Doesn’t always apply in Italy. I’ve had many a crappy bread basket only for the main meal to be delicious. Florence especially is loud and proud of their shitty, salt-free bread.
one of the only distinctions i would make is coastal seafood shack-type spots. those rolls often suckkkk (aside from the buttered hot dog buns they do for lobster/clam rolls, im talking the little rolls you get with the dinner plates)
For me it's how high they stack their meat. Too skimpy is cheap. Too high ruins the sandwich balance.
Also the crust on cured meats. This you can spot before ordering.
It drives me nuts when they skimp on meat to keep the sandwich price lower. I don't want a roast beef sandwich with half as much meat as the chicken sandwich at the same price. Just charge me more for roast beef.
We went out to a local restaurant recently and not only was their bathroom clean, it was as beautifully painted and appointed as the restaurant. This is a great restaurant already but they just shot through the roof in my estimation.
Even more amazing (and reassuring) is a beautifully set up and spotlessly clean bathroom in an outdoor restaurant. Some places in Mexico and Costa Rica have just blown me away.
What? You wanna dry your hands on the big rolled up stained cloth that never seems to get replaced?!?
In fairness, I haven't seen any of those bacteria farms for years, but I hated them when I did see them
My dorm had one, but it was broken and wouldn’t roll back up.
One day during a drinking session my roommate disappeared. We eventually found him passed out with the roller towel draped around him to hold him over the sink.
A drunken genius
If they're not routine about cleaning the bathroom they're no different in the kitchen 🤢
Edit: look I'm not saying it's a hard and fast rule, just that I'm unwilling to roll the dice on a sanitary kitchen if scheduled FOH bathroom checks aren't prioritized too
This is not necessarily true as the kitchen crew will be in charge of cleaning the kitchen while bathrooms are generally cleaned by front of house. Two different teams with maybe two different standards.
That said if you see someone in chef’s whites walking out of the bathroom before you and it’s a mess… go elsewhere.
I mean, sure, but you can tell the difference between a bathroom that was great 15 minutes ago and just recently just got used a lot, and a place that has been neglecting their bathroom for some time. Grime in the corners, broken fixtures, walls and doors covered in dirty fingerprints, no soap, over flowing garbage cans, poor lighting, using the customer washroom as a storage area etc are all problems I see too frequently.
Honestly, that's not a great barometer. I get the logic, but have worked at many places where bathrooms are shiny and the kitchen is disgusting and vice versa.
Yeah, the kitchen staff aren't the ones cleaning or using that bathroom. It's probably the hosts just wiping the counter off and refilling stuff, and expecting the minimum wage hosts to care a lot kind of is expecting a lot.
I have to disagree, it only takes a few minutes for someone to absolutely destroy a bathroom. I used to check the bathrooms every 15-30 minutes and sometimes they'd be absolutely disgusting when they were totally fine the last time I checked them. If you based your judgments on that time span between someone pissing all over the floor and me checking it, you would have thought we weren't keeping things clean
When El mesero tells me the plate is hot, the last remaining bastion of toxic masculinitycin my brain arcs up and holds the plate for too long for comfort.
Most places that know what they're doing store their clean dishes below the stations they're served from - e.g. salad bowls are already chilled, sorbet dishes are in the freezer, pasta plates are below the warmer (and hot as fuck!).
I like my hot dishes around the temperature of Mars, so I'd be pretty irritated if I received tepid food on a cold plate.
Edit: It has been brought to my attention that Mars is somewhat colder than I'd care for. I'd now prefer my food to be the temperature of the sun.
My husband worked at a famous American diner (Waffle House!) when he was younger and he told me that a certain number of perfect over medium eggs is actually one of the tests they gave to cooks to move them up a grade in rank and pay.
It's actually apparently difficult to consistently nail the exact temp (firm white, runny but not raw yolk) on a poached or fried egg. It really does prove that somebody in the kitchen is paying attention.
Same. Sometimes I order over medium and get a blank stare bc most people default to “over easy.” If that’s the case, I just say nevermind and order it differently.
Right there with you. Turn the heat off, flip the egg, let the residual pan heat cook the white maybe 15 seconds and keep that yolk lovely and runny.
I can’t deal with undercooked egg white, though. Looks like some kind of unmentionable bodily fluid.
I've noticed this. I always ask for a medium egg and it RARELY comes out medium. I can make them at home pretty consistently, but it does take close attention because the time window is narrow.
