Protein is changing the restaurant order

At some Los Angeles restaurants, the usual bowl is being rebuilt around extra chicken, steak or eggs. The change is visible in paid add-ons and in the way diners talk about building a meal around protein.

That matters beyond one order. Small restaurants have to buy, price and prepare more of their costliest ingredients while customers decide what feels filling enough. The pattern sits beside a wider online fixation on protein, not outside it.

These local observations do not show that Americans are eating the same way everywhere or that more protein is automatically better. They show a food ritual shifting in a few visible places, with its scale and staying power still unresolved.

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