Restaurant Dinner

I like lots of different cuisine and my favorite meal could be Italian, Indian, Greek, Thai or Chinese. I've also been known to eat goulash at Hungarian restaurants and sushi at Japanese sushi bars.

I love cooking but it's nice to have a break from it sometimes and be taken out to dinner. Occasionally, I'll go to a Spanish Tapas bar or a French Bistro. A good, charcoal cooked burger with fries and salad is hard to beat too. It all depends what mood I'm in. That's the great thing about living near a city; just about every nation's food is represented.

It's nice to go out with a bunch of old friends to a restaurant, but my favorite meal is a romantic restaurant dinner for two. It doesn't have to be a fancy place with a complicated menu, as long as it has a romantic atmosphere.

The most important element in a night out like this, apart from the company, is the food of course. I don't mind waiting a while, within reason, if the food is superb.

The table must be set in a certain way, with candles and flowers. The dinner service must be exquisite and I prefer the tablecloth to be of crisp, white linen.

There must be soft lighting and attentive, friendly waiters. They will be helpful and not condescending. I find the service in Indian restaurants to be the best; they look after you as if you were a long, lost cousin!

I like the restaurant to be fairly quiet, with just the background murmur of couples chatting. I don't want any ambient music and I definitely don't want people with violins or accordions inflicting their terrible noise at our table.

The menu should have a lot of choice but not take an hour to read. Also, the wine menu should be varied and presented in clear, understandable language. Personally, I don't like the flowery language used on many restaurant menus. A restaurant dinner should involve New Potatoes in a Parsley Sauce not New Potatoes nestling in a sea of Sauce infused with Parsley from the sun kissed islands of Greece.

The food must be plentiful. No microscopic portions of Nouvelle Cuisine for me. Vegetables must not be overcooked and meat must be tender. Sauces should complement the dishes, but not overwhelm them. Coffee and a mint chocolate will finish the restaurant dinner just perfectly. Time to pour me into a cab.