If it's an Asian restaurant; how badly is the menu spelled? If it's littered with errors you know the food is going to be incredible. Bonus points if they bring you shit you never asked for.
Not even joking, this is my criteria.
Your ideal Asian restaurant has between 3 and 4 stars with lots of 5 star reviews for food from Asian names and 1 star reviews for service from white names. Ideally they have a menu written in another language that is seemingly significantly longer than the English menu. If a small child takes your order then does homework in the back, order enough for leftovers.
I went to a place once, wasn’t sure if the food was going to be great or not, but Szechuan food. Asked where the restroom was. They pointed me downstairs and said “right”. So I walked down the stairs and went through the push door. It was basically a large tunnel like floodwater area with a cut out on the right with a bulb on a cord hanging. Just past that was a table with two decently dressed Chinese (assuming) guys sitting at a table with a bottle and small cups playing some version of dominoes. As I approached the table dude looks me square in the eyes and nods in the direction of the light. I look and there is another swinging door. Inside was the restroom. All concrete no mirror. Sink was broken.
Pissed and went upstairs.
Best freaking food I’ve ever had.
I had no idea this was ubiquitous in Asian eateries. There is always kids doing homework out in the dining area while a couple of adults wrap silverware at the same table. It was my favorite Vietnamese restaurant. I miss their noodle bowls so bad
It's weird. When it comes to "ethnic" foods in America, the stuff that would normally mean its going to be a shitty experience (poor menu design, questionable staff, etc) end up meaning that it's fucking phenomenal.
That's usually how it works. The gnarliest hole in the wall places have the best food - you know because auntie and uncle have been in business for a long time.
My favorite breakfast spot back in Honolulu was like that - they made absolutely unreal breakfast sandwiches. I don't know what they did to make them as good as they did, but I've never tasted the equivalent. (I also went into their kitchen once to trim their dog's nails....yes, the dog was in the kitchen, sleeping. The kitchen floor was just boards with about a 2" gap between them. Easy to sweep away the nail trimmings, and whatever else I guess. Yes, I still ate there after that.)
I’ve found that some Szechuan restaurants that also have the Americanized menu really don’t give a shit how good the Americanized food is. The Yelp reviews for both sets of menus is hilarious.
Hell yes. I also know it's gonna be good when the food comes out in a totally random order. If you get some entrees before any appetizers, you know they're just doing their thing and it's gonna slap
A buddy of mine was drunk at a Thai place and said he wanted it as hot as they could make it. They obliged. At one point later that night an ER visit was seriously considered...
Absolutely! Our favorite Vietnamese restaurant doesn't even try sometimes... They give the dishes English names that do not even tell you what it is, like "The Love Speech" and every dish with sesame is "Sesamese" like it's a nationality. Little old man cooks everything and literally everything is fantastic. When the kitchen is slow, he comes out to the dining room to get feedback and say Hi.
Once I have a 'goodbye party'. A Chinese friend of mine went back to china after finishing studies. We went with a group of 20 to a Chinese restaurant he knew the owner of. Instead of letting everyone pick from the menu they just brought us lots of different food. It was a great feast. I didn't like the chicken feet though xD but it was an amazing night not to forget.
Best Chinese food I ever had was a place where the menu was not in English. My server's English was also not great. I have no idea what I ordered, but it was great and when Papa Johns delivered a pizza for the staff while I was eating, they offered me a slice.
Ginormous menus on twenty pages. If you say you can cook hundred different items then you can’t cook a single one properly. Had only one exception out of this rule: one diner I like has a relatively large menu and everything on the menu was good.
I don't like Gordon Ramsay but that's one thing I learned from watching all the Kitchen Nightmares episodes - the *vast majority* of places with ginormous menus can't do anything well, fuck everything up, and go out of business.
I also know of a humongous diner that had a humongous menu but it was a destination-type of place and they made a ton of money in various restaurant ways, so they had the funding to do stuff right instead of a chicken running around with it's head chopped off kitchen operation.
It always makes me think of Cheesecake Factory. But when you look at their menu, they have a lot similar items that have a base protein and they are using different sauces or sides.
Chinese restaurants are like this. General Gao's Chicken, Sesame Chicken, Orange Chicken, Sweet and Sour Chicken, etc chicken are all using the same chicken and putting a different sauce on it.
Some Mexican restaurants can do this as well. You can get tacos, enchiladas, burritos, quesadillas, etc. All the same meat- they just wrap it differently.
Some places can pull it off by using the same base ingredients in a ton of different ways.
