Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 714, Dining with a Foodie.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 714.
I'm your host, Dr. Jeff McQuillan.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
You can download a learning guide by becoming a member of VSL Podcast and supporting this effort.
This episode is called Dining with a Foodie.
A foodie is someone who likes to go to good restaurants, whose hobby, in a way, is going to restaurants and finding good places to eat.
Let's get started.
I thought it was passable.
Just passable?
Yes, it was a run-of-the-mill dish you could find in any fine dining restaurant.
No gourmet would be bowled over by it.
Oh, I thought it was pretty good.
What about the main course?
I thought the fish wasn't seasoned properly, and it was a touch overcooked.
I'm sorry to hear that.
And the wine pairing was all wrong.
I'm not a wine aficionado, so I guess my palate isn't as sophisticated as yours.
I thought the wine was wonderful.
In my opinion, the entire meal was forgettable.
That was the last time I invited Nick to join me for a meal.
I thought the meal was delicious, but Nick's comments left a bad taste in my mouth.
Our story begins with Anita saying that she invited her friend Nick Nick is a short form usually of Nicholas to try a new restaurant with her.
This restaurant, she says, was the latest thing.
The latest thing is something that everyone is now doing or someplace everyone is now going.
It's considered new, exciting, interesting news.
For example, we might say now in the year 2011, the iPad is the latest thing.
Or some new computer is the latest thing.
Or a new phone.
The latest thing is what is very popular right now that everybody wants to get or to try.
The restaurant that...
Anita wants to go to is also the latest thing in her town, in her city.
And since she says Nick was a foodie, she thought that Nick would have an interesting take on the meal.
A foodie.
F-O-O-D-I-E is someone who's very interested in good restaurants, good food, and someone whose hobby it is, in a way, to find good restaurants and good food in a certain city.
Nick would have an interesting take on the meal Anita thought.
To have a take on something means to have an opinion, a perspective, an idea about something.
Someone might say to you, what's your take on the situation in the Middle East?
What's your opinion?
What are your ideas about it?
To have an interesting take would be to have an opinion that other people thought was interesting.
So Anita thought that Nick, being a foodie, would have an interesting take on the meal, on the food they were going to eat at this new restaurant.
Anita says, so what do you think of the first course?
Meals, especially formal meals, come in courses.
The first course is what you eat first.
The second course is what you eat second.
Usually, though not always, they're brought out from the kitchen one by one.
First course, second course, third course, and so forth.
So Anita asks Nick what he thinks of the first course.
Nick says, I thought it was passable.
Passable means acceptable, okay, but not excellent, not great.
Anita says, just passable, only passable.
You didn't think it was more than just okay?
Okay.
Nick says, yes, it was a run-of-the-mill dish.
The expression run-of-the-mill M-I-L-L means ordinary, not special, very standard, very typical ordinary.
Nick says the dish, the first course, the food they ate first, was run-of-the-mill.
You could find that kind of dish in any fine dining restaurant.
The term fine dining D-I-N-I-N-G means the experience of eating at a very nice restaurant, often an expensive restaurant, one that is better than what you usually eat at.
To dine, D-I-N-E, is another word for to eat.
It's used in somewhat perhaps more formal situations.
So Nick thinks that this course, this first course, could be found at any good restaurant, any fine dining restaurant.
No gourmet would be bowled over by it, he says.
A gourmet G-O-U-R-M-E-T it comes from the French, so the last T is not pronounced is a person who's very knowledgeable about good food.
It's kind of like a foodie, but foodie is a more modern term, more recent term.
Gourmet is a more traditional term, and there's also the idea that a person is perhaps better educated in food, knows more about food, and so forth.
We talk about a gourmet chef.
A chef is a person who cooks food in a restaurant or other location.
So a gourmet chef is a chef that knows a lot about fine dining, about good food.
Nick says that a gourmet would not be bowled over by that meal, by that dish.
The phrase to be bowled over means to be very impressed, to be amazed, to be surprised by something.
It could be a good surprise.
It could be a bad surprise.
B-O-W-L-I-N-G, as you know, is a game where you take a ball and you throw it so that it knocks down what are called pins, P-I-N-S.
There are usually ten of them.
The verb to bowl would be to throw the ball, the bowling ball, we call it.
To be bowled over, however, means to be amazed.
It's as though you are so surprised, or so shocked that a bowling ball has hit you and you've fallen down.
Something like that.
Anita says, oh, I thought it was pretty good.
