We’ve all been there: You’ve perused every last inch of the menu and finally found your perfect selection, only to discover that the restaurant has given it a weird, unnecessary name that, despite being on a full-on adult, you’d be absolutely mortified to say aloud. Well, now you don’t have to. Here are three evasive super-tips to order that thing you want when you’re just not up to saying, “I’ll have the Funky Buddha Delight.”
Describe it in painstaking detail.
The best way to slyly order your desired menu item without saying its fucked up name is to list every ingredient in it. Of course, neither you nor your server decided to call this the Goddess Earth Bowl, and it will be more confusing and time-consuming for you to skip past the name and instead read the whole description, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. Just pray that your server takes mercy on you and doesn’t say, “So the Goddess Earth Bowl” once you finish enumerating each pickled vegetable.
Point to it.
If playing restaurant Taboo sounds complicated, then go the route of a nervous 7-year-old and just point to the menu item you’d like to order. If you’re ordering over the phone, describe the approximate coordinates of your selection on the menu. No one will be happy with you when you pull either of these, but is it really worse than saying “Could I please have Not Your Mama’s Cheesy Grits?”
Be honest with us – and yourself.
If you’ve made this far with the secret that you need to avoid saying a menu name not because it’s weird but simply because it’s in French or Italian and you don’t know how to pronounce it, then it’s time you be honest with us and yourself. Butchering the pronunciation of your would-be meal is about 100% worse than even having to say a cutesy, embarrassing name. At this point, we recommend you simply order something you can say. Maybe stick to sides. Goodbye, fava e cicoria. Farewell…
Use these tricks and do away with even the slightest flicker of vulnerability. Or you could order online and go absolutely hog wild. Up to you!
