I'm prob kind of a food snob. He's not.

[CautiouslyOptimistic]

Well he's from NY born and raised. If you guys tell me you don't see anything you like in this menu below, I will agree that I might be the problem then. I find it almost impossible not to find ONE thing to like here: Menu - Lupa New York

 

I think he's just like my father... not adventurous with food, and always sticks to the meat/potatoes/shrimp/whatever. I find it so boring For me it shows lack of intellectual curiosity, which bothers me, although he seems quite intelligent. Elaine is right. He said he's not going to get "educated" with palate at this age.

 

Anyway, thanks for the insights... gonna go get ready to meet him

 

My mouth is watering, but I know my ex-husband would be like, "um can we just hit Bubba Gumps??" LOL (And that would mainly because he wouldn't want to take the time to figure out what half of that stuff is, and truth be told, it did annoy me about him)

 

I agree with whomever said I think this is just a symptom.....you're going to probably find more things you don't agree on.

[edgygirl]

:lmao:

 

Yeah I think that's EXACTLY it. LOLOL.

 

Thanks for recognizing that it can be annoying

 

So far he's quite a gentleman and we like the same things - in music, sci-fi, history... so let's see how it goes. If it's only the food I might be able to take it. It's SO hard to find someone I am almost giving up!

 

My mouth is watering, but I know my ex-husband would be like, "um can we just hit Bubba Gumps??" LOL (And that would mainly because he wouldn't want to take the time to figure out what half of that stuff is, and truth be told, it did annoy me about him)

 

I agree with whomever said I think this is just a symptom.....you're going to probably find more things you don't agree on.

[basil67]

Well he's from NY born and raised. If you guys tell me you don't see anything you like in this menu below, I will agree that I might be the problem then. I find it almost impossible not to find ONE thing to like here: Menu - Lupa New York

 

Enigma nailed it. This menu is gibberish to me. And I can't tell you how much I dislike menus which have many non-English words in them. (Even Chinatown restaurants have English translations on their menus) It's like they set out to be inaccessible. If a restaurant starts out by pegging itself as inaccessible to the average person, it's not something I'd be impressed by.

 

That said, while I would not choose this restaurant because of their elitist approach, I'm positive that I'd find a lot food to enjoy from their menu (I enjoy most food).

[basil67]

Like most authentic Italian restaurants, the menu is in Italian. Unless he is used to going to such places, he won't even know WTF he is looking at. You can't just show a menu full of gibberish like that to someone and expect them to want to eat there.

 

Men American men want to eat meat, especially cow. You want us to try something new? Add cow to the recipe.

 

We cross posted. What you said here nails it.

[edgygirl]

Ok but there's a GLOSSARY by the end of the menu:

 

Glossary link here: Menu - Lupa New York

 

Anyway I think he didn't like it cause there was no MEAT screaming out of it

 

I think you guys helped me realize... he's a typical meat & potatoes American guy.

[CautiouslyOptimistic]

Ok but there's a GLOSSARY by the end of the menu:

 

Glossary link here: Menu - Lupa New York

 

Anyway I think he didn't like it cause there was no MEAT screaming out of it

 

I think you guys helped me realize... he's a typical meat & potatoes American guy.

 

Portion size may also be a fear of his...... like, he fears he won't get enough to eat.

[edgygirl]

Very true! He's 6'4 and husky. I can see that.

 

Portion size may also be a fear of his...... like, he fears he won't get enough to eat.

[Shining One]

I've been with picky eaters and I've been the picky eater, both in relationships and friendships. I've always found a way to make it work. My current girlfriend is very, very picky. I have a list of places she likes (built up in my head over time). When I'm cooking us dinner, I alter portions of the food for her. For example: She can't handle spicy, so her food gets little to no pepper. She doesn't like food with a smoky flavor, so my chicken goes on the grill while her chicken goes in the oven. She eats steak, but I do not. I know which steakhouses have good non-steak options, so we go to those. With all of the restaurants out there to choose from, this should be an easy problem to solve.

