Order a variation of food for x people

another language question.

lets assume following situation:
we are in a izakaya restaurant and cant read the kanjis on the hand-written-menu.
but everything looks good and tasty.

how to say:
* could you please bring us a variation of your recommendations for 3 people
* could you please prepare us a variation with a little bit of everything for 3 people

i think with my bad japanese i could come up with some sentences that could be understood by the staff, but i wonder how it should be in perfect japanese, so i am not posting my guesses here ... :-)
(actually my main question is more about this "for 3 people" - do you use 三人と？or which particle would be correct?

Izakaya, my favorite place to be!

I am not sure if I would say it all in one sentence "could you please bring us a variation of your recommendations for 3 people?"
I would approach it in two sentences: (a) what is your recommendation today; and depending on the response, (b) order that for 3-people portion.

For (a): kyou no osusume wa arimasuka きょうのおすすめはありますか　（今日のお勧めはありますか）

For (b): sore wo san-nin mae onegaishimasu それをさんにんまえ、おねがいします　（それを三人前、お願いします）

Various sashimi: sashimi no moriawase さしみのもりあわせ　（刺し身の盛り合わせ）

Mmm, I am drooling now.

At relatively expensive places, you can ask for "omakase" in which the restaurant will bring dish after dish of their choice, and you have to pay whatever is charged to you at the end which is typically around 10000 yen per person. If you are a tourist, you should ask a reliable person first to recommend you the right restaurant so that you won't get mobbed.

But most izakaya don't do omakase. The part-time waiting staff needs to take your specific orders to the kitchen. So just ask for an English menu, and if there isn't any, like the other poster suggested, ask for "osusume" (recommendations) and point at the menu while asking so. That way, the staff can point back at the menu as (s)he tells you the recommendations, and you will be able to see the price indicated.

At izakaya, typically you don't order the same dishes for each person. You order a variety of dishes for everyone to share. So let's say you are a group of five people. Start with about four or five different dishes, then add if you're still hungry. The waiting staff will often make suggestions so that your dish can be shared equally among the members of the group. For example, if a 500 yen dish only contains 3 meatballs, the staff will tell you so, so that you can decide if you want to order 2 dishes of those or not.

Sentence examples:
omakase de onegaishimasu: We'll leave the whole evening to you.)
osusume wa (nandesuka?): (What is) your recommendation?

You want to eat variation of food in Japanese island,Then why you will not eat Kappa sushi かっぱ寿司.Every time I went Kappa sushi store,I found Hundreds of Japanese people,If not thousands waiting in Line to enter かっぱ寿司 store.It is unbelievable cheap.Last time,I ate More than 6000 yen sushi,desserts for 70 minutes,But My Bill come up only 1706 yen.My sister paid 1490 yen at this "All you can eat sushi"store.My parents paid 1058 yen for 70 minutes 食べ放題.In My view,No nation show respect like this way to senior citizens.I also like izakaya restaurant.

my question was not neccessarly for only izakaya but also more general, how to get a variation of stuff for a certain amount of people.

i knew already about the osusume sentences (i use them all the time), but i thought there might be some special term, that could be used for "just make something for x people", but i understand it is highly uncommon.

i will stick then to the omakase term in case i really get lost during orders, thanks Uji for reminding me on it (i have forgotten about it).

So to sum it but:
sannim mae omakase de onegaishimasu
should do the trick?

or if they dont have omakase, we just simply order thing by thing until we are full :-)

thank you for your help!

Hi, I'm Uco.

First you need to make sure they can handle omakase, so first ask;

Omakase de onegai dekimasuka? (sentence 1)

And if they answer yes, then you can say

sannim mae omakase de onegaishimasu (sentence 2)

And like I said, you should make sure you don't get mobbed, so "sentence 1" is most likely to be asked to the person you already trust such as your tour guide or concierge.

I found even without English language menus and verbal skills. Simply pointing at what you want to order and using fingers to represent 1,2,3,4,5 etc worked. Adding Ichi, ni, san, shi, go etc verbally confirmed the order.

yeah, i know the workarounds :-)
but i just wanted to improve a little bit my japanese...

anyhow thanks everyone for helping me here.

Ichi ni san etc? Wow no @haakta. Don't teach what you don't know.

As Uco said, you need to make sure you are in the right kind of restaurant that accept "omakase" ("leaving up to the chef") kind of orders. And as far as I know, they tend to provide you with a whole course, not just an assorted plate of a few items. And if you just walk in and ask for "omakase," the chef would probably want to ask you if there are some kinds of food that you cannot eat/do not like thus like to avoid, so that would require more conversations actually.

If you are talking about one item, for example "sashimi" (fresh fish fillets) or "yakitori" (grilled chicken on skewers) and don't quite know exactly what kind of fish/chicken parts you want, then you can ask for "moriawase," which means "an assortment/assorted plate."

Thus you could ask
(Pointing at photos of "sashimi" for example)
- Sashimi no moriawase, [san]-nin mae, onegai shimasu. (Assorted sashimi for [3] please)

(Pointing at photos of"yakitori" for example, which we tend to count by "skewers")
- Yakitori no moriawase, [ju-ppon] onegaishimasu. (Assorted yakitori, [10 skewers] please)

I think the OP originally had more of a grammar, expression question rather than a question about how to actually order food in Japan.

I am not Japanese, but I would say something like 三人のための食べ物をお願いします。or 三人の部分。

I think the OP originally had more of a grammar, expression question rather than a question about how to actually order food in Japan.

I am not Japanese, but I would say something like 三人のための食べ物をお願いします。or 三人の部分。

Ups, sorry, my above post got sent to quickly.
Just wanted to add that I would like to hear from a Japanese how he/she would say the two expressions I proposed for the OPs above.

Enjoy studying Japanese!

Just wanted to add that I would like to hear from a Japanese how he/she would say the two expressions I proposed for the OPs above.

三人のための食べ物をお願いします。

I think the waiting staff would then ask you which dish you want for the three people, because you haven't mentioned anything about it.

三人の部分。

I'm afraid this doesn't make sense.

Either way, my understanding is that the OP has got his/her answer already.

yes, thank my question is solved. it was mainly about the counter "mae" which i didnt know yet.
but i learned also interesting cultural things like better not to ask for omakase in a izakaza :-)

i think we wont have to starve. thanks everyone again!