I find we often do eat meals that are in bowls for convenience, but I still like my plates, especially if I’ve made a main and side dishes rather than a one-pot meal. What has been your preference these days?
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My nephews love bowls for everything, mostly because they can scoop stuff against the rim.
I like plates unless it’s something that actually requires a bowl.
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If the meal requires a knife, it needs to come on a plate. I also prefer plates for multi-component meals, so that I can keep things separate if I wish to.
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I’m with @biondanonima — any foods that require cutting / a knife need to be on a plate.
Other than that, I do love our pasta & salad bowls and prefer them to serving either on plates.
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In British restaurants, bowls seem to increasingly be the crockery of choice. Even when it is all but impossible to eat the food in it (see knife comments above). At home, we have bowls that are fairly wide and fairly shallow. We use them for pasta - and only pasta - when we remember we’ve got them, which is not every time we eat pasta.
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Why not both?
And just use a “blate”
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Because none of them are big enough, and the rims / angles are awkward.
(For years, I have been tempted to bring back thalis from India, which are a nice BIG dinner plate, usually with a short rim. One of these years I actually will.)
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I see your Thalis and raise you a Gebeta.
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I find myself reaching for pasta bowls over plates lately. I thought it was just me.
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That’s not really raising anything – a gebeta is just a giant thali for communal eating. Known as a thaal in India (all originating in the same history, I have always assumed).
I don’t know a lot of folks in India (in the communities that use them) who eat on a thaal on a daily basis – these days, anyway, they are more for festive occasions when big groups are gathered. 4 to a thaal, usually.
You raise an excellent point about items that require knives!
The fancy place where my band regularly plays has a habit of using the most idiotic serving vessels for their food… a whole quail (with too many beets, but that’s a different point) served in an oval bowl that barely fit the food. It was damn near impossible to cut anything.
Just for looks. I call it “just for stupid.” 
PS: It was @biondanonima who raised the cutting issue first, tho 
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I have a big shallow pasta bowl/plate that I use when I want to eat while reclining in my recliner. It works to contain the chow so it doesn’t end up in my lap. Sometimes ya gotta do what ya gotta do.
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Glad it’s not just me. I hate bowls with a passion when I have to cut something. It’s been inflicted on me just once so far, but then I don’t eat out much anymore.
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I like eating in bowls at home. If the food needs cutting, I use kitchen scissors to cut it into manageable bites for me.
I hate getting a huge salad on a small plate at a restaurant. The salad needs cutting and tossing around with the dressing. It’s really uncomfortable to eat it with the salad falling off the plate.
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We always use bowls for our salads. Like you, I hate when things fall off the plate.
Although ideally, a restaurant salad should already be properly dressed & not need to be cut.
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Growing up in a Chinese household, we ate out of small and big bowls a lot! 90% of my meals are in various bowls that can also double as soup bowls and noodle bowls. The only time I break out an actual plate is if I’m eating something like steak that requires me to cut it with a knife and fork, or I have guests.
I’m all for the bowl revolution!
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And just a note that “blates” I guess is a new name, but these types of rimmed dishes are also common in Chinese households. Used a lot for steamed dishes, but just in general to hold saucy foods. So much neater and easier to transport foods to the table too.
I like the concept of “blates”… I’ll have to keep an eye out for them at my local Goodwill. I wouldn’t mind trying them for our day to day meals.
I am wondering if they are difficult to fit into the dishwasher (between the tines).
I always use bowls for my salads, too. And everything is cut, assembled and dressed first in a bigger bowl. Yes, I do realize that there are some salads that are supposed to be eaten with a knife and fork, but honestly it’s a pain in a restaurant.
And I love my kitchen shears for cutting stuff up …
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