Simple math for feeding a group at a restaurant or catered event — platters that serve three, five, or eight, how many mezze per table, and how to avoid both a shortage and a mountain of leftovers.
Hosts overorder because running out is unthinkable, and then carry home three trays of rice. Here is the arithmetic we use at SimSim for private events and catering across Northern Virginia, built around platters that are sized to a number of people rather than to a plate.
Start from the feasts
Our family feasts are the backbone of any group menu because the count is printed on them. The Sindbad Grill ($89) serves three: one skewer of each of the five signature kebabs, with hummus, baba ghanoush, rice, fries, sauces, pita, and drinks. The Aladdin Gourmet ($149) serves five with two skewers of each. The Ali Baba Feast ($189) serves eight and adds eight grilled lamb chops, four garden salads, and more of everything. Divide your guest count by these and round up once — not twice.
Then add the centerpieces
For a celebration you want one or two dishes the table talks about. Haneeth (slow-roasted lamb shoulder over smoked rice), Mansaf, and Kabsa are the Palestinian centerpieces; Holubtsi and a Palestinian-style stuffed sea bass are the ones guests photograph. A rule that works: one centerpiece platter per eight to ten guests, on top of the feasts.
Mezze per table, not per person
- Hummus and baba ghanoush: one of each per six guests.
- Falafel and fatayer: one order per four guests — they disappear first.
- Fattoush or tabbouleh: one large salad per eight.
- Soup (lentil, harira, borshch): one bowl per guest if it is an iftar or a winter dinner; skip it in summer.
- Extra pita: one basket per four; there is never enough pita.
The Ukrainian side stretches a table
Potato and cabbage varenyky, pelmeni, and deruny are filling, inexpensive per guest, and genuinely loved by children and grandparents alike. One order of varenyky per four guests alongside the grilled meats means the meat goes further and nobody leaves hungry.
Dessert and tea
One dessert per guest is too much after a family-style meal; two-thirds of a portion per person is right. Mix kunafa, baklava, honey cake, and syrnyky so there is variety, and put pots of tea on the table — Cairo tea with mint or karkadeh — because a pot slows the evening down in the best way.
A worked example: 24 guests
- Three Ali Baba Feasts (24 servings of kebabs, lamb chops, rice, dips, pita, and drinks).
- One Haneeth and one Kabsa platter as centerpieces.
- Four hummus, four baba ghanoush, six falafel, three fattoush, six baskets of extra pita.
- Six orders of potato varenyky.
- Sixteen desserts across four kinds, and six pots of tea.
Tell us your guest count and we will do this math for you — for an event at SimSim or catering delivered anywhere in Northern Virginia and the DMV.
