If You Are Ordering For The Table You Have A Responsibility To The Table

For the second time in a month I have gone to a very nice steakhouse with my good friend of 10 years, WhiteSoxDave. Everyone loves to pile on Dave. I think it is largely unwarranted. He's a fun guy to be around and generally very generous. The only problem with Dave is that Dave lives by his own rules. Not even sure that is a problem most of the time, but it's definitely been a problem when going out to a steakhouse with him. He has no respect for steakhouse ordering decorum. 

Some guys are meant to be the ones who order for the table. There are two guys at the company that I trust so much with food that I would follow them blindly through a 9 course meal. Large and Dante. That's it. That is the list. These guys know their way around food. Dante has been in the service industry and eating fancy meals his entire adult life. Large has 25+ years experience eating out on the company dime in the finance industry. He's a worldly guy with an expense account. Those guys know wines, they know cheeses, they know seafood, and they know how to please a crowd at a restaurant. Not every meal has a Large or a Dante at it. I am certainly not one of those guys. WSD isn't either. When you don't have "a guy" you gotta build a consensus. 

I could be off base on this because, like I said, I am not table orderer except under the rarest of occasions, but in my experience at nice steakhouses the appetizers and sides are served family style and you typically get 3, sometimes mayybbbee four items. I think oysters are fine. If I am at a nice seafood place and the table wants to order some I'll slurp down one or two. Even a guy who LOVES oysters has to admit that they are a polarizing selection. Your given restaurant could be serving you the freshest and most expensive oysters in the world and some people will be grossed out by them. It's just the way it is. You can't ramrod oysters in as the first appetizer in that scenario. It has to be a consensus pick. That has always been my point with Dave. There is a standard set of rules and ordering an appetizer exclusively for yourself ain't it. We did the lobstercargot, the tuna tartare, and the thick cut bacon. Everyone was happy. Except Dave. Of course.