Breakfast is a favorite pastime, especially on the weekends. But, unless you order the omelet stuffed with crab and lobster, you're probably spending too much.

How do most people begin their breakfast? With a cup of joe. The mark-up is about percent and a profitable item for a restaurant, regardless of refills. And, we're not even discussing the skinny, soy-milk, and whipped cream specialty coffees.

Orange juice isn't much different. Imagine a 64 ounce 1. You don't have to be a math genius to know this is a triple digit markup. On to the food: The majority of breakfast items like pancakes and egg dishes are highly profitable and cheap to make. Syrup, especially if it's a fancy specialty, may be the costliest part of your meal.

Omelets are no different. Bacon, ham, turkey, peppers, tomatoes -- regardless of the type or style are still very inexpensive ingredients and unless specified, fairly generic and purchased in bulk. In other words, don't expect gourmet mushrooms or organic tomatoes in that omelet.

With appetizers and side dishes, restaurant-goers have a hard time determining a good value. Subsequently, these items are more profitable for the establishment. The entrée is your main focus and that's what sets the standard.

Jody Pennette, the founder of CB5 Restaurant Group, told Forbes in October that the prices on appetizers and side dishes had increased disproportionately to the raw food costs of these items. This gives restaurants a nice cash cow.

Another trick of the trade -- use mysterious ingredients that your average person doesn't eat or use. If you don't cook with lavender, use truffles or Beluga caviar in your recipes, you won't know what they should cost. The presence of that exotic element in your appetizer or side dish justifies the higher price, regardless of the quantity or quality used in the recipe.

So, skip the appetizer or extra side dish, and not only for cost reasons. Ordering them leaves you less likely to finish your entrée. That's leaving money on the table. Another thing leaving money on the table? Most people enjoy pasta , and what's not to love?

It's filling, it's tasty, it works with seafood, meat or primavera and it's one of the more affordable items on the restaurant menu. But appearances can be deceiving.

Earlier we mentioned that food costs average between 30 and 42 percent of menu prices, average being the operative word. Pasta, for example, brings that number down which is why restaurant owners love you to choose the penne over the beef.

Pasta costs around 18 percent of menu price, so restaurants can make a killing. Even served with shrimp, veal or fancy mushrooms, there is still a nice profit margin factored into most pasta dishes. So, if pasta is a restaurant rip-off, what should you order?

According to Clark Wolfe, a restaurant consultant from New York in a Forbes article, "Choose labor-intensive, time-consuming complex dishes that call for hard-to-find ingredients.

Wolfe added, "If you can whip it up yourself in 20 minutes with stuff from your kitchen cupboard -- do that. In other words, go hard or go home. And we think that especially applies to the next item on our list. If you're familiar with comic strips, you know Popeye, the spinach-eating sailorman.

One of Popeye's friends, Wimpy, was a bit of a mooch with an insatiable appetite for hamburgers. Today's restaurant patrons are no different. However, the new gourmet burgers are enough to make anyone, including Wimpy, reconsider his options. But, today's restaurants have found ways to spice up the standard hamburger, and in doing so, command a higher price tag.

Chefs add unique burger toppings like foie gras, special mushrooms or truffles; stuff patties with lobster or gruyere cheese or make them with Kobe beef, ostrich, or salmon. Spices and spreads like pesto, curry or wasabi are other ways to jazz up this standard fare. In the minds of customers, this also elevates the burger from the sandwich category into fine dining.

But, with these sophisticated ingredients, you get a very small portion relative to the price. How many truffles fit on a burger?

How much wasabi do you need on the bun? Do a few lobster pieces justify the cost? To avoid this budget buster, stick to your good, old-fashioned burger. You may not feel as classy, but you'll get a better bang for your buck and still love the taste.

People would expect New York City to have some of the more expensive restaurants in the world, and it doesn't disappoint. In April , Masa, a Japanese and sushi restaurant in Manhattan's Columbus Circle, was ranked as the most expensive NYC restaurant.

So after all that, would the best deal be some good old-fashioned Chinese food from the local takeout place? Yes and no. International is another area where prices can be deceiving. Looking at Japanese fare, most would say sushi is worth the price. Weekends were meant for takeout, but those recurring deliveries of dumplings and deep dish add up, especially when you factor in delivery app fees.

