I was doing a thought experiment in my head, and I ran up against this. What would, or could, you do?
You have made a reservation for you and your SO for his birthday, at a high-end restaurant, which neither of you has been to before. The menu was available online before you went, and you have looked at it, but it changes daily and you didn’t want to spoil the surprise for your SO. You haven’t told him in advance anything about the restaurant.
You arrive, are seated, and are handed menus. Out of the six entrees listed (one beef, one pork, one chicken, one seafood, one vegetarian, something else) there is nothing your SO wants to eat. He’s not being stubborn or passive-aggressive or picky, just none of these particular entrees is remotely appealing to him on that night. What do you do? The options I could think of are:
Ask him what he does want, and then ask the waiter if there is any way for him to have that, or something like it.
Ask him to please choose the least bad (from his point of view) and to try to eat some of it (remember, this is his birthday, although you haven’t told the restaurant in advance because he hates fuss about it)
Tell the waiter that you are sorry but you have to leave – I suppose you could make up an emergency, or you could just say “there is nothing here we want to eat.”
Just have dessert and coffee
I understand why high-end restaurants tend to have limited menus. But I have felt squeezed before to eat something to which I was indifferent because it was the least undesirable thing on the menu. Has anything like this happened to you? What did you do?
I don’t mind trying restaurants with no fixed menu sometimes. Don’t have any particular diet restrictions or dislikes, and often enjoy discovering different cuisines.
But for a special occasion like a birthday, surely you would not want to roll the dice like that?
Dump the picky boyfriend and date someone who’s more adventurous about food.
Actually, I’d profusely apologize for the shit job I did in setting up a birthday dinner. I should’ve set it up at a restaurant where I had reason to be confident that there’d be food he liked. And then I’d ask him what he wanted to do, and do that.
Having a choice of six entrees that are beef, pork, chicken, vegetarian, seafood, and something else and NOT being willing to choose one seems a bit toddler-ish to me. With that level of variety, I would imagine that something would be palatable to nearly anyone.
If it was my wife or me in the SO’s position, I’m sure we’d do #2. You never know- something may not sound great on the menu, but may be fantastic when prepared by a top notch chef.
For example, we went here for a recent date, and signed up for the six-course tasting menu. It changes daily, and you have to sign up about two weeks in advance. One of the courses was a sort of winter squash prepared a certain way. I don’t like winter squash as a rule either. But made the way they did, it was good. I also would not have thought you could work beets into a dessert, but they did, and it was spectacular.
I feel like 1 and 3 are basically turning his pickiness into the restaurant’s problem, and that’s not fair. Especially #3 - they are expecting the revenue from that table you had reserved, and you’re just bouncing. They could have given that table to someone else.
#4 seems like the best of the bad options to me. But I would basically expect a grown adult to suck it up and find something on the menu to eat in that situation.
OK, if the menu items are all very exotic stuff with unconventional strong flavour that is likely to be a challenge for the majority of people, then I concede, he might not be a picky eater, but you’re in the wrong restaurant. Option 3. Make an excuse or tell the truth, and leave.
Definitely not option 1. There’s no way that would go well in a restaurant such as is being described.
Probably not option 2. It’s his birthday; asking him to suck it up seems to defeat the point.
Option 4 could be OK, I guess, if the restaurant is OK with that.
Speaking as an adult who is a picky eater, that’s a rather rude statement.
I wish I weren’t a fussy eater; I’ve tried a lot of foods that aren’t in my usual rotation, and simply find that I don’t like them. My issue is particularly around texture. I can choke stuff down if I have no choice, but it won’t mean I’ll like it.
In this case, hypothetically, I might like a beef dish, or a chicken dish, or a pork dish, as I generally like those proteins. But, if it features a bunch of unusual additional ingredients, I can predict that I probably won’t like the dish as a whole.
Given that it’s an event for his birthday AND I assume any such fancy establishment has an associated fancy price tag, if he won’t be happy with anything, I assume that it would be best for us to leave rather than pay $$$ on a meal he hates – for his birthday. Or maybe appetizers/dessert/coffee if we don’t want to hit TGI Fridays on the way home.
I’d probably be inwardly a bit surly at having tried to do something nice and his lack of willingness to even try but I’d get over it.
Under less limiting circumstances, I’d be more inclined to make the best of it but the scenario in the OP has too many things going against it to just suck it up.
