Deepa Mohan wrote:
I don't think this will work at Shiok...most of the regulars, Madman says, just ask his advice about what to eat, and often wait for him to rustle up a special dish that might not be on the menu at all!
Actually, I had read most of these tips while doing research on restaurant and menu design. I have incorporated most of them into our menu. That's why you'll find the seafood on the top right of the third page, for instance, and why the dishes aren't arranged in "cheapest to most expensive" order. If you've read the menu (it's on my site), it also describes each dish in a fair bit of detail, but that was also partly for educational purposes, since many customers were not likely to know many of the dishes.
I wish some of them would go beyond red/green curry and tom yum soup. I get the urge to strangle people when they order three differently flavoured curries all at once. What's the point of mixing them all up on the same plate and totally killing the unique flavour of all of them?
I too don't like descriptions that need me to think for several minutes about what I'm going to get. Some of the foreign high-end restaurant menus I have seen have left me scratching my head and going, "huh?"
Lastly, I wish some menus made better use of spacing between menu items. There's nothing that can destroy readability like all-caps and items stacked one below the other without any room in between. A bit of white space before section headings would be useful too. But that's just the bitchy designer in me. ;)
Regards, Madhu -- <<< * >>> Madhu Menon Shiok Far-eastern Cuisine Indiranagar, Bangalore Visit us @ http://www.shiokfood.com Phone: (080) 4116 1800
