Dinner on the other hand is mostly a social occasion and / or used for more elaborate business entertainment. Friends gather, a family gathers, a business client is taken out for a treat, or one takes out his / her loved one – not to mention that it is perfectly normal for a Western person to dine on his/her own in a restaurant (a thing which Asian people would hardly ever do!). For dinner, food can be of any nature, depending on the occasion, and people usually take time to enjoy food, drinks and company. A good bottle or at least a glass of wine is an essential part of a Western-style dinner.
Mainly in the evening, Western people have the habit of “having a drink” before eating – this is mainly to break the ice or set the mood for the evening. A drink can be anything from a cocktail, a soft drink, a beer or a glass of wine. It can be enjoyed at the table where one will eat, but it is much more common to have a drink in an outside bar or at the bar of the restaurant where dinner will be eaten afterwards before sitting down at the table to eat.
A word on “cocktails”: It has become a habit in Asia to arrange “cocktail”- parties which are, simply put, a cheap way to have dinner! One would usually not find cocktail menus that are miniature full-fletched dinner buffets in a Western environment; rather, cocktail food is meant to be light and usually of not more than 3-4 different varieties. Such things as “heavy cocktail”-menus are originally customer inventions to prevent hotels from making dinner revenue (noting, of course, that it is sometimes better such kind of revenue than no revenue at all!)
What is known in Asia as ‘supper’ or late-night snack is not practiced as such in Western culture; the most some people do is drink a hot chocolate and eat a cookie before going to bed. However, it is common that people hang out in Bars for drinks until very late (or early!) and end up buying a fast-food pizza or “a curry”, mainly to absorb all the alcohol consumed
In general, the following menu item sequence is usually respected for both a Western lunch & dinner: