One other reason may be of heat conduction, the food may be hot, however it has lost a lot of water and in turn, heat transferability. This may cause the plate appear to feel hotter even though they are the same temp. This is a similar phenomenon to an experiment where you leave a book and a metal cube of equal sizes outside on a cool night, the metal will appear to be colder than the book even though they are the same temp, because the metal has more heat conductivity.
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