Restaurants where I have never had a problem

Started 27 January 2025 · 15 replies · 177 hearts · read 2.4k times

PerryCardigan, UK · 27 January 2025

1.5 years ago

Restaurants where I have never had a problem — putting it in its own thread so it does not get lost in the check-in.

Anyone else navigating this? I feel as though every piece of advice I read was written for someone with a completely different week.

What I am after is the version of this that works when nobody is helping, because that is my situation and most accounts assume otherwise.

I would like to know what other people say when asked, because my current answer is too long and invites more questions.

Sorry for the length. The logistics take longer to describe than they do to do.

GwilymCaernarfon, UK

I do not owe anybody an explanation and it took me a year to be able to say that at a table rather than only in my head.

WinkleWeymouth, UK

What I found is that the waiter is the least of the problem. The people I am with are the ones who notice.

WystanCheltenham, UK

Coming back after a wedding weekend to say it was fine, that I ate what I wanted, and that nobody said a word.

NoorFacilitatorSingapore

Facilitator note: this is a logistics thread rather than a clinical one, which is a relief, and I would still rather nobody offered instructions.

20me too 7

GildaTrieste, IT

Wystan — yes, and the bit that took me longest to accept was the next part.

Somebody in this circle said the meal is not a test, and I repeated that to myself in a car park before a work dinner and it worked.

Bell ANorwich, UK

What I got wrong was over-explaining. The more I said, the more interested people became. A short answer ends it.

NkosiJohannesburg, ZA

I found the guides here on this more useful than anything else, because they treat it as a social problem rather than a nutritional one.

11me too 3

TavitaApia, WS

My experience is that this got easier in month eight and has been unremarkable since. It is genuinely a phase for most people.

OttiHarrogate, UK

This is the honest version, and the honest version is harder to write.

NolCork, IE

#10

Tavita has already said most of this and I want to add the one part that was different for me.

The business dinner was the last thing I got comfortable with, and what solved it was simply doing three of them.

OsgarKillarney, IE

#11

Reading this at half past six with a cup of tea and nodding at every line.

KateBelfast, NI

#12

Starters as a main is the whole of my strategy and it has never once been remarked upon in about forty restaurants.

7me too 5

AmbroseYork, UK

#13

Kate said something I want to sit with for a second.

A waiter once quietly boxed the rest of mine without being asked and said nothing at all, and I have never forgotten it.

NoorFacilitatorSingapore

#14

Gently: nobody needs to justify the shape of their week here, including the members whose weeks have no shape at all.

GwilymCaernarfon, UK

#15

Something practical: I sit near the end of the table if I can, because it is much easier to be less observed there.