 

Here's the nerdy solution my friends and I used many years ago when we all lived in the same city. It was a decent sized group and included some rather selective people. Each person maintained a list of restaurants they liked in a centralized database. When we planned a group dinner, we had an application that would randomly choose a restaurant from everyone's approved list.

[carhill]

OK, tomato basil veggie penne with wild-caught (by me) ling cod. I've been meaning to cook that ling since we'll be fishing again next week.

 

If he's a grub guy and likes Italian, take him to Patsy's. The menu is in English. I ran into Nancy Sinatra one time going downstairs to take a piss

 

Thanks for helping me settle on tonight's dinner....

[LivingWaterPlease]

edgygirl, I'm a lifelong vegetarian yet I find delicious food to eat in whatever restaurant I happen to be. Even in steakhouses you can get a salad with a baked potato and vegetable usually.

 

Many restaurants love to serve vegetarians and vegans, I've found. If you ask for a vegetable plate most chefs consider it a treat to create one and often when they bring it out it's presented more beautifully than meat or fish dishes!

 

I don't understand what the problem is between you and your bf as I've dated plenty of meat and potatoes type men and never had a problem with differences in the way we eat.

 

It seems to me having food preferences doesn't mean a person is a snob or somehow elitist. Or in any way related or not to Trump. To me, being a snob is more about attitude than diet.

[lana-banana]

It's interesting that people are conflating food nerds and picky eaters. They aren't the same. This is fundamentally about a lifestyle incompatibility. If your idea of a good brunch is labneh and roast cauliflower with a French 75, and he doesn't want to branch out beyond a cereal box, you're not going to see eye-to-eye. This in turn can lead to all kinds of petty conflicts about priorities, spending, and so on. If you can't at least accommodate each other you have a problem. Do you want to be with someone who doesn't have any interest in sharing this element of your life with you? Men in their 40s are not exactly known for their ability to change.

 

My husband and I are food nerds; it's a big part of how we hit it off. We cook for ourselves most of the time and we're perfectly happy with Chik-fil-A.on a road trip, but love exploring all kinds of new cuisines and cooking techniques. It's a huge part of our life together and we wouldn't have bonded half as well without it.

 

(And can we nix the "real men eat red meat" thing? Manly men can be vegetarians!)

[CautiouslyOptimistic]

I've been with picky eaters and I've been the picky eater, both in relationships and friendships. I've always found a way to make it work. My current girlfriend is very, very picky. I have a list of places she likes (built up in my head over time). When I'm cooking us dinner, I alter portions of the food for her. For example: She can't handle spicy, so her food gets little to no pepper. She doesn't like food with a smoky flavor, so my chicken goes on the grill while her chicken goes in the oven. She eats steak, but I do not. I know which steakhouses have good non-steak options, so we go to those. With all of the restaurants out there to choose from, this should be an easy problem to solve.

 

Here's the nerdy solution my friends and I used many years ago when we all lived in the same city. It was a decent sized group and included some rather selective people. Each person maintained a list of restaurants they liked in a centralized database. When we planned a group dinner, we had an application that would randomly choose a restaurant from everyone's approved list.

 

Holy smokes, that IS nerdy!!

 

OP, now I'm invested. You must report back and tell us how tonight's date went.

 

I just had a Blue Apron burger for dinner. I never intentionally order sandwich meals from Blue Apron and only get them if I forget to cancel for the week and a sandwich is on the menu, so I was not excited. However, it ended up being quite delicious. Quality meat + pimento cheese spread. Very tasty. And since I'm here alone I still have 3 more as leftovers .

[basil67]

Ok but there's a GLOSSARY by the end of the menu:

 

Having a glossary hardly makes a restaurant feel accessible when you've got to refer to it to translate most of the dishes. Not sure why you're

[CautiouslyOptimistic]

It's interesting that people are conflating food nerds and picky eaters. They aren't the same. This is fundamentally about a lifestyle incompatibility. If your idea of a good brunch is labneh and roast cauliflower with a French 75, and he doesn't want to branch out beyond a cereal box, you're not going to see eye-to-eye. This in turn can lead to all kinds of petty conflicts about priorities, spending, and so on. If you can't at least accommodate each other you have a problem. Do you want to be with someone who doesn't have any interest in sharing this element of your life with you? Men in their 40s are not exactly known for their ability to change.

