What a fantastic question Jane and you're so right, if you've never been to Disney World before how on earth do you choose which restaurants you'd like to dine at?
The first time I visited as an adult I had no clue either of where to dine or even where to look for information until I found the website allears.net Here there is a whole section on dining and it lists every menu for all the WDW restaurants. I read through these and started making a list, for example my family don't like spicy food so I could immediately knock Boma, Marrakesh etc off of my list. I also found which restaurants had characters and added to my list the ones where my children would see their favourites. Once I had made a rough list I found the restaurant boards at disboards.com People here actually write their own reviews of each restaurant and post photos of the food, this helped me so much as not only could I see what the food looked like but real people were telling me if they liked the restaurant or not.
Just recently the dining pages of disneyworld.com have been greatly improved with fantastic photos and sometimes a link to the menu. This is a great way to look at the different restaurants, for example if you click
HERE you can see the webpage for Les Chefs de France in Epcot so that can help with your decision.
I also ask any friends that have visited WDW recently if they have any recommendations for me. If someone asks me I always suggest they dine at Teppan Edo in Japan in Epcot. This is one of my families favourites as we love the food and watching it being cooked in front of us is fun. Others that we always dine at are Narcoossee's and 1900 Park Fare at the Grand Floridian, Sci-Fi at Hollywood Studios and Crystal Palace in the Magic Kingdom.
I hope that helps and remember we're here to help if you have any further questions :-)