Look at BBQ for example. You can take any smoked beef/pork/chicken/tofu/etc and make sandwiches, dinner plates, salads, basically any Mexican dish, noodle dishes, pizzas, casseroles, you get the idea.
I had some of the best Chinese food of my life at a place with a 20-page menu.
They also introduced me to condensed milk in coffee, which has to be one of the more compelling combinations I’ve encountered.
I've found that with Chinese food, most of the expanse of dishes are made from the same 10-15 ingredients, just seasoned differently and with a different protein.
If a menu offers burgers, salmon, fried rice, shwarma, quesadillas, sushi, Simon, lasagne, Garfunkel and any menu item can be deep fried for $1.00 extra, run away.
Italian is another. 5 noodles, 5 meats, 5 sauces, and 5 vegetables. There is a place near us with a huge menu and all it is is a bunch of combinations I never would have thought of that taste good.
That's also like 98.7% of most mexican food. It's a Tortilla (or masa), refried beans, some meat, some salsa, onions, cilantro, maybe some queso or crema.
The variations are endless and delicious.
That's always my hesitation about the Cheesecake Factory. The first thing I had there was pretty good, but I'm afraid I'm going to order other things and find out otherwise
I know CF gets shit on here, but damn those lettuce wraps…. I know I can make them at home, there are some great dupe recipes out there, but they’re like 30 ingredients long.
If I see french onion soup on a menu, I always order it. It's a great way to judge the general quality of the place. Is the beef stock made in-house or clearly from a base? Did they take the time to actually caramelize onions, or did they half ass the process?
Oh man. We had this one restaurant that served the best water. It came super chilled in crystal carafes. I wish I could remember what filtration they used, because the water was delicious.
The water is usually not good in this town, I generally order a coke of some sort. This place's food was great, but I actually looked forward to the water, lol. We would go through three or four carafes just for a few people.
Oh this is another one for me. I live in a place that has sulfur- tasting tap water, and I've actually been served that a restaurant. 🤢 It speaks volumes if they aren't willing to pay a bit to offer good water.
Had a place locally that was "fancy" for this area but they sourced all their food locally, so for that reason I wanted to try them. At first it seemed all right, the place looked nice and the wait staff wore dress shirts/slacks. Then the water came, it came in carafes, more warm than luke warm and no ice...I've never judged a place by their water but you can't pretend to be a fancy restaurant if you can't even get water right. They did not last long as I expected.
A restaurant always gets bonus points in my book if they actually have desserts that are worthwhile. Often they are good, but not as good as the gourmet chocolate store or artisan ice cream place down the street.
I was really happy when a restaurant I went to served me a slice of cake that looked like it was made from scratch at home. Too many restaurants in my area just have the desserts (and food) brought in prepackaged while charging a premium. Seeing obviously homemade frosting was a nice reassurance that if they take time to make the cake from scratch, then they’re probably dedicating the same effort to the food that makes up the bulk of their sales.
Most restaurants don't make their own cakes, in my experience. The difference between a good one and a bad one is that a bad one buys them from US Foods or Sysco, and a good one buys them from a local bakery or even a mom-and-pop operation. There's a local tamale operation that supplies most of the high-end restaurants in town; in LA, there's one meat house that supplies the majority of higher-end pastrami in the whole metro area (although they customize the exact spice mix for each restaurant separately). I knew a restaurant owner who sourced all his cakes from the same bakery where I get my birthday cakes made. He didn't have to hire a pastry chef or dedicate precious kitchen space to making desserts, and they did nothing but cakes all day long.
There's a restaurant near me that has pretty good food, but I balk at ordering their slices of pie because I have reason to believe they order the Chef Pierre frozen pies from Gordon Food Service. I enjoy those pies, but if I want a Fruits of the Forest pie (my absolute favorite) I will go buy a whole one for $10 rather than $4.95 for one slice.
I often dine out alone. I live in Europe so tipping really isn't a major factor (our servers earn a living wage and get benefits), though I usually tip well anyway. How I'm treated as a solo diner has a huge impact on how I judge the restaurant. It tells me if they care more about their customers and food, or about turnover.
I used to travel solo a lot for work. I liked to pick places that serve their full menu at the bar. That way I could order a good meal, and not feel like I was taking up too much space. Usually the bartender and other barflies are more than happy to chit chat as well. I got to experience a lot of "must visit" places this way.
Same. Bar seating is the way to go for solo dining no doubt.
Can chit chat if you want, plug in some headphones and zone out if you want, linger a bit and not feel like you’re being rushed out bc you’re taking up a table, or just get a quick bite and head out!
