Re: catering a big party in a banquet venue
When there are 100 plus people involved it is usually better to order per head than by tray. Its actually cheaper too. Most of the times based on the number of head count you can negotiate the per person price. Until unless the caterer has packages with fixed prices, the more number of people there is, the better percentage of discount you’ll get.
The reason you sometimes get food for 115 people when you order for 100 people is because a restaurant/caterer’s worst nightmare is to hear that they didn’t provide enough food for the party. Nothing is more embarrassing for a caterer than to hear this complain. If there are 100 adults & for some reason people love the food a lot (especially men can sometimes eat for up to two people) then they will always provide a little extra to be on the safer side. Rule of thumb is to provide for 10 extra on every hundred. Note this doesn’t necessarily mean you are paying extra. Because they have still charged for that said 100 people only but this just means they have given you extra. Because better be safe than have an embarrassing reputation.
I know of people who order for 100 & give a head count of 90 or 85 which can be dangerously silly at times. Because while your salans & rice might be enough, your grill items, appetizers or naans can go short. Sometimes its fine but at other times it can be extremely embarrassing.
In your case since you have 120 I will suggest going per head than going by the number of trays.
Is the boneless chicken a grilled item or a salan/curry?
2 veggie appetizers & 1 meat appetizer will be counted as 1 1/2 serving. Biryani, 2 meat salans & chicken are 4 servings. (Until unless we have a lot of vegetarians in the guest list. You usually count meat item as once serving & veggie as half)
Now if you were to order by tray, you will be dividing the number of servings with the number of people. 120 by 5 1/2 in this case. Roughly 22 people per item. But for appetizers or grilled items you will still need at least 120 pieces of each item & if in a case where someone likes a particular item more & goes for a second serving then going by the rule of thumb 12 additional pieces of the appetizers & grilled items. Meat salans & Biryani will be technically only required for 22 people or to be on the safe side 30 people.
This number might seem low for 120 people but then you do have 3 appetizers & 4 entrees. I have broken this down only to give you an idea. When you order from the caterer per head, this is how they are going to calculate how much food to provide. But this doesn’t mean they are charging you for 120 while giving you food for 20-30. This is just how its done when you have more than one item on the menu. Even for our at home dawats, as mentioned previously in my other post. Except for appetizers, grilled items & Naan/bread, you always divide the number of servings/people by the number of items you are making & until unless you absolutely know how much your crowd eats you always go by the safe than sorry rule, that is making 10 to 15 % extra food.
As I said above. In your case definitely go by per head & leave it to the caterer to worry about how many trays to provide. Until unless you have no shows at the event that you weren’t anticipating, I highly doubt you will have too much extra food. But yes depending on how the crowd responds to food you may or may not have any left overs. In your case I don’t know if you guys are just going to pick up food from the caterer & take care of serving it yourself or if you are getting “services” as well from the caterer where they deliver the food to the venue, make sure that it goes straight into warmers, serve the food, refill the trays as needed from the back & then wrap the leftovers for you in either small trays or containers.
Most caterers/restaurants in your city charge additional $50-100 per person sent for the services. Depending on the kind of event & the number of people, the caterer themselves will tell you how many people you need for services so things can flow smooth at the event. If you do have too many left overs, you can easily freeze everything except the rice. I know people who freeze rice as well but since I have never done it I won’t be able to advice you on that.
Rest if you do find the need to freeze food then everything goes in heavy duty ziplocs, the old school trick to take extra air out of the ziplocs to prevent freezer burned food is close the ziploc all the way till you can fit in a straw on either opened side of the ziploc. Suck extra air out via straw using your mouth. Try to do that in one long breath to preventing blowing any air back in the ziploc. Label the bag with contents & date with permanent marker, flatten the bag out & place it in the freezer. Flattening saves space in the freezer & for when the time comes, thawing takes less time.
If you deicide not to freeze the food & just finish it by eating for the next couple of days, then remember everything should be covered properly. Airtight. Try to finish one item at a time & not open the rest of the items. This way most salans & grilled items will stay good for at least 3 days to maximum 5 days. But if you constantly open & close them to take food out for different meals, they will go bad. Try not to double dip any spoons even if you are the only one who is eating that food. Because restaurant/catered food will go bad within hours of double dipping. Pack them in individual serving boxes if you want to continue eating different food for different meals. As mentioned as long as the food is packed airtight. It won’t go bad for a couple of days. If you have any left over salad, get rid of the onions & lettuce in the banquet hall & only take the rest of the vegetables. Lettuce & onions left out even for 2 hours or so can can becoming breeding grounds for dangerous bacterias.
As far as desserts are concerned, let the caterer know you will be serving cake as well & they should factor that in the amount of food, dessert they provide & charge you accordingly per person.
Rather than serving large slices & seeing the cake get wasted. Make sure you cut small slices of cake (the average is 2x2 square piece) This way if someone wants extra they can always get another slice.