Any menu item will have tons of added calories if it is:

• smothered in sauce
• covered or layered with cheese
• loaded with butter, oil, cream, mayonnaise, or dressing
• “sugared-up” even if it doesn’t taste sweet
  • made from a fatty cut of meat
  • made with hidden sugar or flour and/or some type of fat for thickening
  • a huge portion size

Green Light (Probably A Good Choice) words or phrases:

• Barbequed
• Blanched
• Boiled
• Grilled/Broiled/Charbroiled
• Fat free
• Garden fresh
• Poached
• Primavera
• Red sauce/ Marinara
• Roasted
• Seasoned
• Steamed

Quick hint:  Words ending in the letter “d” are frequently on the okay list, for instance: poached, boiled, grilled, and steamed.  Some notable exceptions are:  fried, and the “b-d” words:  buttered, battered, and breaded.

Yellow Light “Caution” Foods (Maybe Yes, Maybe No)

Words frequently used on menus to describe “yellow light foods,” should be chosen cautiously because they may or may not be healthy choices.

Yellow Light words or phrases:

• Baked
• BastedStir-Fried/Sauteed
• Vegetarian
• Vinaigrette
• High Fiber
• Light/Lite
• Reduced
• Marinated
• Stewed
• Panini
• Almandine/Almondine

Red Light (Once In A While) Foods

Really think hard before eating food described with these words and phrases:

• Au gratin/Cheesy/Parmigiana
• Aioli
• Alfredo
• Battered/Encrusted/Crusted
• Bearnaise/Hollandaise
• Bet you can’t finish it/ Bottomless/Value/Giant/Jumbo/Loaded
• Bisque
• Breaded
• Buttery / Buttered
• Carbonara
• Casserole
• Chicken fried/Pan fried
• Covered/Smothered
• Creamed/Creamy/White Sauce/Bechamel
• Crispy/Crunchy
• Deluxe
• Escalloped/Scalloped
• Fried/Deep fried
• Pesto
• Stroganoff
• Stuffed
• Twice baked

Quick hint:  Words ending in the letter “y” should usually send up red alerts, for instance:  cheesy, crispy, crunchy.

This post is part of the 500 calorie challenge:  lose 5 pounds in 5 weeks the healthy way.

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That’s why – may restaurants, especially those at a higher price point — you won’t see a dollar sign next to the menu choices.  Dollar signs – or euro signs – or any money symbol — serves as a subconscious reminder that you’re about to part with your hard-earned money.

The “Pain Of Paying”

A study published by Cornell researchers found that customers spend less when prices are listed with dollar signs rather than without them. It seems that even the word or symbol for dollar can trigger “the pain of paying.”

The absence of dollar signs makes menu prices seem a bit friendlier, too — especially in higher-end restaurants. Many places will eliminate the numbers for cents, as well.

A shorter numerical price point is most appealing, so chicken that costs twelve dollars will mostly likely be shown as 12 instead of $12 or $12.00. Using a dash or period after the numbers is more of a design choice than a psychological one, but plain old numbers followed by nothing is most common.

Tip: Don’t look for dollar signs on the menu. They’re not there because they serve as a subconscious reminder that you’re about to part with your hard earned money. Restaurants don’t want you to think about money when you order.

The Numbers Aren’t In A Straight Line Either

On most menus the prices are usually right after the dish description rather than lined up like soldiers in a nice straight right-adjusted column. Why? So you won’t go looking for a cheaper dish.

When you see a chicken dish for $17 the restaurant doesn’t want you to easily scan a column of numbers and notice that the chicken tenders two lines down are $3 cheaper.

Amazingly, staggering prices rather that listing them in a nice straight column can lead to a 10% increase in sales for the restaurant.

Tip: Prices are usually listed right after a dish’s description rather than lined up in straight right-adjusted column.  This keeps you from scanning down the list to find the least expensive items. Remember – restaurants don’t want you to think about your wallet – so a menu will use ways to eliminate easy price comparison.

Decoys And Trickery

“Decoy pricing” is a favorite tactic of some restaurants, too. They’ll put really expensive dishes at the top of the list on the menu so the less expensive dishes that follow look more reasonably priced – even if they’re still expensive.

Some research has shown that people tend to order neither the most, nor the least expensive dishes. They go more for mid-zone pricing so tossing high-priced decoys into the equation makes everything else look a little more reasonable.

Tip: Really expensive menu items act as decoys when they’re put next to others that are more reasonably priced – pushing you to order what then looks reasonably priced — but still may be expensive.

Do you eat out?  This is the seventh article in a series of consecutive posts about decoding restaurant menus. Keep checking back for more information that might help you with your restaurant choices.