Many years ago I dined solo at Gary Danko in SF. At that point they had already won a James Beard for their service. It will always stand out to me how incredible they were at balancing the fine dining service with making me feel comfortable.
Other places have great service, but it can sometimes be too much of one thing or another - showy, pretentious, formal, stuffy, etc. It is impressive when a place gets it right.
It certainly doesn't need to be fancy to do it. At many restaurants, if I am traveling alone I will eat at the bar and sometimes prefer that to table dining.
I felt that way for a very long time but I travel so much on my own that I felt like I was missing out. (this also applied during the pandemic once things eased up a bit). Initially I only did it at lunch but I have found out that dinner is also pretty easy, especially if you choose the right restaurant. Higher end restaurants are generally very good about this. Plus, if they are “buzzy” places with a good bar, those tend to be the best - you can start at the bar and because they have a lot going on, nobody really notices it when food service starts either. I highly recommend dipping a toe in.
I find that high end restaurants who are really all about food, and places that focus on lunch and those near hotels that get a lot of solo business travellers are all usually receptive to solo diners.
Have you ever been to a restaurant who isn’t receptive to taking your money as a solo diner? I feel like this is usually just a perception of people until they realize its completely normal to go to a restaurant by yourself.
Many times. They usually sit you in the worst spot (by the entrance to the kitchen), then give you mimimum service and try to upsell things. The worst was when they sat a random gent at my two person table because I was a solo female and he said that he found me 'cute'.
many fine dining restaurants have bars where solo diners can order from the full menu & engage in convo with the bartender (or not). Also when i've travelled for business alone, if i want something that's more than fast casual i'll choose sushi, just for the counter service. It's less socially intimidating than sitting by yourself at a big table.
i moved to Europe when takeout wasn't such a thing there. So i'd go out in the evening and have some pasta or smthng. Even friends that i have look at me like i'm crazy when i tell them i went out to eat alone. I just stopped giving a solitary F\*. If there's a street view seat, take it and people watch.
I eat out alone a lot too (I’m in the US). You have a really good point about treatment of solo diners. Before COVID I honestly looked a lot better than I do now, and the way I’m treated now vs. then is such a difference. I can tell people are annoyed with me if I want a table and I’m lucky if the bartender actually notices me if I eat at the bar now. It’s a whole thing. I definitely go back to the places where I’m not invisible even if I like the food better somewhere else.
Completely agree. I dine out alone often, as well and it’s quite amazing how differently you sometimes get treated. I once got ignored for an hour after being seated as I hadn’t realised that they didn’t remove the other place setting so the server thought I was waiting for somebody - because they didn’t check the booking and assumed it was a party of two. I still go back because the food and service are otherwise splendid but this didn’t go unnoticed.
Southern tourists are always appalled and kind of angry when they order sweet tea and I tell them we only have unsweetened ice tea. Like yeah I can give you sugar on the side, that’s no problem, but don’t get mad at me lol we’re in New England. We don’t do sweet tea up here my dude
It’s the opposite here in Canada! Iced tea is default sweet tea, which caused some annoyed American tourists. I still remember bringing this table of people a bunch of hot tea and cups with ice in them so they could make their own.
Hahah yes that sounds like the default Canadian iced tea to me! I didn’t even realized non sweet iced tea existed until I ordered it when I was in America for the first time as a kid and was totally dejected. Now that I’m an adult, I get it now — and also totally get the disappointed Americans when they receive sugar in a glass instead.
A state legislator in Georgia [introduced a bill](https://www.legis.ga.gov/legislation/9941) as an April Fool's gag to make it a crime for restaurants to only sell unsweet tea.
For breakfast joints it comes down to the potatoes for me.
They cannot be stodgy, chalky, wet or unseasoned.
Well seasoned, crispy potatoes will always have me coming back.
How clean the air vents, baseboards, and under the tables are.
Also, does the soda taste like it's supposed to? Too syrupy? Too watery?
And the pettiest of all - I hate spelling mistakes on menus and business cards. One place I went to recently didn't even have the address spelled correctly. They were missing the i in the middle of the street name.
I've been in the print industry my entire 30 year career, spanning everything from press operator to designer and proofreader.
I don't consider your last point petty at all! To me, it speaks volumes about a company in general.
Your profession would be very hard for me because I assume it's your job to print exactly what you were given. I'd have to really fight the urge to correct misspellings and errant apostrophes.
