Tips For Hopeless Restaurant Orderers

In his (supposedly) final column for "The New York Times," restaurant critic Frank Bruni attempts to answer some of the questions with which he has been bombarded over the years but has never answered until now.

The famous food writer recently revealed that in addition to spending years eating some of the best food in the city, he was also throwing it up. Which makes sense in some ways, but is also disappointing for those who like to think of food critics as the fattest and happiest (if at times cantankerous) kinds of writers (possibly this could be Adam Platt).

In addition to the common questions like “what’s the best steak/sushi/hamburger around,” Bruni gives some very good guidance for those of us whose ordering habits consist of endlessly studying the menu, drilling the server and then lamenting to your poor companion, “I should have gotten the...”  End the waitperson torture and follow these simple rules.
 
“Scratch off the appetizers and entrees that are most like dishes you’ve seen in many other restaurants, because they represent this one at its most dutiful, conservative and profit-minded. The chef’s heart isn’t in them," advises the Brunster. "Scratch off the dishes that look the most aggressively fanciful. The chef’s vanity — possibly too much of it — spawned these.

Then scratch off anything that mentions truffle oil.

"Choose among the remaining dishes.”