Reading menus

One of the biggest omissions in our curriculum is learning how to read menus. Whenever I visit a restaurant, I am stunned by the menu, of which I can barely read 5%. I know the characters for beef, chicken, fish, pork, sheep and dog (important to avoid mistakes), and those representing dumplings, rice noodles and wheat noodles, but that doesn't really help much, since in every category there are usually at least 10 options. So in practice I have to scan the establishment for pictures of meals, which is quite often the case, or look at what others are having, and then just point. It's embarrassing. After three months here, I still can not order food in proper Chinese.
Right opposite the entrance to my apartment complex is a charming little dumpling restaurant, where I sometimes go to pick up a meal to take home. Their menu is much bigger than what they actually have on offer (a common situation: when you have finally figured out what you want, they return from the kitchen to tell you they don't have that today, "mei you"), but still, making a selection from the short list of dumpling varieties that remains is like spinning the wheel of fortune. However, today I deciphered the names of the different kinds with the help of their 6 year old daughter, who is also learning Chinese and wrote down the pinyin translation of the unknown characters for me. That made it a lot easier to find the English translation, and to remember the pronunciation.
So now I can choose among 5 varieties of pork dumplings (the left column) with either cabbage, leek, celery, green pepper, or oyster mushroom.