Know Your Enemy

"I spend an absurd amount of my working life in restaurants, choosing things off lists, and cannot help but marvel at the people who, asked what they would like to eat, flap their hands about like they're shooing away flies and mutter, 'Ooh, come back to me last'. Why? What the hell are you waiting for? Divine intervention? A scorching column of light to descend from the heavens to illuminate the place on the sheet where it says 'rump of lamb with aubergine puree', the bloody dish that we all bloody knew you were going to bloody order anyway?

There is a simple truth. People who take ages trying to choose what to eat in restaurants don't like food. Not enough, anyway. They can't choose because they are suspicious of what the kitchen might be attempting to do to them. For them every dish is an elephant trap, specifically designed to make them look like the picky eater we all know they are."

The Observer's Jay Rayner on people who, when confronted with a menu, take an age to deliberate. I have some sympathy for his (deliberately over-egged) stance, though many readers seem to have taken umbrage at a professional food critic lecturing people who will actually be paying for their food to spend less time deciding what to have...