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Putting a dish with a really mouth-watering description — like the fluffy omelette — next to something that’s described in plain jane language — like bacon and eggs with hash browns – can make the omelette sound all the more appealing and a very attractive menu choice.

Menu Language

Menu language is an art unto itself. Descriptive menu labels, especially the ones that yank your nostalgia strings or offer clear explanations, might entice you to order something exotic or strange. For instance, you might take a leap and order branzino if you know it’s European sea bass or chanterelle if you know it’s a mushroom.

Artful adjectives, like “handcrafted, slow-cooked, or old-time flavor” can sway your choice and leave you more satisfied at the end of the meal. So can “crispy” rather than “fried” or “poached” instead of “boiled.”

For example, how could you not try the “Best Lemon Tart I Ever Had,” the next to the last selection shown above? The description grabs you and makes you feel as though you’d be a fool to pass it up. Once you taste it, If it proves to be as good as its description, it’s almost  guaranteed that a customer will order it again and again – and that the restaurant make a lot of money from selling their signature lemon tart.

Tip: Descriptive menu labels, especially those that evoke nostalgia, yank your chain – and can boost sales by as much as 27%.

Familiar Items Vs. Special Or Unique

As a general rule, restaurants leave familiar items alone. Roast beef is roast beef and a fancy description might be annoying. But elaborating on something special or unusual — like locally grown arugula with fresh garden herbs — makes a dish more intriguing and you won’t think you’re being ripped off for a bed of lettuce.

Restaurants can steer you toward high profit margin choices by making some descriptions more appealing than others. There’s a continuum of appeal — having everything sound equally delicious isn’t much different than having everything sound equally bland.

Tip: A menu can make you feel like you’d be crazy to pass up an item with a mouth-watering description by toning down the descriptions of competing choices. The competition still might be good — it just doesn’t sound as great as the dish the restaurant wants you to order.

Do you eat out?  This is the sixth article in a series of consecutive posts about decoding restaurant menus. Keep checking back for more information that might help you with your restaurant choices.

Please share if you know anyone who wants to Eat Out and Eat Well!

The post Menu Descriptions That Make Your Mouth Water appeared first on Eat Out Eat Well.

People tend to remember the top two items and the one at the bottom of a list. So, the chef or restaurateur will make sure that certain dishes are not randomly placed in those spots. You’ll most likely find the highest profit items at the top and bottom of the menu sections because they sell 25% better than items in the middle.

Tip: Where a menu item is positioned in a list could shout “order me” or “I’m just a complacent placeholder.”

High Profit Margin And Signature Dishes

The high profile real estate on a menu is usually occupied by high-margin items – the ones that make the most money for the restaurant – or the restaurant’s signature dishes, the specialty dishes they can knock out of the park – and are the one’s that keep you coming back for more. Price and cost-margin don’t play major roles with signature dishes because the restaurant is sure they’re so good that you’ll keep coming back and spending money.

High-profit margin items are the dishes that are profitable — like pasta. Even if pasta comes with fancy sauce, meat, or seafood, unless it’s served with something like truffles, it’s usually inexpensive to make. That doesn’t mean it’s not good – it just means that it costs less money to make it so the restaurant ends up making more money on it than on some other menu items that contain ingredients that are more costly or are much more labor intensive to make.

Tip: High profile real estate is probably filled by high-margin items – the ones that make the most money – or signature dishes, specialty dishes that keep you coming back for more.

Do you eat out?  This is the fifth article in a series of consecutive posts about decoding restaurant menus. Keep checking back for more information that might help you with your restaurant choices.

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Where Do Restaurants Usually Feature Their Most Profitable Items?

Look at a menu. The most important ideas are at the top right of the front page — the spot where your eyes tend to land first. In a two-page/single-fold menu, the most common type, the top right is where you’ll most likely find the most profitable items or the specials. In a single-page format, where the entire menu is on a single page or card, the area of focus is the top half of the page.

Do You Read Or Scan?

Most people don’t “read” a menu but rather “scan” it with their eyes. It makes sense to put the items the restaurant wants to sell where your eye goes first. “Eye magnets” like colored boxes, large fonts, or icons and symbols help direct your gaze. Bold typefaces grab attention and are designed to steer you to what they want you to order. Well thought out use of eye magnets can increase restaurant sales up to 10%.

 Where Do You Look First?