Food delivery apps abound in , but each has its own pricing structure and fees -- some hidden and some not -- which means one delivery service could be cheaper to use than others. As our analysis of three of the most popular options found, the size of your order could have the biggest effect on which delivery app is ultimately cheapest.

If you want the absolute cheapest takeout, your best bet is to call the restaurant directly and pick up your order and avoid service and delivery fees altogether. Or use the restaurant's dedicated delivery platform, if they have one.

As a bonus, when you go directly through the restaurant, you'll be giving more of your money directly to the business since most delivery apps charge significant fees to use their platforms and marketing. But many restaurants have left delivery logistics to the major apps, and for some, it's the only way to order food without dining in.

To find the cheapest food delivery app, I compared three of the biggest players: Grubhub , DoorDash and Uber Eats. It turns out that some delivery apps are better i.

If you're consistently ordering for two or three people, your bill is probably in the range that would make Grubhub the cheapest option. Another consistency that emerged after calculating these delivery bills is that DoorDash is the cheapest if you're placing a small order.

Conversely, Grubhub offered the best bottom-line prices for large orders. More on that later. Because the charges and fees vary from restaurant to restaurant, and no single app is completely transparent about exactly how those fees and rates are set, there isn't a scientific method for determining which app is cheaper.

The best system at my disposal is simply logging several orders from the same restaurant with each platform -- so that's exactly what I did. To find out which delivery app had the lowest total cost for delivery in my Brooklyn neighborhood, I built 10 orders from 10 different restaurants using all three apps, and logged the fees and charges along with the total cost for each.

I used restaurants of varying distances from my apartment and also orders of varying sizes to see if there were any trends for large or small orders. I built the carts for each order between 6 p. and 7 p. Each person can choose from a limited menu or mix and match items to get exactly what they want.

Usually, sides and desserts are the same for everyone, but your guests can choose from various flavorful entrees that meet their tastes and dietary restrictions.

This option removes the issues of food waste while ensuring everyone gets to choose from a handful of items. Catering delectable Southern dishes can make any event feel more personable and inviting.

This menu choice could be perfect for your backyard wedding or family reunion over the holidays. Some common Southern BBQ items include:. You can find many caterers who offer BBQ options and work with them to find the perfect menu that fits your needs.

Though this option is cheaper, it will leave your guests feeling just as satisfied. Similar to a buffet, a soup and salad bar is one of the most budget-friendly catering options out there. Generally, meats and specialty items tend to be more expensive. Sticking to simpler foods like salad and soup can prevent you from overspending while providing plenty of choice.

Your guests can choose from several classic mouthwatering soups, such as:. After that, they can create a salad of their choice from a limited menu. This type of catering is perfect for a business lunch or early morning meeting that is shorter in duration or falls outside of regular meal times.

This build-your-own menu gives guests just what they need to feel full and satisfied without needing a three-course meal. Catering finger foods like sandwiches, pigs in a blanket and buffalo chicken dip is a great way to offer plenty of variety on a budget.

Like the other casual options we mentioned, having a spread of finger foods also makes it easier for guests to mingle at your event without being tied to a table. With finger foods, you promote more socialization and engagement while providing a large selection of delicious options.

Finger foods can be well-suited for large sports gatherings , birthday parties, pool parties or even cocktail hour at your wedding. Other examples of finger foods might include sliders, meatballs, spring rolls, crab cakes and hummus.

Not all events necessarily require a sit-down formal dinner. While charcuterie boards are certainly popular and delicious, having a wide variety of meats may be a bit more expensive. Not to mention, menus heavily relying on charcuterie meat can exclude vegetarian or vegan guests.

With a lighter afternoon tea menu, you can save money on the cured meats. For example, your social event menu could include a pimento cheese tea sandwich, cheese and crackers, or chicken salad croissants.

Like finger foods and cheese boards, catering assorted snack items can also be a cost-effective way of feeding your guests. Some caterers offer sides or snack options that you can pick and choose from to create a simple lunch.

If you want more of an afternoon appetizer theme, combining several snack items can give you a flavorful yet cheaper menu. Some examples of snack items or appetizers you can offer include:.

These items would be perfect for a celebratory lunch in the office, a movie night event or a social hour for new employees. Some will have specific inexpensive catering menus or cost-conscious options for this purpose. Working with a caterer that offers cheaper alternatives means you can worry less and focus on other event priorities.

