“I shall have the fish sticks, please. And a Jaeger Bomb” – What to order on a date

You’re on a date and you’re about to eat. There is going to be some food soon. You’ve stared at the menu blindly for three minutes, having momentarily lost the ability to read and now you’ve actually got to knuckle down and decide what to order.

Well, before you make a rash decision and order something delicious, something that you actually decided on six hours earlier when you browsed the menu online at work, make sure that Future You thinks back to Present You, or Past You (whatever, I’m not a scientist), reading this, in order to ensure that some of this information informs your decision.

I, personally, wish that I’d read something this helpful when I went on a date a while back (seriously, a while. Really a while. A why-yul.). I ordered crispy pork belly, like a fucking mug. Whilst I was cutting into my food I noticed that my date had gone a bit quiet and wasn’t really looking at me properly; I put it down to the food – I mean, I’m generally much more interested in food than I am in people. However, things continued to be a little awkward, so I asked whether he was alright.
“I, er, I find it a bit weird that you ordered pork belly. I just, er, I didn’t think you would,” he said.
“…Weird? …Are you a vegetarian?”
He was eating a steak.
“No. No. I just… I find it a bit…repulsive? I don’t know if that’s the right word. Maybe not. Just a bit…much?”
“Oh. Oh, right.”

If I’d have known that there was a whole thing about what you should and shouldn’t order on dates, then I could still be with that guy. If only I’d ordered a quinoa salad, or a pot of Activia or nibbled on fucking cake pop then maybe we’d be together right this second – him gearing up to watch the football, me flicking through Company or preparing snacks. We could have been so happy.

As ever, I turned to Google on my train home and asked it about date foods. I found two totally useful and non-conformist-to-gender-stereotypes pieces that really opened my eyes to the do’s and don’ts of eating on dates. The first is for the girls, and it’s by Fox News.

Apparently, steak is sexy, ladies, so if you want to be sexy then order a steak, it’s as simple as that. ‘When a man sees you take control of a steak, it’ll make him think of you taking control in the bedroom later on.”

…Will it?

I’m assuming that, by ‘take control’, they just mean ‘cut’. Is cutting sexy? Maybe it’s the fact that you require special, often wooden handled, tools? I don’t know, but this bit does contain the line ‘don’t swallow a four inch piece of meat’, so make of that what you will.

If Italian food is more your thing then you’re in luck, as that can be sexy too! Fox News suggest that gnocchi is the way to go if you find yourself somewhere with red gingham tablecloths; it’s the ‘secret sauce’ (the menu normally gives that away, though) and ‘silky mozzarella’ (indeed, it’s very hard to hold when you first get it out of the packet, very wet) that does it, apparently. Gnocchi is totally sexy, what’s more sexy than a food that is so rich that it makes you want to lie flat on a cold wooden floor after you’ve eaten four mouthfuls?

Figs are next on the sexy menu and according to Fox News they’re ‘visually erotic’. I mean, I have a perfume with fig in it, so maybe that will do? The Fox guys also go on to say that Adam and Eve actually wore fig leaves to cover themselves in the Bible – “a good conversation filler for an awkward first date silence!” So, if you do order figs, tell the waiter to ensure that the chef SAVES THE LEAVES, as those could come in handy for some sexy role-play later. However, seeing as no where actually serves figs, I would suggest nipping into Tesco Metro on your way home and picking up a pack of fig rolls. They’re nice.

As for the foods that girls should avoid ordering when on a date, the general take home message can be summed up as ‘don’t order foods that will make you shit yourself.’ This apparently includes beans, curry and Jaeger bombs (like they’re a fucking food).
I’m not sure whether the ladies over at Fox News suffer from particularly loose bowels, or they heard a story from a friend about a friend of a friend who had some tummy trouble whilst at Wagamamas, but they’re very keen for you to avoid foods that might cause you to shit yourself, so please bear that in mind when ordering.

And hey, lads, don’t think that you’re able to order what you like on a date either – we’re all in this together. Your guidance comes from AskMen, so rest assured that what follows is top notch stuff.

Ask Men do not think that you should order ‘fish sticks’ on a date. Unless I’m very much mistaken, these are just fish fingers. Now, granted, fish fingers are not the most sophisticated choice to make, especially if you’re perusing the kids menu, but a fish-finger sandwich done right, with good bread and rocket and shit, is phenomenal. Luckily, we live in a time during which the fish-finger sandwich has come back – it’s come back so hard that trendy places that you’d probably go to on a date will serve it, so sod AskMen and get those fish fingers.

According to AskMen, you ‘run the risk of looking like a big girls’ blouse if you can’t crack open the shell of a lobster, therefore you should, under no circumstances, order lobster on a date. ‘How could you be a good provider if you can’t crack open a lobster shell?’ they ask. It’s true, most women fantasise about a topless men, stripped down to their waist, blue jeans low slung on their hips, beads of sweat glistening on their skin as they lift their arms to swing their lobster hammer up over their head and down onto the shell. In fact, I think Diet Coke are using that for their next ad campaign.
I say, order lobster if you want it. Yes, you might look a little flash, but lobster is yum.

Also, provider? Fuck right off, AskMen, fuck right off, now.

Salad is also off the menu for you too guys, I’m afraid. Apparently it ‘says more about you as a man that the fact that your belt doesn’t match your shoes.’
In fact, ordering a salad implies just one thing, and that is ‘that you’re watching your weight and the last thing she needs is another person in her life with a weight issue’ – because the other people in her life are women and women all have weight issues.
You know what I would think if a guy ordered a salad on a date? I would think that it’s June, now, and sometimes when it’s humid you just want a light meal rather than an overcooked chicken breast smothered in bbq sauce. That’s what I would think.

Obviously, it really is just as simple as ordering something that you like. As long as what you’re into isn’t just, like, two dry slices of Hovis or something. Also, stick to what’s on the menu – ordering off the menu and asking the waiter whether the chef “would mind doing an egg-white omelet” makes you seem like a bit of a dick.
If someone is too squeamish or up their own arse to watch you eat anything other than a Jacob’s cracker then this does not bode well for any aspect of your blossoming relationship, whether that’s the sex part of your relationship, the ill part of your relationship or the ‘Can you just look at my back? I think I’ve been bitten by something’ part of your relationship.

Also, I would like it to be noted that ‘pork belly’ does not feature in either of those articles at all. I thought I was safe. I didn’t know.
I didn’t know.