On a two-page menu, a lot of us often go to the right page, go back and read the left page, and then back to the top right to take another look. By the time most of us get to the middle and bottom of the right page our attention is fading. That ends up being where restaurants put items they don’t mark up or ones they know will sell anyway. For instance, unless you’re in a steakhouse, that’s where you’ll probably find the steak — because those of us who are going to order steak are usually going to order it regardless of where it is on the menu. Items they don’t want to feature — maybe things that don’t make money or stand-bys like burgers or eggs that sell anyway — go below the high profit items or on the back of a three or four page menu.

Tip: You’ll likely find a restaurant’s most profitable items or specials — the things they want you to order — on the top right of the front page of a two-page menu or the top half of the page on a single page menu.

Eye Magnets

Some newer research has shown that some of us may read the menu sequentially – the reason menus start with appetizers, go to entrees, and end with dessert, with soup and salad in between.

Regardless of your menu reading habits – some people scan the dessert choices first to figure out if they’ll start with a “lighter” appetizer and go for a big time dessert – the purpose of “eye magnets” and other attention getting mechanisms is to direct your eye toward what the restaurant is highlighting (some might call it “pushing”).

Tip: “Eye magnets” — like colored boxes, larger fonts, and icons or symbols — are used to help direct your gaze.

Do you eat out?  This is the fourth article in a series of consecutive posts about decoding restaurant menus. Keep checking back for more information that might help you with your restaurant choices.

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A Menu Is A Defacto Business Card

A menu acts as the restaurant’s business card and can quickly give you some ideas about its inner workings. A dirty menu might imply a dirty kitchen; a clean and neat menu creates a different impression. Even though the main purpose is to tell you what’s to eat, a secondary objective is to make you forget about money so you make your food and drink selections without thinking about the price.

The way the menu looks should be in sync with the restaurant’s concept and image — the décor, service, food quality, and price range — and give you an idea about what kind of eating experience is in store. A six or eight page plastic coated menu, the kind usually found in diners, doesn’t convey the same dining experience as the two page leather bound menu found in an upscale restaurant.

Tip:

A menu’s design should be in sync with the restaurant’s concept and image — the décor, service, food quality, and price range — and give you an idea about the overall dining experience you can expect.

Disorganized menus might mean a kitchen without a plan. A menu with a huge number of offerings (unless it’s a place like a diner with a big turnover) makes you wonder how fresh the food is – and how it’s being repackaged into different kinds of offerings.  A dirty menu is like a dirty bathroom and should make you  think about the cleanliness of the kitchen and the people working in it!

What are your thoughts?

Do you eat out?  This is the third article in a series of consecutive posts about decoding restaurant menus. Keep checking back for more information that might help you with your restaurant choices.

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Remember Paul Simon’s song, “Mother and Child Reunion”? According to Simon he “was eating in a Chinese restaurant downtown. There was a dish called Mother and Child Reunion. It’s chicken and eggs. And I said, I gotta use that one.”

Putting aside the popularity of the song, who would think to describe chicken and eggs as a Mother and Child Reunion?

Is What You Order Really Your Choice?

Smart restaurant owners and chefs use creative phrasing and mouthwatering descriptions to describe their food.  They’re using menu psychology to suggestively sell from their menu pages. They use design, placement, and words to direct your attention to key items on their menus so it’s more likely that you’ll notice, remember, and order what they’ve pointed you toward.

Sometimes they highlight their signature dishes, but mostly they want to get you to focus on their high profit margin items — the ones that make them the most money. They aren’t always the most expensive, but they are the most profitable.

There’s nothing wrong with ordering something that’s going to make money for a restaurant, but wouldn’t you like to feel that the selection is purely your choice rather than the restaurant’s?

Menus Target Both Your Stomach And Your Mind

A menu is targeted not just at your stomach, but also to your mind.

Gallup once reported that most people spend an average of 109 seconds reading a menu — a pretty short amount of time. Even if people take longer to really read it — after all, some menus are like encyclopedias — a menu’s design means more than a nice layout. It requires psychology and marketing, too.

It’s in the restaurant’s best interest to really pay attention to its menu – a redesign can improve sales by an average of 2 to 10% — which could mean a significant boost in income.

So, a descriptive phrase like “Mother and Child Reunion” is just one of many ways to influence your choice. The messages are often subliminal, but where menu items are placed, how graphics are used, the way the food and drink choices are described, and even the use of dollar signs — all send you directional signals.

The bottom line is that restaurants hope that their menus — a magical brew of prices; superlative or descriptive words; and varying fonts, sizes, and colors — will play with your brain cells and nudge you toward making the choices they would like you to make.

Do you eat out?  This is the second article in a series of consecutive posts about decoding restaurant menus. Keep checking back for more information that might help you with your restaurant choices.

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