Food, Cooking and Eating Out
The English you need to shop for food, read a menu and order a meal — including the countable and uncountable trap.
Food vocabulary is one of the most immediately useful groups at A2, and it comes with one grammar problem attached, so it is worth learning the two together.
Countable or uncountable?
| Countable (a, two, many) | Uncountable (some, much) |
|---|---|
| an apple, two eggs | bread, rice, cheese |
| a potato, three carrots | milk, water, coffee |
| a sandwich, two biscuits | meat, fish, sugar |
How many eggs? but How much bread?
For an amount of an uncountable food, use a container or a unit:
- a bottle of water, a glass of juice, a cup of tea
- a slice of bread / cake, a piece of cheese
- a kilo of rice, a packet of pasta
- a tin of tomatoes, a jar of jam, a bar of chocolate
Two that switch sides: order two coffees in a café (two cups), and a chicken is the whole bird while chicken is the meat.
Cooking verbs
- boil — in hot water (pasta, eggs)
- fry — in oil in a pan
- bake — in the oven (bread, cakes)
- roast — in the oven (meat, vegetables)
- grill — under or over direct heat
- chop / slice — cut into pieces / thin flat pieces
- stir / mix / pour / peel — the small actions of a recipe
I usually fry an egg and boil some rice.
Note that recipes are written in the imperative: Peel the potatoes. Add the eggs and stir for two minutes.
Reading a menu
| Menu word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| starter | small first dish |
| main course | the big dish |
| side | small extra dish |
| dessert | sweet dish at the end |
| the bill | what you pay (US: the check) |
Other things you'll see: the specials (today's extra dishes), service charge (a tip already added), set menu (fixed choices at a fixed price), still or sparkling (water without or with bubbles).
Ordering
- Could I have the soup, please?
- I'll have the chicken.
- Does it come with rice?
- I'm allergic to nuts.
- I'm vegetarian — I don't eat meat.
- Could we have the bill, please?
"I'll have…" is the standard, natural way to order. I want the soup is grammatically fine but sounds blunt to an English ear.
What the waiter says
| You'll hear | It means |
|---|---|
| Are you ready to order? | shall I take your order now |
| How would you like it cooked? | rare / medium / well done (steak) |
| Anything to drink with that? | do you want a drink |
| Is everything all right with your meal? | a check-in mid-meal — Lovely, thanks is the answer |
| Would you like anything else? | dessert or coffee? |
Booking a table
- I'd like to book a table for two, please. · For eight o'clock, if possible.
- We've got a reservation under Petrov.
- Do you have anything earlier?
Describing taste
sweet, salty, spicy, sour, bitter, fresh, rich, tasty
This soup is a bit too salty. The sauce is quite spicy.
And the polite complaint, which is deliberately understated in English: I'm sorry, but I think this is a bit undercooked. · Excuse me, this isn't quite what I ordered.
The countable rule is about the word, not the food. Bread is uncountable and a sandwich is countable, even though both are the same substance in different shapes. There is no logic to derive here — the noun carries its own behaviour, so learn the food and its quantity word as a pair: a slice of bread, two eggs.
A meal out, start to finish
A: Are you ready to order?
B: Yes — I'll have the soup to start, and the chicken. Does it come with rice?
A: It comes with potatoes, but I can change that. Anything to drink?
B: A glass of the red, please. And still water for the table.
A: Of course. Any allergies I should know about?
I'll have, come with, a container phrase, and the allergy question that now appears in almost every restaurant.
Test yourself
The quiz below checks countability, the container words and the ordering phrases.