many Italian restaurants in the Heights commercial district of North Burnaby, British Columbia, CanadaRestaurant guides review restaurants, often ranking them or providing information for consumer decisions (type of food, handicap accessibility, facilities, etc). In 12th century Hanzhou (mentioned above as the location of the first restaurant,) signs could often be found posted in the city square listing the restaurants in the area and local customer's opinions of the quality of their food. This was an occasion for bribery and even violence.Today, restaurant review is carried out in a more civilized manner. One of the most famous contemporary guides, in Western Europe, is the Michelin series of guides which accord from 1 to 3 stars to restaurants they perceive to be of high culinary merit. Restaurants with stars in the Michelin guide are formal, expensive establishments; in general the more stars awarded, the higher the prices.
In the United States, the Mobil Travel Guides and the AAA rate restaurants on a similar 1 to 5 star (Mobil) or diamond (AAA) scale. Three, four, and five star/diamond ratings are roughly equivalent to the Michelin one, two, and three star ratings while one and two star ratings typically indicate more casual places to eat. In 2005, Michelin released a New York City guide, its first for the United States. The popular Zagat Survey compiles individuals' comments about restaurants but does not pass an "official" critical assessment. The Good Food Guide, published by the Fairfax Newspaper Group in Australia, is the Australian guide listing the best places to eat. Chefs Hats are awarded for outstanding restaurants and range from one hat through three hats. The Good Food Guide also incorporates guides to bars, cafes and providers. Australia also has The Good Restaurant Guide "Good Restaurant Guide" and is Australia's alternate restaurant guide that has reviews on the restaurants as experienced by the public and provides information on locations and contact details.
All of the public can submit a review.Nearly all major American newspapers employ restaurant critics and publish online dining guides for the cities they serve. A few papers maintain a reputation for thorough and thoughtful review of restaurants to the standard of the good published guides, but others provide more of a listings service.More recently Internet sites have started up that publish both food critic reviews and popular reviews by the general public. This is a growing area and the market is still immature with no sites yet gaining dominant public or critical support. Several are gaining traction including, Zagat.com, chowhound.com, and Fodors.com. Their major competition comes from bloggers and search engines since search engines often favor active bloggers over large somewhat static websites.One interesting twist is Menuism.com, they review the dishes rather than the restaurant. Many of these sites also offer discount coupons and maps.
