Most restaurants serve Romanian food, but one can also find Turkish, Greek, or Chinese restaurants. For an average Romanian family it is very expensive to go to a restaurant. Restaurants are typically open all day, but lunch is served from 11-2 and dinner from 6 until 11. Dinner is the large meal of the day, but many restaurants serve the same menu for both lunch and dinner.
Romanian cuisine is meat-based with very few vegetarian alternatives.
A formal dinner begins with soup and continues with a main course of meat, potato, vegetables, and salad. Common salads include lettuce salad, tomato and cucumber salad, or cabbage salad- all come with the dressing already mixed in. Dessert is usually a sweet cake or ice cream. Desserts tend to be very sweet and rich by American standards. When entering a restaurant, customers either choose a table or wait for the waitperson to take them to a table.