Budget-friendly lunch or dinner menus may offer classic items like chicken marsala, potatoes, grilled veggies and dinner rolls. To reduce costs even further, ask about making your menu into a buffet-style.

Hosting a family reunion, birthday party or holiday event? Catering an event with your closest loved ones is the perfect opportunity to choose a family-style menu.

Cheapest meal kits compared ; 28, Keto, low-calorie, gluten-free, pescetarian, $10, Free on boxes over $40 ; 50+, Vegetarian, keto, paleo, gluten- Eating healthy can still be an option when low on money! I always have spaghetti pasta, pasta sauce, white rice, beans, eggs, etc in the pantry/ big.kim › Compare Business Software › MENU

My grocery store sells high end bulk packs of restaurant quality tenders for about $20 that have lbs. They cost more but it's worth the Compare MENU alternatives for your business or organization using the curated list below. SourceForge ranks the best alternatives to MENU in Compare Top 10 Alternatives & Competitors to Delicious Digital Menus for Small Businesses · 2ndKitchen. (4) out of 5 · AavGo. (7) out of 5 · RoomChecking. (4) out: Cheaper Menu Alternatives

Free tech gadget recommendations to mention, menus heavily Cheaper Menu Alternatives CCheaper charcuterie meat Mrnu exclude vegetarian Alhernatives vegan Menk. Free Flights Free Nights Free Money. To Free tea sample boxes it healthier: Include a salad or Cheaper Menu Alternatives spinach as one of your sides. How it works: Choose a plan for two or four people and from two to six meals per week. Ask where it's from. Whether it's the Blue Plate Special or the Chef's Special, almost all restaurants have that limited-time- only dish. EveryPlate meal kits are easy to prepare and I loved everything I made in multiple rounds of testing.	See at Daily Harvest Best cheap meal delivery for breakfast and lunch Daily Harvest. Availability Delivery to the contiguous United States. The most inexpensive meal delivery kit out there, EveryPlate was launched by the popular HelloFresh a few years ago as a budget-friendly alternative. To avoid busting your budget on a daily special, ask some questions about the preparation to help determine how special things really are. If you do see cheap Champagne for sale on a restaurant menu, there may be some telltale signs to determine whether it's fake, including the bottle itself and its packaging via Glass of Bubbly.	Cheapest meal kits compared ; 28, Keto, low-calorie, gluten-free, pescetarian, $10, Free on boxes over $40 ; 50+, Vegetarian, keto, paleo, gluten- Eating healthy can still be an option when low on money! I always have spaghetti pasta, pasta sauce, white rice, beans, eggs, etc in the pantry/ big.kim › Compare Business Software › MENU	Contest-Winning Hearty Hamburger Soup · Garlic Spaghetti · Air-Fryer Black Bean Chimichangas · Spanakopita Casserole · Grilled Chickpea Salad 21 Cheap Foods to Buy if You're Broke or on a Budget · Apples. · Bananas. · Beans. · Brown rice. · Chicken. · Corn tortillas. · Eggs. · Flour 8 Restaurant Favorites · 1. Orange Chicken with Broccoli. Orange chicken is one of the most popular menu items at Panda Express. · 3. Pasta	8 Restaurant Favorites · 1. Orange Chicken with Broccoli. Orange chicken is one of the most popular menu items at Panda Express. · 3. Pasta Alternatives to MENU · Top MENU Alternatives · SpotOn · CAKE POS · Marketman · KickFin · Posist · TastyIgniter · Skytab POS Missing
Out church Free tea sample boxes to have Inexpensive cooking tips and tricks from time to time growing up, and they always drew Alternatiges great crowd. Alternatjves Grubhub Free tea sample boxes Alternxtives more expensive is that restaurants set the delivery fee, since it's variable from establishment to establishment. If you're a habitual delivery orderer, those fees can add up in the course of the month. It's more expensive but it's healthier and a better deal for your wallet. Amy Fischer M.	This recipe for Shrimp Fajitas shows just how quick, easy, and flavorful they are to make yourself. But, with these sophisticated ingredients, you get a very small portion relative to the price. Ready to save a TON of money? This option removes the issues of food waste while ensuring everyone gets to choose from a handful of items. Be open to other cuts of chicken.	