Overwhelmed by restaurant menus?

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I got the problem too. Usually I don't see anything I like in the menu (they won't give you anything covered with sour cream and vinegar and I am undersensitive to tastes so I need the stuff to be very sour, I use more citric acid powder than some people sugar) but there is also no much of things I couldn't eat - I will eat anything as long as it doesn't include coffee, sweet pepper and red meat. And if I have to choose between 20 stuff I neither like or dislike I am getting very hard time deciding. "This sound ok, but why should I eat it if I am in a restaurant? It is a food I would eat if there was nothing else at home, no way I am paying for it 10x the usual price. How about this one? Hmm... it sounds nice but I have no idea what they put in it, what if it won't taste good enough for me? There may be red pepper in it. Maybe there is something better?". Usually I end up ordering a pizza together with a friend. The friend chooses what the pizza should be with and I take a garlic sauce to cover my part of pizza with it so it gets some taste.

Hahaaha, yep this is so me. My (Nt) boyfriend always gets irritated when I take forever to decide between things. And, I'm vegetarian so the choice is actually more limited!. My problem is I always see two or three things that sound nice and can't decide which one to have.

But, I'm bad at decision making too, and making the smallest of decisions like what cereal I should buy for e.g. Maybe, it is an AS thing?! !

xx

Yes, I relate to this strongly. I get overwhelmed by the sheer number of choices, combined with what is often a noisy and distracting environment in most restaurants. I have to remind myself to be very systematic and read my way through, slowly; it's the only way I've found to cope with it.

I used to have a similar problem back in the days of the video rental store, overwhelmed by walls of choices so that I didn't know where to even start looking. Again, forcing myself to get really systematic kind of cured me of this particular type of overwhelm. But in a restaurant where time might be of the essence, I agree with the suggestion of dish of the day for a quick choice.

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I know this very well. It's overwhelming because of the pressure, you know you don't have much time left and then there is this huge choice (and if you are not familiar with the food, it makes it even harder). And I have to decide for a drink too...

The best choice is this one, I think: Choose to go to an all-you-can-eat/buffet-style restaurant and just take what you know/want at the pace you want!
My family does so. Whenever we go into a restaurant, it is always the same one with a happy hour and all-you-can-eat-buffet day.

For those who have trouble making a choice, a good tip I've heard is: just go with the first item you like. Don't keep looking. Just stop at the first thing that looks alright.

I can't say it's happened often, but I get the problem on occasion.

I can dismiss much of what is on a complicated menu because I find a few things that sound good to me.

The problem is when NOTHING sounds good or if the few items that sound good all seem equally attractive.

For the later, I often ask the server for their recommendation.

I've walked out of places where nothing on the menu sounds good, but that's not much of an option unless others in the group feel likewise. I went with a group to some kind of Asian restaurant, and while what I got wasn't horrible, it wasn't that great...but it's the place they picked, so I had to choose something. It was all fancy stuff...nothing basic (I like Asian food for the most part).

Because one of my special interests is nutrition and how it relates to my physical and emotional well-being, I can find menus to be like a fun puzzle to try to figure out what would work best for me.

I often have a hard time making decisions, I'm not a picky eater so it shouldn't be an issue at restaurants but somewhere along that decision making line I freeze up.

I get seriously overloaded with restaurant menus and I need someone else to read them for me and help me choose, otherwise I end up having a meltdown. Although being vegetarian and allergic to cow's milk helps narrow down my choices.

Haha, I went to a vegetarian restaurant with my mum for lunch today, and suddenly I had the WHOLE menu to pick from.... it was very disconcerting. I think just stopping at something you think sounds good is best, as there were so many things which sounded AMAZING!. I had like 5 things I was trying to decide from ,and my mum was like hurry up or we will never get served (it is quite a small restaurant and it was very busy, there was a big group there).

In the end I just had the thing I had first stopped and thought sounded good, which was Tofu and potato curry, which was very good .

xx

Usually I bypass the menu issue by purchasing exactly the same thing every time.

I am one of those who has a problem finding things to eat, rather than being overwhelmed by choice.

I will only agree to go to restaurants if I know they serve pizza. It's the only socially-acceptable thing I'll eat at most restaurants (I'll happily eat chips, bread and salad, but I think you're supposed to order a main rather than a bunch of side dishes).

Boy, do I know this one!

When I'm going out to eat in my home town, I usually pick the restaurant because I know they have a specific dish that I want at that particular time. My friends tease me about always ordering the same thing at any given restaurant. As someone else commented, if I try something different, I'm usually disappointed.

When traveling, I also love the roadside diners. They always have things like hamburgers, fried chicken, meatloaf, and chicken-friend steak, and those are usually their specialities, so they're GOOD. If I can't find a diner, my next choice would be a burger joint (preferably not a chain), or a Chinese place (I always order General Tso's chicken or orange chicken or sesame chicken - haven't found a Chinese restaurant yet that doesn't serve at least one of those).

Oddly, I love sushi, and when going to a sushi restaurant for the first time, I'll try all kinds of things. But the ones I go to often, I have already gone through that process, and I order the things I know I like best.

If I end up (for example, at a business lunch) at a place where they have a huge menu, I spend a HUGE amount of time trying to decide. I usually narrow it down to two or three dishes, but then I have a really hard time picking just one. I like the idea of just going with the first thing that I come across that appeals to me. But then I will feel obliged to start at opposite ends of the menu each time I find myself in that situation.

Whenever I go out to eat, I often have a hard time picking something off the menu and I usually take at least 5 minutes to decide what I want, even if it's at a fast food place. Oftentimes, I'll just end up ordering something I've had before and am familiar with, even if there's something eye-catching on the menu that I've never tried before.

Experimentation can be a pretty pleasant experience though. The other day, I tried a bbq pulled pork sub at Subway, instead of my usual pizza, meatball, or steak and cheese sub, and it was delicious! Subway is actually one of my favorite fast food places just for the amount of diversity it offers, despite the fact that the menu can be quite overwhelming. XD It probably helps that I've been eating there most of my life, and that I was "steered into" ordering meatball subs at a young age, which kind of gave me a good starting point for trying other items.