I thought it was very good.
What about the main course?
Again in a formal meal.
You may have a first course, which might be a salad or a soup, in an American restaurant.
The main course would typically be the meat or the fish.
Or if it's a vegetarian restaurant, the tofurkey or the vegetarian hamburger, which is not a hamburger.
But anyway, we're talking now about And the main course is what Anita is asking about.
In this case, the main course was fish.
Nick says, I thought the fish wasn't seasoned properly.
To season, S-E-A-S-O-N, is to put certain spices, salt, pepper, onto food.
Nick thinks the fish was not seasoned properly.
It didn't have the right mixture of salt, pepper, other spices.
He says it was also a touch overcooked.
To be overcooked means to cook something too much.
With fish and meat, it usually makes the meal hard.
It makes the fish or the meat too hard.
A touch is another way of saying a little bit, just a little bit, a small amount.
Touch has other meanings in English as well.
Take a look at our learning guide for some additional explanations.
Now, Anita doesn't agree with Nick.
She says, She's sorry that Nick doesn't like his food.
Nick then complains a little bit more because Nick is kind of a jerk.
I mean, you know, Anita invites him to this dinner, and then he sits there and complains the whole time.
Oh, the fish is overcooked.
Too bad, Nick.
But to be fair, Anita did ask Nick to the meal to get his opinion.
Nick continues to offer his opinion.
He says the wine pairing was all wrong.
Pairing, P-A-I-R-I-N-G, is two things that go together.
At a meal.
It would be two things that are paired together, or something that is served at the same time.
In this case, Nick is complaining about the wine pairing, the kind of wine that they chose to go with this particular meal.
Anita says, I'm not a wine aficionado.
Aficionado, A-F-I-C-I-O-N-A-D-O. is someone who is very passionate about something.
That is, someone who enjoys something, who has a lot of knowledge about something.
Anita says she's not a wine aficionado.
She doesn't know a lot about wine.
So I guess my palate isn't as sophisticated as yours.
Your palate is the part of your mouth that can detect or that can sense taste.
It's used in a more general way to describe the kinds of taste that you like and don't like.
So Anita says that her palate, her ability, her knowledge of food isn't as sophisticated as Nick's.
To be sophisticated means to be, in this case, more educated, with more experience.
The word can also be used to mean more something that is elegant fancy rich, something that is cultured.
All of these are possible uses of sophisticated.
Anita says, I thought the wine was wonderful.
I thought it was good.
It was excellent.
Nick says, in my opinion, the meal was entirely forgettable.
To forget means not to remember.
So something that is described as forgettable is something that is not memorable, usually because it's not very good.
Anita says, this was the last time I invited Nick to join me for a meal.
I thought the meal was delicious.
It tasted excellent.
But Nick's comments, Nick's opinions left a bad taste in my mouth.
The expression to leave a bad taste in your mouth can refer to food that you are eating and then later you can still taste the food, but it isn't a good taste.
The expression can also be used more generally, as it is here to mean to leave a bad impression, to make someone feel unpleasant or uncomfortable later on.
I had an argument with my boss and his comments left a bad taste in my mouth.
I'm still thinking about them.
They bother me.
They still bother me even though the argument is over.
That's what Anita is saying here about Nick's comments.
So be careful if you are going to invite a foodie to dinner.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
I invited my friend Nick to try a new restaurant with me.
This restaurant was the latest thing and since Nick was a foodie, I thought he would have an interesting take on the meal.
So what did you think of the first course?
I thought it was passable.
Just passable?
Yes, it was a run-of-the-mill dish you could find at any fine dining restaurant.
No gourmet would be bowled over by it.
Oh, I thought it was pretty good.
What about the main course?
I thought the fish wasn't seasoned properly, and it was a touch overcooked.
I'm sorry to hear that.
And the wine pairing was all wrong.
I'm not a wine aficionado, so I guess my palate isn't as sophisticated as yours.
I thought the wine was wonderful.
In my opinion, the entire meal was forgettable.
That was the last time I invited Nick to join me for a meal.
I thought the meal was delicious, but Nick's comments left a bad taste in my mouth.
Our dialogues, we hope, are never forgettable, and we hope they never leave a bad taste in your mouth.
We know they don't, usually because our script writer is the wonderful Dr. Lucy Say.
Thank you, Lucy.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thank you for listening.
Come back and listen to us again here on ESL Podcast.
English as a Second Language Podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
Copyright 2011 by the Center for Educational Development.
