Avoiding getting burnt

Hello!

Long time no see/post/write. I now get up at 5:45 to go to work; love my job but very little blogging time.

This is an emergency article that I feel I have to write, inspired by a scathing review of Trader Vic's in City AM

There is a tendency when you have eaten out with the same person many times to go for the same places again and again. This has led to, in my experience, a number of off-the-wall dining experiences that have been well below par. Without further ado, a tired 3-hour's-sleep rant on those "alternative restaurants."

Usually it's when you're in a long term relationship (of which I've had one, but I have friends who tell me similar) that your "dates" get a bit stale. You go to the same places, get the same takeaways, order the same food (chilli beef in my partner's case) and sometimes it gets a bit stale. So you try to spice things up (pun intended...) by trying to go to places you never would normally go to. The hunt for "experience" is, in my mind, flawed. Reading about people who have gone to eat at a Cambodian restaurant and expecting their Western palettes to be satisfied is madness. Chances are if you think that a place is off-the-wall and are just trying to be spontaneous it's not going to end well. Think about trying the black run on a ski-slope without really being involved skiing before hand. Apparently skiing down a black run is quite difficult, ask a Chaynaaaay person for more perspective on this particular analogy. 

So the Polynesian place on Park Lane...likened to living through your parents' messy divorce. Great review from Steve Dinneen there, although generally I do refrain from making such negative reviews (joke, I just don't eat bad food). Here are some tips for eating something different.

1. Just change venue: chances are if you try something completely new from a different culinary palette, you'll get burnt. By all means experiment but don't use it as the life-ring that many people do; they're often the most unhappy diners when they leave. Try a new place during an expansionary phase of dining experimentation, rather than "this will spice things up a bit and stop us being boring and mundane people..." Yeah, right.

2. Try ordering something different: I have been out so many times with people who order the same thing each time. Aside from driving me completely insane with such a lack of vision, it limits your dining experience. You shouldn't go to Fire & Stone and order the same topping on your pizza each time. Barking mad.

3. Avoid any place that has a theme or traditional decor; in the same way that some men drive Range Rover Sports, they're making up for something, somewhere...

4. Do some research; we all have the internet now and most information, outside of the Telegraph online/FT, so no excuse to Google what other people think. (Yes, may be worth investing in a company whose name has become a verb. Facebook, Google, MSN (haha joke) or maybe Twitter, we'll wait for that one, shall we?)

One last thing to remember; for heaven's sake, please don't go to Trader Vic's. Spend the £126.50 you would have spent on a truly dismal experience having your own pet cat stuffed...whilst still alive. That will be an inarguably better experience, even for you tree hugging, suede wearing animal rights activists. I kid you not.

BenY

PS: if you want to read more from the man who wrote the Trader Vic's article, follow him on twitter: @steve_dinneen