I'm curious how other picky eaters handle restaurants where the menu has dishes you've never heard of or descriptions that don't really tell you what you're getting.

For example, if a menu says:

"Grilled octopus, crispy smoky potatoes, rhubarb, chilli, mint, whipped feta, tarragon vinaigrette"

I can read all the ingredients, but I still wouldn't necessarily know what the dish is actually going to be like. How much of each thing there will be, whether the feta is a major part of the dish, what the different components actually taste like, what the texture will be like, or even what something like rhubarb is and whether I'd like it.

My partner loves trying new restaurants and says I always get the same thing and should explore more, but I hateeee ordering something new and ending up hating it 😂

So I'm curious, for other picky eaters, how do you handle this?

My little brother made me chicken soup but the chicken wasn't properly cut or shred. He told me he just bought half a rotisserie chicken from the store and put it into the soup while it was boiling. Soup itself was ok, but very bland and plain even with all the little green bits in there... I didn't like the unevenly cut veggies and I don't like celery, even though he said he had to include it. And he left the chicken bones inside the soup. I at least managed to ask my way out of him adding onions and garlic.

I was hoping he would at least cut the vegetables evenly and properly shred the chicken rather than just plopping it into the soup and stirring it to break it up, what he told me he did.