In the real or imagined world of romantic dinners for two, your dream-babe companion sits opposite and inquires as to your preference for onion bhajee or, perhaps, the prawn puree. Option anxiety mingled with tummy-terror fills your muddled head.

O.K., curry babes-and-buddies, help is forthcoming.

We all know a good chicken when we run over it, or merely pluck it insensitively from the dutiful Sunday barbecue.

We may have experienced a King Prawn or two in our maritime excesses and might fancy we know of the health advantage to be gained from a windy pulse, fiber-endowed veggie or plain staple rice.

Take your seat for dinner: napkin politely on knee and pretended perusal of the wine list. First, play for time. Sit back, look confident and ascertain from the waiter if there is an imported and suitably chilled Indian lager beer to be found in the house. This should be a Lal Toofal, Cobra, Taj Mahal, or, best of all (but not if brewed under license in the UK) the Kingfisher.

Otherwise, it may be prudent to stall a little longer with the Bud, Harp, Millers Lite or whatever passes for a slurpy sip. Or maybe just passes......

First of all: meat, fish or vegetable as a main course? Let's get the big and scary bit out of the way. Dry or in a sauce? Spicy-hot or mild and creamy?

The great thing about Indian cuisine is the availability of vegetarian options. Lentils, greens, roots and branches, are all conjured up to please, titillate and satisfy. Perhaps in the form of an integrated and complete Vegetarian Thali, attractively served in a "silver" dish of that name, the chance to sample several small vegetable portions will be found. No longer the poor cousin of the carnivorous night-out nibbler, you may indulge yourself with glee, ghee (purified butter) and total satisfaction in your descent to the ultimate in Vegan gluttony. Whoops, forgot about the butter......

A BASIC, QUICK GUIDE

Let's first consider the mild: Korma, Passanda and Muglai are the words to watch for. Liberal in their creamy mildness, these dishes, from different areas of the Indian sub-continent, will be face and bowel-savers when the chips are down.

For those who favour the dryer, purer and not-too-hot taste of the source meat or fish, try the Tikka or Tandoori versions.

Really spicy hot stuff will be tackled head-on in the Madras or Vindaloo variations on the theme. Brave but occasionally foolish forkers, like me, will feel compelled to go for the Phal or Tindaloo, those macho show-off botty-crippling dishes which we become strangely ever-addicted to. Nothing disrupts a band sound-check like the pervasive after-effects of the Tarka Dhal (lentils and garlic).