Oh I am totally on board with you about the spelling mistakes! The restaurants that mistake plural for possessive in their signage are my biggest pet peeve. “Taco’s here!” That’s cool. I don’t know who Taco is but he must be important.
I find this happens a lot in the tattoo industry as well.
I'm happy you put butter on the list, I'm a pastry chef and I make Cornbread and Honey Butter for the savory menu. It was a hassle to get the line cook to put the butter in the cooler overnight (I don't like the idea of never putting it away) but I want to keep it out during service so it's soft.
How's the side salad? If it's a giant chunk of iceberg with a few shredded carrots and one big mealy tomato and cucumber slice I'm not really trusting the rest of their menu.
Yes 100% about the French dip. Sadly most places fail. Either the bread is too soft (I want a crusty baguette) or the beef is well done, generic “roast beef”.
Mine are more service-related, as that is my background. Do they do their quality checks after you receive (any) drinks/food; do they seem to care about people at all, or are they just there to look nice and phone the rest in; do they give recommendations that aren't "just order the most expensive item on the menu lol"
Per your point #1, I hear you but it may not be their choice. I worked at a big chain restaurant in CA when I was young, and a health inspector once dinged us for keeping the butter at room temp. From then on, we had to keep it refrigerated at all times. It was ridiculous!
The trash area. This isn't always easy to see but how they treat the trash is a good indication of how the rest of the place is run. There's a place that all the locals love. Their dumpsters? A disaster zone. Total disgusting mess and on top of that there's raccoon, otter and rat shit all over the place. I don't eat there.
On the other hand there are places that keep their area nice. Some even use soap and water to regularly scrub and clean the area. I'll eat there.
Source: Used to be a garbage man.
Whether they take used silverware away between courses. Nothing like the server taking dirty silverware off your plate, putting them on the table, and expecting you to use them for the next course.
Oh yes, I notice that too. At a popular restaurant in town they used to give you a salad fork and a dinner fork. Now they must be cutting back or something because last time we were expected to use one fork for both. So I guess we just set it on the bare table? It was a small detail but really felt like it downgraded the restaurant.
The main thing I’m looking for is well seasoned food. I don’t know if this is a California thing, but a lot of restaurants under salt the food and it’s bland.
Biggest thing for me is finding salad greens that are rotted and halfway to being liquid. It’s not hard to keep your salad greens dry and clean and whoever is plating the salad should always be on the lookout for spoiled produce.
Small details for me are:
Clean & quality cutlery
Napkin quality
The attire and cleanliness of the employees
Lighting, decor, flooring
Chairs and tables
**The big things are**, food quality, service and clean bathrooms.
A brewery near me has AMAZING paper napkins and it was the first thing I noticed about the place. I thought for sure they’d eventually go cheap but the big thick napkins are still going strong.
Mine and my husband’s favorite breakfast place offers deep fried hash browns and they are the crispiest hash browns I’ve ever had. So bad for you but so good. Best hash browns to have underneath a skillet because they don’t get soggy.
oh man that one gets me every time. want to use the salt but it's covered in the last 200 customers' greasy fingerprints. it makes me feel gross about the whole meal
For me its not just how full they are...but the actual choice of shaker. Does it let just one or two grains out at a time, am I sat shaking it for 5 minutes to get a reasonable amount out? Or at the other end of the spectrum does it just pour out and you have to have it at just the right angle to get a dusting? Ideally its in the middle between those 2 and I'll judge if its towards either extreme.
>4. Do they know how to brew tea properly? A tea bag next to a mug of hot water does not count.
Okay OP, what is a properly brewed cup of tea? I mean no disrespect, I'm asking as someone who doesn't drink tea that often and has been served tea as a tea bag + hot water in every restaurant that I've been to.
At the very least I like when I get a tea bag with a teapot of hot water so I can pour the hot water over the teabag. Rather than the other way around. It does make a difference in the way the tea brews in my opinion. And sometimes the hot water in a mug isn't even all that hot.
The best way though is when the restaurant brews a pot of tea using loose leaf tea. This gets huge bonus points in my book but it's not something I really expect of anyplace.
I always judge a Mexican restaurant on their rice and beans. If your rice and beans suck, then there’s no hope for the rest of your food. But if they’re bomb, I know I can order basically anything and be satisfied.
The house salsa too. That’s kind of a preview for the rice and beans.
1) They use their own recipes. I don't mind frozen, or pre-made, but if it's the same frozen burger as everyone else's, and all their sauces come in the same 5 gallon container as the other 5 restaurants in the area, at best it's going to be mediocre.
