find of the day: chinese restaurant plates
Mmmm. Does this photo have you fantasizing about wonton soup? Well, you don’t have to only eat takeout with these colorful plastic melamine dishes. Plastic dishware is amazingly praticaly, not just for poolside or patio use but everyday dining (especially with kids). Though you can always find fun designs at places like CB2 or Target, consider getting a set of classic Chinese restaurant plates, like these above. You can order them from pearlriver.com for about $1.50 a plate, and they’ll go from the dishwasher to the table with ease. A large oval tray ($1.95) is an essential!
I liked the idea of melamine until I owned some. If you microwave food on it, the plate also becomes very hot. Now I use the bowls for only cold cereal.
Melamine isn’t microwave-safe, and it never says that it is. (And if it does, it’s lying. But I’ve never seen any that says it is, and have seen several that say they aren’t.) There have been a couple of comments on this site recently from people who are unhappy with the microwave performance of things they shouldn’t be putting in microwaves anyway. This also came out on the travel mug thread, with the Starbucks mugs.
That may sound harsher than I mean it to; the point is just that you should look and see if your dishes say they are microwave-safe before using them that way. Plastic can offgas into your food when microwaved inappropriately, and glass or ceramic can shatter (air bubbles in the ceramic/glass heat up, which is why they feel hot coming out of the microwave – ceramic/glass that’s microwave safe won’t feel hot, and Pyrex is heat-resistant precisely because it’s engineered not to have any bubbles like that).
Anyway, I love melamine and have owned some. I wouldn’t eat off it every day, but yeah, it’s great for picnics, bbqs, and snacks.
Another way we like to use it is for ice cream… ceramics overchill when ice cream is in them, and can be uncomfortable to hold. Melamine doesn’t conduct the cold as well, so it’s ideal. The size and whimsical designs of small melamine cereal bowls for kids lend themselves to casual dessert, but these Chinese-style ones are pretty cool, too. :)
The hubby brought a set of these with him when we got married. I LOVE them – the big bowls are perfect for soup, and the bigger dinner-type plates are just big enough for a two-person cheese platter for nights when cooking a ‘real’ dinner isn’t sounding to tempting.
Yah, don’t put them in the microwave. Melamine no likey the microwaves. However, for the casual use here and there, these are perfect.
I’m thinking they’d make really cool cat food dishes. Right now one of the ones I use is an old melamine Barbie dish from when my daughter was really little. (She never liked Barbie, so she was just as happy for the cats to eat out of it.)
And now I can’t find them anywhere on the Pearl River site. The link goes to a list of other kitchen items, including some cool shallow enamel plates, but no melamine bowls anywhere.
Hi Joan… try this:
http://www.pearlriver.com/v2/FramesCat.asp?iGroup=333
Otherwise, go to Pearl River, and do a search for “melamine” — they’ll come up on the second page!
Hope your cat like them. Way better than Barbie!
Meh, my parents have the ceramic versions, which are infinitely classier.
Thanks, Angela. The second way worked.
i have those exact bowls!
they’re great great + durable.
ours are about 10 years old.
i never thought of putting them in the microwave,
but they’re great for everything else + cute!
There’s an Asian supermarket near me that sells plates like this. They’re super cool, and cheap too!
My boyfriend loves these! When he moved in, he brought with him just one bowl and one dinner plate in this exact pattern – remnants of his student days. Dispite his arguments that they are colorful, light and durable, I never quite understood the appeal (especially since they aren’t microwaveable and clash with our other dinnerware). Whenever I placed them in the donaltion pile, they would always re-appear in our cabinets. Eventually I got the hint and they now have a permant place at our table serving up everything from rice to steamed veggies. I showed him this post and he’s feeling pretty smug :-) At least now i know where i can go to complete the set…
This is actually a very old design in Chinese porcelain that has undergone a radical color change – that’s what makes it so fun looking! I love melamine, and design a whole bunch of it. I’m working on a bunch of new designs for 07. One thing for sure, Angela: you are SO right: DO NOT ZAP the plates!!! Repeat, do not ZAP the plates! They are good for Frisbee when they are the lighter grade.
Take care,
Jill Fenichell