Went to a resort hotel one summer and their only restaurant had a very limited menu. A few rather convoluted and relatively exotic entrees for the likes of us. Steak tartare and duck confit. It was odd, considering it was a popular place full of tourists and families. There weren’t any mundane familiar plain foods like burgers or spaghetti. I can eat anything, but my husband did have toddler-ish tastes. We ended up driving to another restaurant on the outskirts of town, something like Bub’s Backyard BBQ, where they served more familiar things.
In a customer situation, I’m definitely an Asker, not a Guesser. So, if I’m already ready to try Option 3, then I’d at least want to try Option 1, explaining its his birthday, and trying to make the most reasonable request possible, like leaving out a particular ingredient. The worst that happens is they kick you out. Sure, they could ban you, but then why would you ever want to go back anyways?
Now, if I considered Option 4 as a possibility, then that’s different. My idea then would be that we eat a little bit there to have that experience, then go grab something somewhere else for an actual meal. And, again, if choosing that causes trouble, that’s another reason not to want to attend the place. You don’t have to provide things that the customer wants, but they should be allowed to ask, since they are the ones paying.
This said, this is all assuming I’m the one making the decision. I agree that you should ask the guest what they want to do. And I’m not including any social anxiety I might have in the situation, as I’m assuming my best self.
There’s nowt wrong wi’ duck confit, my lad, and don’t you forget it! Food o’ bloody Gods, that is.
You lot and yer burgers and steak-and-kidney pies and yer egg and chips!
And Watney’s Red Barrel to wash it down with? I mean, Blimey?
It’s been at least 30 years since I’ve heard of a restaurant that served only one dish. My memory is not clear on this, I’m recalling Steak Diane but I think it was some other variety of beef steak with a sauce. Even further back I remember a fantastic steakhouse in Oklahoma that offered a choice of just a few cuts of beef, all the sides were standard after that. Ordering was just selecting which type of steak you wanted and choosing rare, medium, or well. I can’t see a restaurant surviving with menus that limited anymore. Plenty of people won’t eat this or that. It’s hard enough to find a main course everybody in my extended family will eat.
I’ve gone to a nice restaurant where a friend was the chef and told the server to “tell Chef it’s kayaker and I’d like whatever he thinks is the best meal tonight “. My gf then chose the same approach and we had an amazing meal.
I’m the absolute least picky diner and my gf is a very close second.
This. We (my parents, husband and I) recently went to a restaurant that had a very good tasting menu. And they also have a La Carte menu, which is rather short, but includes the standard proteins, so I knew there would be something my husband would enjoy.
Not to be underestimated. Much of what you wrote fits my husband as well, and texture really affects his acceptance of new recipes.
I’ve been to quite a few, but they were the opposite of ‘high end’ - little rustic family-run restaurants in Spain where you get the menu del dia, or nothing. Often some sort of hearty and robust stew that lends itself to being made in bulk, but other times it could be steaks or roasted chicken with potatoes or rice. Nearly always very good. I prefer that to choosing from a menu, to be honest.
I seem to recall a place in Paris and London I think, that only serves steak frites.
Yes, this is the place:
Looks like there’s a number of variations around, not just London and Paris.
I’m the type of person to almost literally eat anything and love it when a chef is just happy to whip up whatever the hell they want for me rather than me choosing, but, in this scenario, I would have to go with #3. I would be annoyed with myself for choosing a place with such a rigid menu for the birthday guest whom I know has food aversions, though.
Depends on exactly what you mean by “limited” - I don’t know of any that only serve one main course, but I do know some like this , where there may not be a completely new menu each day, but just because Lumache, Swordfish Chorizo, Maple Cream, Yam Leaves is on the menu December 7 doesn’t mean it will be on the menu December 8 or 14.
As far as the OP, it would never be my husband who couldn’t find something to eat. It would be me - the menus I linked above have almost nothing I would actually want except for the days with the porterhouse or t-bone. I would choose the least bad item because I would feel weird asking for something not on the menu in this sort of restaurant ( asking for a plain veal cutlet when veal piccata or veal parm is in the menu is different) and I wouldn’t feel comfortable about leaving or just having dessert and coffee. But the other thing that would happen is I would be annoyed at my husband - if he wants to go there for his birthday , I’m fine with ordering the least bad option, but for my birthday, he should bring me to a place he can be sure I will find something I actually like.