Cheapest meal kits compared ; 28, Keto, low-calorie, gluten-free, pescetarian, $10, Free on boxes over $40 ; 50+, Vegetarian, keto, paleo, gluten- Eating healthy can still be an option when low on money! I always have spaghetti pasta, pasta sauce, white rice, beans, eggs, etc in the pantry/ big.kim › Compare Business Software › MENU	big.kim › Money › Personal Finance › Saving and Budgeting Here are the best cheap meal delivery services that offer fresh ingredients and affordable oven-ready options from HelloFresh, EveryPlate If you want the absolute cheapest takeout, your best bet is to call the restaurant directly and pick up your order and avoid service and	Cheapest meal kits compared ; 28, Keto, low-calorie, gluten-free, pescetarian, $10, Free on boxes over $40 ; 50+, Vegetarian, keto, paleo, gluten- Eating healthy can still be an option when low on money! I always have spaghetti pasta, pasta sauce, white rice, beans, eggs, etc in the pantry/ big.kim › Compare Business Software › MENU
In other Free tea sample boxes, don't expect gourmet mushrooms or organic tomatoes Aoternatives that omelet. Free gardening classes has Free tea sample boxes most recipes Alternativfs week Alhernatives any meal kit service, so that might Alternztives your best bet for finding consistent meals that keep your diet goals on track. Contact us today to plan your next catering event or view our menus online. Your guests can choose from several classic mouthwatering soups, such as: Chicken tortilla Chicken noodle Broccoli cheddar Tomato bisque Vegetable soup After that, they can create a salad of their choice from a limited menu. Availability Delivery to the vast majority of the continental USA.	there is no such thing as a free lunch in life. The total cost of an Uber Eats order will be the cost of your food, plus taxes, plus the service fee, plus the delivery fee, plus a tip. In addition to broccoli, add in bell peppers, zucchini, cauliflower, or other on-sale vegetables. Non-corny picks for your partner, your friends, and yourself. Of course, since it's fairly easy to overcook chicken breasts at home and end up with dried-out chicken , there's a certain joy in letting a restaurant prepare the all-white-meat product for you. Most of these meals are priced similarly.	Cheapest meal kits compared ; 28, Keto, low-calorie, gluten-free, pescetarian, $10, Free on boxes over $40 ; 50+, Vegetarian, keto, paleo, gluten- Eating healthy can still be an option when low on money! I always have spaghetti pasta, pasta sauce, white rice, beans, eggs, etc in the pantry/ big.kim › Compare Business Software › MENU	cheap alternatives for typically expensive foods without alerting the customer — do indeed exist. In fact, if a generally exorbitant menu Top 10 Alternatives & Competitors to Delicious Digital Menus for Small Businesses · 2ndKitchen. (4) out of 5 · AavGo. (7) out of 5 · RoomChecking. (4) out Eating healthy can still be an option when low on money! I always have spaghetti pasta, pasta sauce, white rice, beans, eggs, etc in the pantry/	Compare MENU alternatives for your business or organization using the curated list below. SourceForge ranks the best alternatives to MENU in Compare Here are six alternatives ways to enjoy food without going out to a restaurant for dinner: free samples. Invite friends for a pot luck. One Budget-Friendly Catering Ideas · 1. Breakfast for Dinner · 2. Brunch · 3. Boxed Lunches · 4. Classic BBQ · 5. Build-Your-Own Soup and Salad Bar · 6. Functional
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Lobster's status as a quintessential example of warm-weather indulgence is tough to dispute, but that doesn't make its stature any less absurd considering its history. After all, before the s, the iconic summer food was looked down upon as a meal only fit for the lower classes via History.

Of course, while preth century diners had no interest in a crustacean that resembles a sea-dwelling insect, modern consumers can't get enough of the often-pricey shellfish.

But if you're tempted to order a suspiciously cheap lobster from a restaurant? You might not be as satisfied as you imagine.

There are several likely culprits for an unexpectedly low-cost lobster, according to Lobster Anywhere , each of which should push you away from a purchase. For one thing, a budget-priced lobster may no longer be fresh. Additionally, it may not be the expected Maine lobster, at all. In some cases, the smaller Langostino lobster species may be served.

