How do you order boxes of food at chinese restaurants ?

i see in movies and at my friends house that they hove boxes of chinese food and inside those boxes there is like only one kind of meat or one kind of food like lets say beef .so one boxe will be just beef and the other will be shrimp. when i usualy order for delivery or pickup i get everything on the same plate no matter if its small or large.How do you order boxes of food at chinese restaurants ?
We just ordered delivery Chinese last night. You just call and say "I'd like an order of pork lo mein, an order of beef with snow peas, an order of shrimp fried rice, and 2 orders of crab rangoon" for instance. You'll get 1 box of each, and 2 boxes of the crab rangoon. To be honest, I've never had any Chinese place mix them all together on a platter, unless I'm ordering in the restaurant.