Page 7 - 顯理中學（第35期校訊）

Form 4 - Writing

4D Shih Chin Chien Nathan - Champion

Nowadays, teenagers enjoy taking pictures before they start their feast, some may think it’s appropriate but some
may not. As a local restaurant owner myself, I’m not buying the idea of ‘camera eat first’.

First of all, we need to understand the meaning of ‘food’. Food is supposed to be a source of energy for our body,
you walk into a restaurant because you’ve been hungry, not because your camera is itchy. I expect you to come
inside my restaurant for food, not for photos. Not to mention that some teenagers leave the restaurant right after
they post their selfies onto their social media account without even touching the food. For hygiene reasons, I can’t
let my staff and myself finish those untouched dishes and they’ll all eventually end up inside the back of a garbage
truck. What a waste! They’ve been disrespecting the food supply chain the whole time! If I see these type of
customers, I will add them to my restaurant ban list.

From a financial side of view, taking photos of food is actually costing me money. Usually when teenagers are trying
to take photos of their dishes, they spend a lot of time on tweaking their camera angle and facial expressions. It’s
ok to do that when it’s not crowded. But when customers are piling up outside, sweating like a dog while you’re still
complaining about the quality of your photos you’re actually costing me money. This may sound ridiculous. The fact
is that the longer you occupy the seats, the slower the pace we let our customers in. People don’t like to wait and
most Hong Kongers aren’t that patient. They can’t afford to wait, so when they see people who should be inside the
restaurant already, they’ll just leave, which means I just lost a customer.

Despite the prevalence of ‘Camera eat first’, I’m not planning on totally adopting this trend. Taking 1 or 2 photos is
definitely acceptable, but not spending 10 minutes taking a photo for their social media account and leaving without
finishing the food. Maybe you think I’m too harsh, but this is my conclusion on what I’ve witnessed and experienced.

st
4B Sitt Ka Kiu Amelie - 1 Runner-up

As a professional chef, I condemn the act of taking pictures of the dishes customers ordered before them.

As we all know the trend of taking food photos is getting more common, which is actually a problem to us chefs
and waiters. If the restaurant is not busy, taking more than a few minutes to take some food photos won’t be a
big problem, but when it’s dinner rush, spending a long time to take food pictures will be a huge problem to the
business since the longer the customer stays, the less new customers are going to get. In short, this action will clog
the entire service line.

Also, food is meant to be enjoyed fresh. Taking unnecessary photos just to upload to social media means the food
is going to go “cold”, meaning our hard work is actually being disrespected in an unknowing way.

Honestly I won’t have a problem if it’s just a picture, but if they are going to spend 20 minutes on one photo, this is
certainly a huge problem.

nd
4A Yau Wan Lam - 2 Runner-up

As a chef, I would never want the food I make to be treated like this. Customers take
photos of the dishes and share them on social media platforms before they enjoy.
This makes the originally hot food become cold and lose its best taste and best
feeling. The chefs hope that people will feel happy and enjoy when they
eat the food cooked by them, rather than just showing off the food. The
diners don’t care about what they eat, they only care about whether
they can share something on social media platforms. They don’t
respect the food and the chefs at all. In our minds, food is
very treasurable, not just a stuff that fills the stomach,
it is a work of art. We will feel very pleased and
satisfied when we see the customers like
the food cooked by us.

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