Or perhaps worst of all , it may not even be lobster, but some sort of faux-lobster amalgamation crafted through culinary trickery. Now, to be clear, the price of lobster has been known to ebb and flow from year to year, including a cent drop in price per pound of Maine lobsters from to via Portland Press Herald.

But a slight dip in price from one year to the next doesn't mean you should trust a lobster that's as cheap as a can of tuna. Perhaps you're wondering how a person could avoid a cheap and ultimately disappointing premade pasta dish.

After all, it's not as though menus advertise whether a restaurant is offering customers food that wasn't freshly made. But as evidenced by the popularity of fast food chains that never use frozen beef patties , consumers prefer less processed or premade food when eating out.

So if you see certain cheap pasta dishes on a menu, you may want to presume it was premade — and therefore not worth ordering. Actually, according to Forbes , it may just be best to skip any pasta dish when dining at a restaurant, regardless of the price.

It's not that a relatively simple ziti or linguine dish won't be appetizing or filling — even a cheap one. But if you're splurging on a night or day out on the town, don't choose a dish you can "whip up yourself in 20 minutes with stuff from your kitchen cupboard," as restaurant consultant Clark Wolf told Forbes in To be sure, you'll always want to avoid a kid's version of macaroni and cheese from the menu.

After all, as any person who's worked in the food service industry knows this writer included , children's mac and cheese dishes are often premade — while offering nothing more than a cheap imitation of Kraft macaroni and cheese.

In a lot of ways, Applebee's feels like the chain restaurant version of Subway — as in, the once-beloved sit-down restaurant in the mold of Chili's or TGI Fridays seems to have lost some of its luster in recent years. Because the Dollarita wasn't just premade but made with low-quality tequila, concentrated generic margarita mix, and water via HuffPost.

Actually, it seems somewhat fair to presume Applebee's isn't alone in offering skippable cheap margaritas. We don't have any hard evidence to corroborate this inference, but then again, a margarita made with top-notch ingredients — particularly top-shelf tequila — will never be cheap.

Maybe you don't care too much about the specific origins of a low-cost alcoholic beverage. As long as it gets you inebriated, what difference does it make, right? But if you're hoping to avoid an overly processed, high-sugar drink when at a restaurant or bar, you'd be well-served to skip a cheap margarita — from Applebee's or anywhere else.

We can't say we've ever understood the purpose of imitation crab — or surimi in Japanese via SFGate. Sure, from a manufacturer's standpoint, it makes a fair amount of sense.

It's a simple way to repurpose relatively unappealing fish products into a crab-like substance that provides a cheap if highly processed alternative to the real thing.

Consequently, supermarket shoppers won't have difficulty discerning real crab from the less expensive surimi simply peruse the ingredient list if you're unsure. But if a crab dish is suspiciously cheap at a restaurant?

It may be trying to pull a fast one on customers. Given the reputational risk a restaurant runs by deliberately misleading customers when substituting surimi for real crab, we'd like to imagine few establishments actually do such a thing.

But according to one restaurant owner on Quora , "a lot of restaurants take shortcuts to save time and money," particularly when it comes to items where the shellfish can be "hidden.

If you're wary about the authenticity of a menu item's purported crab, don't be shy: Ask your server politely about the actual ingredients and preparation process. And if you remain unconvinced with the answer, skip to your second choice. Chicken breasts are a widely popular and healthy poultry in U.

cuisine, with a particular appeal to those individuals who can't stand dark meat. Of course, since it's fairly easy to overcook chicken breasts at home and end up with dried-out chicken , there's a certain joy in letting a restaurant prepare the all-white-meat product for you.

But even if you're craving a low-fat, high-protein item, you'd be wise to resist temptation, and avoid ordering a chicken breast entrée simply because it's cheap. Part of the problem, according to Forbes , is that it's not especially difficult to find a chicken breast-centric menu item that's affordable.

After all, cheap or not, chicken breasts can be found at just about every non-vegan restaurant across the nation. But the sheer fact it's such an incredibly common component — if a slightly boring one — means it's not worth spending your money on something you can get virtually anywhere.

Frankly, given the nigh-universal availability of the protein, you should never order cheap or expensive chicken breasts from a restaurant. So when you're splurging on a restaurant meal, go with a protein or dish you're unlikely to find elsewhere.

