西餐
xī cān · HSK 2
Western-style food
🍴🍝 西餐 = 西 (west) + 餐 (meal) — a Western meal
西 means west and 餐 means meal or food, so 西餐 literally reads as west-meal: Western-style cuisine. Counters 份 (fèn, a portion) and 顿 (dùn, a sitting/meal-occasion) are the usual measure words.
西 — top 覀 (cover) + bottom 儿 (legs); originally a bird in nest
Originally a pictograph of a bird settling into its nest at dusk. Because birds return to roost when the sun sets in the west, the character was borrowed to mean 'west.' The original 'nest' meaning was later written with 棲/栖.
餐 — 歺 (bone fragment) + 又 (hand) + 食 (food)
Originally a phono-semantic compound showing a hand (又) taking food from bones (歺), with 食 (food) as the meaning component. The top portion 'cǎn' provides the sound, while 食 indicates the meaning of eating. Over time it came to mean 'meal' or 'to eat.'