The new world of menus served up in bad taste

I want to talk to you about restaurants. Many of you are familiar with these, in which you enter, select food from a list and then relax while they cook and bring it to you.

No chopping. No slicing. No grocery shopping. No sticking your hands into disgusting animal parts. No desperate searching for that one stupid pot that you know you put in the bottom cabinet but now has disappeared. (Hint: Your son burned food in it so badly that he just threw it away, rather than wash it.)

You just chill in pleasantly decorated surroundings that aren't your living room, and that are cleaned by someone else and — in a perfect world — they bring you tasty food to eat, after which they carry the dirty dishes away to get magically cleaned by Santa's elves. Yes, that's what they do in the offseason. It's a fact. Look it up.

I'm in favor of all of this, which is why I often go out to eat. Even when I was in a wheelchair, I told my friends, “Wheel me in there, baby. They have ribs.”

But there's one problem with restaurants these days, and I don't mean their lack of staff. Well, OK, two things. But my main gripe everywhere I go is the requirement that you use your smartphone to locate a QR code, and then read the menu on your phone. Instead of just handing me a printed menu to peruse.

If I wanted to spend the first 10 minutes of every meal staring at my phone, I would have just stayed home and ordered takeout.

Nowadays, when I walk into a place, my first question is: “Do you have a real menu?” And, too often, the answer is no.

One of our local favorites won't give you a paper menu, but they will give you an iPad that has their menu on it. “Here, scroll through this,” the helpful server will say. That does not get away from the need to stare at glowing screens, and it also means you still have to scroll up and down to look at the offerings.

If I want to look at the cocktails (well, OK, I always want to look at the cocktails), then I scroll to the cocktail section. Then, I have to scroll down to the appetizers. Then, more scrolling to reach the entrees. After I've picked an entree, then I always realize I've forgotten which cocktail I wanted. So more scrolling up and up until I find the cocktail menu. Then I realize I didn't look at the wine menu. More scrolling.

Meanwhile, we always have one friend who left her phone in the car, so I have to lend her my phone so she can peer at the offerings on the tiny screen.

Invariably, this means we spend the first 15 minutes of every get-together desperately trying to read the menu's minuscule glowing type in the weird font. Someone will say, “I think I'll have the arugula salad. Does anyone want to share with me?” Sigh. This means more scrolling up to look at the ingredients. Then back down to what I planned to order, to see if I want to change my mind.

I complained to the manager of this particular restaurant, which we frequent. He told me, “The city is pressuring us to have everything online and not offer paper menus, so we don't feel like we have any choice.” Um, other restaurants seem to have solved that problem. Why not you?

I was telling this sad story on my Facebook page (are you a member? Why not?) and someone commented that I “need to join the 21st century.”

I just don't think wanting to look at all the restaurant's offerings on one page is a sign of decrepitude. I think it's a sign of superior intelligence. We won't even get into the issue of having to dine on paper plates, with plastic utensils. Are we at a church picnic? Food gets cold in a nanosecond on a paper plate, and I'd rather not stick plastic in my mouth, thank you very much. I understand staff shortages and all, but if you can't give me a real plate, I'm not eating at your place.

When I was in my 20s, I had a rich boyfriend who taught me some things about life that I'd never learned as the daughter of an underpaid military sergeant.

“You don't need to look at the menu at a truly fine restaurant,” he told me. “You just tell the waiter what you want and they'll bring it to you.” I have had occasion to try that, and sometimes it works, depending on what they have back there in the kitchen. I remember going to a fine Italian restaurant just over the border in the Baja wine country, outdoors under a spreading oak tree, and asking the server if they had any vegan pasta. The next thing I knew, the chef/owner was at our table, talking to me about my request. This ended up with him going back into the kitchen and making me vegan gnocchi from scratch.

Moments like this stick in your mind, especially when you're home and your nearby restaurant won't even give you a stupid menu. Let alone make you vegan pasta.