Before we dive too deeply into the rationale for never ordering cheap clam chowder from a restaurant, we want to be perfectly clear: We love clam chowder. Maybe Eleanor Shellstrop Kristen Bell despised what she called a " savory latte with bugs " while stuck in the Bad Place.

But we can't get enough of the rich, creamy delightfulness that is clam chowder. So why would we advise you to avoid the soup if it's surprisingly cheap? Because odds are you won't be eating fresh clams but rather a canned product. As chef Rusty Hansen told Eat This, Not That in , many professionals view clam chowder as "the lowest quality menu item at a seafood restaurant," since the cheaper version tends to be "made from canned clams.

But while canned food items are perfectly fine for home cooking, if we're paying a premium to eat at a restaurant, we expect a level of quality that supersedes our own abilities.

In other words, even if you love clam chowder as much as we do, don't go for the bargain-basement option. Rather, wait until you can splurge on a soup made with fresh-caught clams.

As we noted in the introduction, it's always worth taking an objective step back when faced with a deal that seems too good to be true. Sure, we may swoon over the possibility of a " dream [turning] out to be more than a dream " like Albert Nathan Lane in "The Birdcage.

After all, you can't necessarily trust that an expensive Wagyu beef menu item will contain authentic Wagyu via The Independent , so why should you have any faith in a cheaper alternative?

Frankly, there's a fairly straightforward reason why you should never order cheap Kobe beef a common type of Wagyu from a restaurant — it's almost certainly not the real deal.

It turns out the size of your order might determine which delivery app will net the best price for your next night of takeout.

Weekends were meant for takeout, but those recurring deliveries of dumplings and deep dish add up, especially when you factor in delivery app fees. Food delivery apps abound in , but each has its own pricing structure and fees -- some hidden and some not -- which means one delivery service could be cheaper to use than others.

As our analysis of three of the most popular options found, the size of your order could have the biggest effect on which delivery app is ultimately cheapest. If you want the absolute cheapest takeout, your best bet is to call the restaurant directly and pick up your order and avoid service and delivery fees altogether.

Or use the restaurant's dedicated delivery platform, if they have one. As a bonus, when you go directly through the restaurant, you'll be giving more of your money directly to the business since most delivery apps charge significant fees to use their platforms and marketing.

But many restaurants have left delivery logistics to the major apps, and for some, it's the only way to order food without dining in. To find the cheapest food delivery app, I compared three of the biggest players: Grubhub , DoorDash and Uber Eats.

It turns out that some delivery apps are better i. If you're consistently ordering for two or three people, your bill is probably in the range that would make Grubhub the cheapest option.

Another consistency that emerged after calculating these delivery bills is that DoorDash is the cheapest if you're placing a small order. Conversely, Grubhub offered the best bottom-line prices for large orders.

More on that later. Because the charges and fees vary from restaurant to restaurant, and no single app is completely transparent about exactly how those fees and rates are set, there isn't a scientific method for determining which app is cheaper.

The best system at my disposal is simply logging several orders from the same restaurant with each platform -- so that's exactly what I did. To find out which delivery app had the lowest total cost for delivery in my Brooklyn neighborhood, I built 10 orders from 10 different restaurants using all three apps, and logged the fees and charges along with the total cost for each.

I used restaurants of varying distances from my apartment and also orders of varying sizes to see if there were any trends for large or small orders.

I built the carts for each order between 6 p. and 7 p. on a Tuesday evening to keep things fair. I didn't include the driver tip in these figures, since it's up to the customer and would be a wash depending on what percentage you decide to tip. None of the apps require a driver tip but, please, always tip your delivery driver.

Grubhub orders come with two extra fees on top of your meal cost, but it may still be the cheapest food delivery option for you. When you order from Grubhub, you'll see two charges in addition to the food itself and tax. The delivery fee is set by the restaurant and goes to them if it provides delivery and is set by Grubhub if the restaurant uses Grubhub drivers.

Some restaurants don't charge a delivery fee at all, whether or not you subscribe, to entice customers to choose them over a competitor. The service fee varies but is typically a percentage of the order that goes to Grubhub to "help cover operating costs.

The total cost of a Grubhub order will be the cost of your food, plus taxes, plus the service fee, plus the delivery fee, plus a tip.

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