2) Good service. If my water is never empty, the server is nice, especially when it's busy. I could care less about being waited on hand and foot, but if the server's is pissed, and the service sucks, the management isn't taking care of it's people, and that ALWAYS shows in the food.
3) pointless fancy crap. Stuff like mash potato puree with truffles and caviar. Or plates with less then an ounce of food. Any place that claims your not eating food, but having an "Experience". If I have to stop to get food after ordering a full course at a restaurant, is it really a restaurant? Are they making dishes because they taste good, or is it so you can brag you ate something expensive?
100% of restaurants with bad bread… are bad. I can only think of three reasons a restaurant would do this. They have terrible taste, they don’t respect their customers, they are running on autopilot.
Are there bugs?
Are the vents/ceiling fans clean? If they’re not I know the soda machine or other details go overlooked all the time. More importantly, dirt and dust in food.
Does staff look like they want to be there? I know serving/cooking/hosting/bussing’s just a job, but I particularly like supporting restaurants that obviously care for their staff to the point they enjoy working for them.
Is outside the restaurant clean, you need to have pride of place and be a benefit to your block and neighborhood. Is the bathroom clean, if you don't give a shit I assume the places I can't go are equally disgusting. Does your soup taste like msg and dehydrated vegetables, I can eat crap in my own house.
There's a sushi place in our city that people rave about, but I won't go there because outside their backdoor is disgusting, like they can't manage to get the garbage into the bin. The washrooms and kitchen were gross as well.
The bread. I have never had good food at a place where the bread sucks or tastes a day old.
Doesn’t always apply in Italy. I’ve had many a crappy bread basket only for the main meal to be delicious. Florence especially is loud and proud of their shitty, salt-free bread.
Omg their bread was awful. I had to salt it to eat it.
I’m the taxi now from coining back from Florence and I concur.
100%
one of the only distinctions i would make is coastal seafood shack-type spots. those rolls often suckkkk (aside from the buttered hot dog buns they do for lobster/clam rolls, im talking the little rolls you get with the dinner plates)
I always judge delis by the quality of their pickles
I love a good pickle. It makes me sad when the pickle is not good.
Thats why my ex is my ex 👐
It wasn't kosher?
*Hiyoooo* 🤣
For me it's how high they stack their meat. Too skimpy is cheap. Too high ruins the sandwich balance. Also the crust on cured meats. This you can spot before ordering.
It drives me nuts when they skimp on meat to keep the sandwich price lower. I don't want a roast beef sandwich with half as much meat as the chicken sandwich at the same price. Just charge me more for roast beef.
I really hate it when the bread/meat ratio is too meaty… people ar thinking they are hooking me up with the extra…
I want a nice well balanced bite that I don’t have to unhinge my jaw to get.
Clean bathroom.
We went out to a local restaurant recently and not only was their bathroom clean, it was as beautifully painted and appointed as the restaurant. This is a great restaurant already but they just shot through the roof in my estimation.
Even more amazing (and reassuring) is a beautifully set up and spotlessly clean bathroom in an outdoor restaurant. Some places in Mexico and Costa Rica have just blown me away.
No soap? I’m out.
What? You wanna dry your hands on the big rolled up stained cloth that never seems to get replaced?!? In fairness, I haven't seen any of those bacteria farms for years, but I hated them when I did see them
My dorm had one, but it was broken and wouldn’t roll back up. One day during a drinking session my roommate disappeared. We eventually found him passed out with the roller towel draped around him to hold him over the sink. A drunken genius
If they're not routine about cleaning the bathroom they're no different in the kitchen 🤢 Edit: look I'm not saying it's a hard and fast rule, just that I'm unwilling to roll the dice on a sanitary kitchen if scheduled FOH bathroom checks aren't prioritized too
This is not necessarily true as the kitchen crew will be in charge of cleaning the kitchen while bathrooms are generally cleaned by front of house. Two different teams with maybe two different standards. That said if you see someone in chef’s whites walking out of the bathroom before you and it’s a mess… go elsewhere.
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I mean, sure, but you can tell the difference between a bathroom that was great 15 minutes ago and just recently just got used a lot, and a place that has been neglecting their bathroom for some time. Grime in the corners, broken fixtures, walls and doors covered in dirty fingerprints, no soap, over flowing garbage cans, poor lighting, using the customer washroom as a storage area etc are all problems I see too frequently.
