Don’t try new things! That way leads to madness.
You’ll love em all, and then when you go there you’ll have to CHOOSE which one to get. Its a fate worse than death I tells ya.
My perfect eating establishment would have one thing and one thing only on the menu. A steak, medium rare.
Old favorite, for sure. Drives my wife batty even when it’s a restaurant we only go to every six months or something.
i’m probably a repeat orderer. i know i don’t like lamb as a rule. why would i try this restaurant’s lamb? i might be missing out on great lamb, but i doubt it.
This is me. My husband & I will go out to our favorite Indian restaurant. He will order, as usual, the Chicken Tikka Masala. I’ll decide to order something different this time, and always ALWAYS wish I’d order what he has. 
My solution to this dilemma is to try everything, find the things that you like, and then at home start figuring out how to make those dishes for yourself.
My husband and I often order cooperatively, and trade plates half way through dinner. Without him, I often do order the old favorite.
The greater the difficulty of getting to the restaurant, the more likely I will be to order the favorite.
For restaurants near my parents, who live across the country and whom I visit twice a year, I almost always order the favorite, because I’ve probably spent the past six months wanting it.
There is a restaurant that I go to for lunch about once a month. I usually order the favorite, but every once in a while I will branch out and try something new. Most of the time I regret my decision.
When a new lunch place opened across the street from my house, I decided to methodically work my way through every item on the menu that appealed to me. I finally settled on two favorites, and now I order one or the other every time.
The older I get, the less I value variety/trying new things, and the more I value the tried and true.
I’ve always called this the “Dancing Squid Syndrome.” Dancing Squid being the tastiest dish yet discovered at the local thai place, Siam Square.
I tend to regret not trying something else AFTER I’ve ordered. But not too much, as I have a super-spicy squid dish to console me on my lack of adventurousness.
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Thai food loves you, even when no one else does.
Next month we will be in St Martin for two weeks, our 5th consecutive year. We always go to Yvette’s on the French side, and always get conch and dumplings. My gf can make a duplicate of it, using scallops in place of the conch, since we cannot get conch.
I can’t wait, and know already what I will order. 
I go with something new and regret not getting the favorite. That restaurant for me is Point Brugge in Pittsburgh. Damn place doesn’t take reservations and has small rugrats running about, the latter point especially bizarre since it’s somewhat higher priced. Oh well. Whatever lets the parents have a mimosa while their toddler runs around without feeling guilty, I guess.
The problem with this is that you then learn to cook at least as well as most mid-range restaurants. My wife and I both cook very well, and usually are disappointed in the quality level of most resturants we go to. The only ones we aren’t disappointed in are the ones that we can’t afford in the first place… which is a bigger problem! 