Much of the discomfort travellers feel in restaurants abroad comes from timing rather than food. Service conventions differ substantially, and each one follows a logic worth understanding.
Meal times are set by the working day
Countries with a long midday break eat lunch late and dinner later, because the evening meal follows a working day that ended after most northern kitchens have closed.
Restaurants therefore open for defined service periods rather than continuously, and arriving between them means finding a kitchen that is genuinely shut.
A traveller keeping northern hours in a southern country will eat alone in empty rooms, which is often mistaken for a sign that a restaurant is unpopular.
Pacing reflects what the meal is for
Where dining is treated as the evening's activity, courses are spaced deliberately and a table is yours for the night, with no expectation that you will leave promptly.
Where restaurants depend on serving two or three sittings, pacing is brisk and the table is needed, which is why courses arrive quickly and plates are cleared as they empty.
Neither is better service; they are different products, and the mismatch between expectation and model is what feels like rudeness in either direction.
The bill is usually requested, not offered
In many countries bringing the bill unprompted is considered a hint to leave, so servers wait until asked however long the table lingers.
Travellers from places where the bill arrives automatically read this as neglect and sit waiting for something that will not come without a signal.
Asking for it directly is normal and expected, and doing so early does not shorten the meal, since the bill can sit on the table until you are ready.
Service charge conventions vary widely
Some countries include service in the menu price by law, some add it as a line to the bill, and some rely on discretionary tipping that forms part of staff income.
The same percentage can therefore be generous in one country and inadequate in another, and the practice changes over time within countries as well.
Reading the bill for an already-added service line before adding anything is the single step that prevents both undertipping and paying twice.
Ordering structure differs from the menu's appearance
A menu divided into sections does not always mean each diner takes one from each. In some traditions dishes are shared and ordered progressively as the meal goes on.
In others, the expected order is fixed and skipping a course marks a diner as unfamiliar, though it is rarely treated as a problem by anyone.
Watching an adjacent table for a minute before ordering resolves nearly all of this and is more reliable than any general rule about a country's cuisine.