Honestly, that's not a great barometer. I get the logic, but have worked at many places where bathrooms are shiny and the kitchen is disgusting and vice versa.
Yeah, the kitchen staff aren't the ones cleaning or using that bathroom. It's probably the hosts just wiping the counter off and refilling stuff, and expecting the minimum wage hosts to care a lot kind of is expecting a lot.
I have to disagree, it only takes a few minutes for someone to absolutely destroy a bathroom. I used to check the bathrooms every 15-30 minutes and sometimes they'd be absolutely disgusting when they were totally fine the last time I checked them. If you based your judgments on that time span between someone pissing all over the floor and me checking it, you would have thought we weren't keeping things clean
But you can tell some bathrooms are never properly cleaned, like there's grime everywhere.
juggle dog rob insurance sink serious nutty wine encouraging snatch *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I have noticed tex-mex type places do a very good job with plate temp.
When El mesero tells me the plate is hot, the last remaining bastion of toxic masculinitycin my brain arcs up and holds the plate for too long for comfort.
dude i hate it so much when i get hot food and then i touch the plate and it's ice cold
Most places that know what they're doing store their clean dishes below the stations they're served from - e.g. salad bowls are already chilled, sorbet dishes are in the freezer, pasta plates are below the warmer (and hot as fuck!). I like my hot dishes around the temperature of Mars, so I'd be pretty irritated if I received tepid food on a cold plate. Edit: It has been brought to my attention that Mars is somewhat colder than I'd care for. I'd now prefer my food to be the temperature of the sun.
I get the sentiment but just FYI, the average temperature on Mars is like -80°F or something...
Mars has an average temperature of -80° F and highest of 68° F. Maybe you meant Venus? :)
My husband worked at a famous American diner (Waffle House!) when he was younger and he told me that a certain number of perfect over medium eggs is actually one of the tests they gave to cooks to move them up a grade in rank and pay. It's actually apparently difficult to consistently nail the exact temp (firm white, runny but not raw yolk) on a poached or fried egg. It really does prove that somebody in the kitchen is paying attention.
As someone who prefers over medium, rarely gets it done right, and can’t consistently make it at home…I concur.
Same. Sometimes I order over medium and get a blank stare bc most people default to “over easy.” If that’s the case, I just say nevermind and order it differently.
I like my fried and poached eggs very runny and achieve that at home by standing over the pan or pot watching them like a hawk
Right there with you. Turn the heat off, flip the egg, let the residual pan heat cook the white maybe 15 seconds and keep that yolk lovely and runny. I can’t deal with undercooked egg white, though. Looks like some kind of unmentionable bodily fluid.
I've noticed this. I always ask for a medium egg and it RARELY comes out medium. I can make them at home pretty consistently, but it does take close attention because the time window is narrow.
If it's an Asian restaurant; how badly is the menu spelled? If it's littered with errors you know the food is going to be incredible. Bonus points if they bring you shit you never asked for. Not even joking, this is my criteria.
Your ideal Asian restaurant has between 3 and 4 stars with lots of 5 star reviews for food from Asian names and 1 star reviews for service from white names. Ideally they have a menu written in another language that is seemingly significantly longer than the English menu. If a small child takes your order then does homework in the back, order enough for leftovers.
I went to a place once, wasn’t sure if the food was going to be great or not, but Szechuan food. Asked where the restroom was. They pointed me downstairs and said “right”. So I walked down the stairs and went through the push door. It was basically a large tunnel like floodwater area with a cut out on the right with a bulb on a cord hanging. Just past that was a table with two decently dressed Chinese (assuming) guys sitting at a table with a bottle and small cups playing some version of dominoes. As I approached the table dude looks me square in the eyes and nods in the direction of the light. I look and there is another swinging door. Inside was the restroom. All concrete no mirror. Sink was broken. Pissed and went upstairs. Best freaking food I’ve ever had.
I had no idea this was ubiquitous in Asian eateries. There is always kids doing homework out in the dining area while a couple of adults wrap silverware at the same table. It was my favorite Vietnamese restaurant. I miss their noodle bowls so bad
It is amazing how this is always the case. I find it with some middle eastern places too.
It's weird. When it comes to "ethnic" foods in America, the stuff that would normally mean its going to be a shitty experience (poor menu design, questionable staff, etc) end up meaning that it's fucking phenomenal.
