I am a bad restauranteur.

Really, I am. It is unfathomable that anyone can be "bad" at going to a restaurant, but I accomplish it. I am very polite and friendly to the waitstaff, but the problem comes when I sit down and eat.

I have acquired many of my father's eating habits. He always eats one thing at a time. All the peas, then all the steak, then all the salad. No flip flopping back and forth. Also, he insists on sitting with his back to the wall, as opposed to the door or the rest of the restaurant. He claims this is because, "if a shooter comes in, I want to see him! I don't want him to shoot me in the back!" I do it so if the conversation is boring, I can people watch.

However, this is more than a simple preference. If I don't get the booth side of a table or if I have to face a wall, my mind will go bezerk. If I am comfortable enough with the person, I will demand to sit where I want, but if not, by the end of the meal my brain is fried from staring at the same piece of artwork or the scrape in the wallpaper.

Also, I suck at ordering. I can usually decide what I want quickly, but it isn't without a brief moment of mental chaos. The root of the problem is that I forget what I dislike.

Example, tonight I ordered the Cajun Fettucini. I know what fettucini is - it is pasta. But for some reason, due to the vague description (cajun sauce, foreign word, foreign word, chicken breast, tomatoes) I thought it would be chicken breast topped with some sort of sauce and veggies. Maybe they were using fettucini as a flavoring in this dish? I was between that, Spicy Curry Udon, and Fish & Chips (I once had old style fish and chips in England. It was wrapped in a newspaper and very delicious. We ate it at the hostel watching Not Another Teen Movie.)

Whenever I am between items, I close my eyes and imagine each displayed in front of me. I imagine each, the scent, the taste - and then choose depending on which seems the most appetizing and makes my mouth water. This time it was the mysterious chicken breast.

Bad idea. Of course, it was pasta (not good when I am trying to cut carbs) with sliced chicken breast on top. The foreign words were some spicy ham meat and a hybrid of olives/grapes. Not appetizing. I also temporarily forgot that "cajun" = spicy. I dislike spicy. Guh.

I need to learn to stick to my favorites. Whenever I try to be "adventurous" it turns out poorly.