Frank is a gentleman in every sense of the word, which includes being basically a sweet guy. He can pretty much tell what places I like and don't like, from my reactions. Also, I tell him if I think a place is wonderful or not very good. Since we go together and have the same experiences at places, we tend to agree almost completely on which ones we like. So, most of the time he chooses places that I like. We both love food, which helps. He takes me to my favorite restaurants frequently.
But often he surprises me. He is a native New Orleanian, whereas I have only lived here I guess 12 years. He knows about hundreds of little hole-in-the-walls that are unknown gems, so to speak, and he is as likely as not to take me to a place that I've never heard of or been to, that turns out to be fabulous. The last time he did this we ended up at a restaurant with mostly gay clientele and staff, in a 200+ year old building in Faubourg Marigny with 16 foot ceilings and cypress floors, and plants everywhere. I had one of the best salads of my life there! It was amazing and the staff and environment were very pleasant. I like his surprises.
Sometimes we used to go to a cheap Italian place in a bad neighborhood that had the most incredible Italian salad (we have a different name for it here) and cost almost nothing, and the waitress had probably known him for 40 years. It was destroyed in the storm and never came back, but still I am glad he took me there. I would not have tried that place myself, had he not taken me there.
I don't often suggest a place unless we are starving and places are going to be jammed, like at Mardi Gras. Then when he suggests a place on the parade route, I gently tell him that is nuts and I suggest a place that might actually have room for us, for example. Right after the storm when it was hard or impossible to find any grocery stores or restaurants at all that were open, I did a lot of suggesting.