Stop Sniggering at Set Meal A: The Case for the Takeaway Menu's Most Sensible Order

There is a particular look people give you when you order Set Meal B. It is the look they give you for ordering the house white, or for admitting you have never watched The Wire. Mild pity, a raised eyebrow, the sense that you have somehow opted out of the exciting part of the menu.

I would like to formally push back. The set meal is not the coward's order. In 2026 it may be the sharpest thing on the board.

The snobbery is recent and it is daft

Nobody sneers at a Sunday roast for having a fixed cast. Nobody calls a Christmas dinner a cop-out because it arrives with sprouts whether you asked or not. Yet the Chinese set meal has somehow become shorthand for unimaginative ordering, which is odd when you consider that it is usually the only part of the menu that has been deliberately designed by the kitchen.

A set meal is not a discount bundle thrown together to shift stock. A well-built one is a small tasting menu with a price tag that doesn't require a booking.

Five things the format gets right

1. It gives you a fixed price in a world of creeping extras. In 2026, where a tub of curry sauce can be £2.80 and crackers £3, knowing the total before you pick up the phone has genuine value. Set meals are the last corner of the takeaway menu where the number you see is the number you pay.

2. It forces variety you would never choose yourself. Left alone, most of us order the same two dishes for a decade. A set drags a vegetable dish, a dry dish and a sauce across the table because that is what eating well actually looks like.

3. It matches how the kitchen cooks. A set meal is a rhythm the wok station already knows: one thing fried, one thing stirred, one thing ladled from the pot. It is often the smoothest order on the ticket, which means it comes out right.

4. It is portioned for households, not for marketing. 'For two' in most British-Chinese takeaways means two adults plus a teenager, or two adults and a very good Monday.

5. It is honest about what it is. No foam, no story about the chef's grandmother. Just a clear list of what you're getting, in a paper bag.

How to spot a good one

Not all sets are created equal. A set made of spare ribs, spring rolls, sweet and sour chicken and a pile of chips is a children's party in a box, and it has not changed since 1998.

What to look for instead:

• A dry dish. Salt and pepper anything, crispy shredded beef, dry-fried green beans. Something not swimming in sauce.
• A vegetable. If the only veg in the set is the onion in the chow mein, walk on.
• A choice, not a decree. The better sets let you pick your main from three or four options. That is a sign the kitchen is confident rather than clearing down the fridge.
• Two rices, not one. Check. A set for two that ships a single tub of rice is a set for one and a half.
• A substitution policy. Places that will swap sweet and sour chicken for kung po for a pound or two are telling you they cook to order.
• The sum of the parts. Add up the individual prices. If the set is not saving you at least 15%, it is a list, not a deal.

Three sets worth ordering this year

The one with king prawns in it. Usually a pound or two more than the chicken version and worth it, because a set is the only occasion where the prawn premium doesn't sting.

The one with aubergine in garlic sauce or mapo tofu. Vegetable-led sets have quietly become the best value on the board as protein prices climbed. They are also the ones you will still be thinking about on Wednesday.

The 'for four' that feeds five or six. If the shop offers a bigger set, do the arithmetic on per-head cost. It is frequently under £8 a head in 2026, which is less than a supermarket meal deal and a hot drink.

Cheeky swaps that improve almost any set

Ask for kung po instead of sweet and sour chicken. Ask for salt and pepper chips in place of plain ones — often a pound, occasionally free. Ask for the curry sauce on the side rather than poured over. Ask whether the kitchen will do Singapore fried rice as the rice option. None of these are unreasonable requests, and all of them turn a safe order into a good one.

The verdict

Order the set meal. Order it on a Tuesday when nobody is performing for anyone, order it when there are four of you and nobody can agree, order it because it is cheaper than the sum of its parts and better balanced than anything you would have assembled yourself.

The people doing the pitying are paying £31 for a chow mein in London and calling it adventurous. Let them.