Frank Bruni on How to Read a Menu

by Hanna Rosin

This is life changing for me. From Bruni's final column as restaurant critic today.

Scratch off the appetizers and entrees that are most like dishes you’ve seen in many other restaurants, because they represent this one at its most dutiful, conservative and profit-minded. The chef’s heart isn’t in them.

Scratch off the dishes that look the most aggressively fanciful. The chef’s vanity possibly too much of it spawned these.

Then scratch off anything that mentions truffle oil.

Choose among the remaining dishes.