There is a quite good hole-in-the-wall Indonesian restaurant in Rotterdam with very generous portions as a quite low cost. Just like many Indian restaurants that serve Pompedams with tubs of different sauces, Indonesian restaurants also serve a few sauces and chutneys.
The tubs of sauces are huge. One of the tubs looked like at least ½ bottle of soy sauce. These were open uncovered containers. So if a customer were to cough or sneeze, they could easily contaminate the sauces.
Either they are extremely wasteful and throw away ~33—50cl of sauce per table, or they are re-serving it. I don’t imagine they could afford to be so wasteful as low as prices are. They must be topping it up and re-serving it. Is it legal?
There is a commercial kitchen hygiene principle that any food that leaves the kitchen never returns to the kitchen. It’s a 1-way route. I don’t recall where I heard that, or whether it’s law or just mitigating a restaurant’s own liability.
The theoretical fix to avoid waste and also avoid the hygiene problem is to take the sauces home in a doggie bag or bring Tupperware. But it seems a bit off unless they are actually wasting it anyway.