Restaurants in east China's Shanghai Municipality and Shandong Province's Qingdao City are serving smaller portions of dishes in a bid to prevent food waste.

In Shanghai, restaurants have renewed their new menus to encourage customers to order food according to needs so as to eat economically and better.

Smaller portions at lower prices have also given customers the chance to try a little of everything, improving their experience of dining out.

"They used to offer three pieces in a portion and now they offer only one, allowing us to try different dishes. It's nice, with no waste. This is a good thing for us," said a diner.

Restaurants in Qingdao City adopted a similar policy for their online orders, cutting the original price and dish volume.

In a restaurant in Qingdao, nearly half of the online orders are personal packages or smaller portions.

Sui Qing, head of a restaurant, said the smaller portion has met with positive feedbacks

He said: "We used to serve big portions, which were too much. Now we serve smaller portions, with the same workload and the customers can taste different dishes. This is good for both us and the customers."