 

My husband and I are food nerds; it's a big part of how we hit it off. We cook for ourselves most of the time and we're perfectly happy with Chik-fil-A.on a road trip, but love exploring all kinds of new cuisines and cooking techniques. It's a huge part of our life together and we wouldn't have bonded half as well without it.

 

(And can we nix the "real men eat red meat" thing? Manly men can be vegetarians!)

 

I agree that exploring new cuisines can be a great part of a relationship. In my last relationship, we frequently cooked dinner together and then played Scrabble while watching competition cooking shows on TV. That activity caused us both to want to branch out and tried new foods that we learned about on the shows. It's how we found ourselves at a farm-to-table brew pub one day trying pork belly.

 

The key is that BOTH people have to be adventurous.

 

Still, I would not be any less apt to date a non-adventurous eater just because I am adventurous than I would be to date a bungee jumping enthusiast even though I have no intentions of ever doing that in my life. Variety is the spice of life and it's all about compromise when they are not major life issues.

[guest569]

Ok but there's a GLOSSARY by the end of the menu:

 

Glossary link here: Menu - Lupa New York

 

Anyway I think he didn't like it cause there was no MEAT screaming out of it

 

I think you guys helped me realize... he's a typical meat & potatoes American guy.

 

A glossary! actually this menu sounds delicious to me!

 

Although food is a very important part of daily life and some level of compatibility is ideal, I think that if you are getting along well otherwise then you should see how it 'pans' out. You both would need to relax about each other's diet. Dining out should be fine, but in the long term, how would it go with home cooked meals? Can you 'blend' to meet both your tastes? If you cooked up something, can he just fry up some meat and chuck it in his portion? Or will you both be disgusted by each other? I think that you should not write him off over this, as you might end up with something really special that just takes a bit of work and planning to get around if you are both willing.

[thefooloftheyear]

Ok but there's a GLOSSARY by the end of the menu:

 

Glossary link here: Menu - Lupa New York

 

Anyway I think he didn't like it cause there was no MEAT screaming out of it

 

I think you guys helped me realize... he's a typical meat & potatoes American guy.

 

 

The best(and most authentic) Italian restaurants in NYC are in Brooklyn and the Bronx....They usually look dumpy and aren't in the "trendy" areas..They definitely wont have a glossary...Take it from an authentic Italian, born and raised in NY, with parents from the Old Country...

 

Anyway, I guess I have to agree with the others...Too hard to tell from this much info, but seems like there maybe some other philosophical differences going on there..

 

Eh...see what happens....I am a very picky eater, but it never was any problem...Most restaurants can cater to people with specific dietary constraints without much resistance...

 

Good luck..

 

TFY

[Noproblem]

I bet you don't like him!

You don't like him and this is just the way out because he seems like a nice guy but you just can't be with him and the food makes it a great way to escape!

[introverted1]

Well he's from NY born and raised. If you guys tell me you don't see anything you like in this menu below, I will agree that I might be the problem then. I find it almost impossible not to find ONE thing to like here: Menu - Lupa New York

 

I think he's just like my father... not adventurous with food, and always sticks to the meat/potatoes/shrimp/whatever. I find it so boring For me it shows lack of intellectual curiosity, which bothers me, although he seems quite intelligent. Elaine is right. He said he's not going to get "educated" with palate at this age.

 

Anyway, thanks for the insights... gonna go get ready to meet him

 

Btw he insists he's not right wing in Politics, but after seeing this menu he said I'm a "typical liberal". And said this is the kind of food he and his friends laugh about. WTH?

 

I don't eat any animal products but I'd easily find something to eat at Lupa (looks awesome) or even a steakhouse, although I'd enjoy the former more.

