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Safe choice invariably leads to envy for disappointed diner

Adventurous neighbour hits menu jackpot while burger eater looks on

It happens all too often. Or at least every other time I time I am in a restaurant.

I will be puzzling over the menu. The menu, more often that not, will be four or five pages - or 12.

"Yikes," I will say to my dining partner. "I just have NO idea what to order."

There always tend to be the usual things: the pasta primaveras, the steak sandwiches, the Caesar salads with shrimp.

Then, of course, there will be will the off-themenu daily plates.

"Today," a perky server will inform me, "we have the flat-iron steak with mushroom sauce and garlic mashed and vegetables du jour. $10.99."

I will order the beef dip.

Odds are, the beef dip will look, and taste, like every beef dip I've tasted in my life.

Odds are, the person at the table next to me will have ordered something that, well, looks like something I've never ordered in my life. Invariably, it will be something that involves scallops or veal or mussels. There will be some tomato component, and some involvement of parmesan and basil and hazelnuts and, well, nothing beef diprelated.

"Man," I will say to my dining companion, "I wish I'd ordered THAT."

This is what happens. All the time.

"I wish I could order what that person ordered," I will complain to my husband, all too often. This, after the server has handed a burger to me and a delectable something or other to my next-door neighbour.

"Too late," my husband will point out. "Your burger's here."

The burger, of course, will be Bores-ville with a capital B. It will have the usual: mustard, ketchup, onions and lettuce. The next-door neighbour will be chowing down on something with angel hair pasta and alfredo sauce and what looks like honey garlic prawns.

"Ooooh!" the neighbour will gush. The neighbour will be washing down the pasta with some pretty pink beverage with a tiny slice of lime. I will be doing the Coke thing.

"This looks absolutely divine!" the neighbour will explain.

"Why does this always happen to me?" I will ask the husband. "Do you suppose I could send back my burger and Coke and get what she ordered?"

The husband will shake his head.

"People don't do that," he will observe. "That's just too... weird."

"Well," I will say, "I wish restaurants would do more than just hand you a menu. I wish they would actually SHOW people the kind of meals they offer."

But that, alas, is not common practice - at least at any of the restaurants I've been to in the last 50 years.

Given that, next time I'm out, I'll do the next best thing. I'll wait until the neighbours pick, then order what they're having.