Link: https://old.reddit.com/r/tifu/comments/1tdrlz0/tifu_by_confidently_explaining_to_my_date_what_a/

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The original was posted on /r/tifu by /u/driftkeene on 2026-05-15 09:55:05+00:00.

I grew up in a pretty normal household, we didn't eat out at nice places much, but I've spent the last few years trying to seem like someone who knows things. You know the type. Reads the menu ahead of time, nods slowly at wine lists, that kind of performance.

My date suggested a French restaurant for our third date. Nice place, candles, the whole thing. I had done approximately zero research.

We're looking at the menu and she asks what I think about the steak tartare. Now. I have heard the words steak tartare. I have seen them on menus before. In my head, because the word tartare sounds vaguely like tartar sauce which goes on fish, I had constructed an entirely confident and completely wrong mental image of what this dish was. I thought it was some kind of seared steak with a sauce. I said, and I am quoting myself here, "oh it's really good, it's like a classic French preparation, the sauce is what makes it."

She said she thought it was raw.

I said no, pretty sure it's cooked, it's a classic.

The waiter appeared at this exact moment. She asked him. He confirmed, with what I can only describe as very professional restraint, that steak tartare is in fact raw minced beef, typically served cold, and that this particular version came with a quail egg on top.

I ordered it anyway because I had already committed to being a person who knows about steak tartare. It was fine. I actualy didn't hate it. But I spent the rest of the meal unable to fully recover my sense of self and my date spent the rest of the meal trying not to laugh at me, which she was not entirely succesfull at.

We're still dating. She brings it up sometimes. I have not eaten steak tartare since.

TL;DR: Confidently explained a dish to my date, was wrong about the most basic fact of what the dish is, ordered it anyway out of pride, had to eat cold raw beef to maintain the bit.