 

What you seem to be describing is that he completely lacks adventurousness/openness in his eating. That is unrelated to whether he eats steak -- it's more that he appears to have very narrow tastes. You're describing a meat-and-potatoes guy who now has the money to eat expensive meat-and-potatoes, but has no inclination to explore new cuisines/tastes. That would be a drag because I love trying new flavors/cuisines.

 

Only you can decide if this is a deal-breaker.

[CptInsano]

For some reason a lot of my girlfriends were vegetarians, I'm not sure why, because I'm definitely not. I'm German, so I'm from a culture that eats pretty much anything. I've eaten Horse, Dog, and all kinds of game.

 

Yet I've eaten largely vegetarian for one of my girlfriends, and I've had vegan burgers that tasted really good. But not everybody is a foody, and a friend dragged me through tons of foody places in Los Angeles, and they seem very pretentious to me, and I tend to avoid them if I have a choice.

 

I could very well be that he doesn't like fancy, or seemingly fancy, places. I know a lot of guys don't.

[Els]

You both sound equally picky to me. And clearly that is the problem - NOT your tastes being better than his or any such tosh. I run a food blog with a good number of followers and frankly I'd find it extremely difficult to date someone like you. To me, food is about enjoying a diverse range of experiences. Sushi, steak, and wings are all good, if they're done properly.

 

My SO doesn't much care about what we eat. So that's easy, I do the research and suggest the restaurants. It doesn't bother me that he's "less discerning" about food. Doesn't impact our relationship at all.

 

Now if I were dating someone who doesn't want to go to a place because "Their fish tastes like meat"... yeah, I'd cut and run.

 

P.S. I think Lupa looks great, but that's the kind of price range that I'd go to on an occasional, not regular, basis. I also think regular steaks, wings, burgers are great in their own way... and I'm not even American. Honestly, you can't call yourself "adventurous" in foodie terms if you ONLY enjoy fine dining.

Edited November 19, 2017 by Elswyth

[dude360]

Well he's from NY born and raised. If you guys tell me you don't see anything you like in this menu below, I will agree that I might be the problem then. I find it almost impossible not to find ONE thing to like here: Menu - Lupa New York

 

That menu is like reading alien sign language.

[CautiouslyOptimistic]

Honestly, you can't call yourself "adventurous" in foodie terms if you ONLY enjoy fine dining.

 

Good point! Although, I am not sure OP ever used the word adventurous.

[TunaCat]

Any restaurant that had to use a glossary is one that is WAY too fancy for my liking.

 

However, I would find something to eat there even if I had to look at the glossary after every word.

[Els]

Good point! Although, I am not sure OP ever used the word adventurous.

 

She did call him "unadventurous", didn't she? When I read that my first thought was: "That's a bit rich coming from you!!", lol.

 

It is admittedly eye opening to see so many people on this thread say that they completely don't understand or dislike that Italian menu. I'm Asian, don't really eat Italian cuisine very often, and I understand the majority of it... But half the fun is in finding out the things you DIDN'T know, no?

 

I guess I'm just really glad that I and most of the people I know are open to most things. We can enjoy market stall food and fine dining alike. Variety is the spice of life after all!

[Highndry]

She did call him "unadventurous", didn't she? When I read that my first thought was: "That's a bit rich coming from you!!", lol.

 

It is admittedly eye opening to see so many people on this thread say that they completely don't understand or dislike that Italian menu. I'm Asian, don't really eat Italian cuisine very often, and I understand the majority of it... But half the fun is in finding out the things you DIDN'T know, no?

 

I guess I'm just really glad that I and most of the people I know are open to most things. We can enjoy market stall food and fine dining alike. Variety is the spice of life after all!

 

The menu comes off as pretentious, in my opinion. Somebody mentioned her date might be worried about portion size and that really resonated with me. My least favorite restaurants are the "gourmet" types where they artfully place tiny morsels on a plate and drizzle colorful sauces around in patterns and charge a fortune. When I go to a restaurant I am hungry, and I'm not looking for edible art, much less wanting to pay for it.