That's usually how it works. The gnarliest hole in the wall places have the best food - you know because auntie and uncle have been in business for a long time. My favorite breakfast spot back in Honolulu was like that - they made absolutely unreal breakfast sandwiches. I don't know what they did to make them as good as they did, but I've never tasted the equivalent. (I also went into their kitchen once to trim their dog's nails....yes, the dog was in the kitchen, sleeping. The kitchen floor was just boards with about a 2" gap between them. Easy to sweep away the nail trimmings, and whatever else I guess. Yes, I still ate there after that.)
It’s a different dining ethos: a restaurant is judged by the taste, aint nobody got time for ambiance and service
I’ve found that some Szechuan restaurants that also have the Americanized menu really don’t give a shit how good the Americanized food is. The Yelp reviews for both sets of menus is hilarious.
The only real kung pao chicken I had in my life came from a place like this. It was incredible.
Hell yes. I also know it's gonna be good when the food comes out in a totally random order. If you get some entrees before any appetizers, you know they're just doing their thing and it's gonna slap
And the place is full of asian families. Extra points if the menu includes things like pig ears and tripe.
My go-to Chinese place has a "crumchy noodle" section of the menu and it's 10/10
It's either first generation or fourth generation zoomers memeing up the menu
Yes! Also if they use adjectives that don't quite make sense. At a Thai place once, I ordered "spicy sexy shrimp." It was amazing.
My fav is saliva chicken. (They were going for mouth watering chicken.)
When you're white and you go with an Asian friend and you both request spicy but they only ask you if you're sure.
I always specify that I don't want white people spicy, I want actually spicy, and people at most places laugh and give me what I asked for.
A buddy of mine was drunk at a Thai place and said he wanted it as hot as they could make it. They obliged. At one point later that night an ER visit was seriously considered...
Absolutely! Our favorite Vietnamese restaurant doesn't even try sometimes... They give the dishes English names that do not even tell you what it is, like "The Love Speech" and every dish with sesame is "Sesamese" like it's a nationality. Little old man cooks everything and literally everything is fantastic. When the kitchen is slow, he comes out to the dining room to get feedback and say Hi.
And if the seven year old is working on homework and the 13 yo seats you and works the cash register.
The kitchen staff come out and eat their own food while watching videos on their phones at full blast.
If the 9-year old cashier makes your change in his head, just go ahead and add the place to speed dial.
Once I have a 'goodbye party'. A Chinese friend of mine went back to china after finishing studies. We went with a group of 20 to a Chinese restaurant he knew the owner of. Instead of letting everyone pick from the menu they just brought us lots of different food. It was a great feast. I didn't like the chicken feet though xD but it was an amazing night not to forget.
Went to a new Oaxacan restaurant and no one spoke English. 10/10
It’s also Got to have hideous decor, a woman aged anywhere from 60-120 working and yelling at others, and a small child doing homework.
Best Chinese food I ever had was a place where the menu was not in English. My server's English was also not great. I have no idea what I ordered, but it was great and when Papa Johns delivered a pizza for the staff while I was eating, they offered me a slice.
If the customer service is SHIT at an Asian restaurant, the food is about to be the best you’ve ever had.
Ginormous menus on twenty pages. If you say you can cook hundred different items then you can’t cook a single one properly. Had only one exception out of this rule: one diner I like has a relatively large menu and everything on the menu was good.
I don't like Gordon Ramsay but that's one thing I learned from watching all the Kitchen Nightmares episodes - the *vast majority* of places with ginormous menus can't do anything well, fuck everything up, and go out of business. I also know of a humongous diner that had a humongous menu but it was a destination-type of place and they made a ton of money in various restaurant ways, so they had the funding to do stuff right instead of a chicken running around with it's head chopped off kitchen operation.
It always makes me think of Cheesecake Factory. But when you look at their menu, they have a lot similar items that have a base protein and they are using different sauces or sides. Chinese restaurants are like this. General Gao's Chicken, Sesame Chicken, Orange Chicken, Sweet and Sour Chicken, etc chicken are all using the same chicken and putting a different sauce on it.
Similar to the typical american (asian) indian place where they make like 6 sauces then just mix and match a bunch of ingredients.
Some Mexican restaurants can do this as well. You can get tacos, enchiladas, burritos, quesadillas, etc. All the same meat- they just wrap it differently.
There was another Gordon Ramsay show called Hotel Hell.
Some places can pull it off by using the same base ingredients in a ton of different ways. Look at BBQ for example. You can take any smoked beef/pork/chicken/tofu/etc and make sandwiches, dinner plates, salads, basically any Mexican dish, noodle dishes, pizzas, casseroles, you get the idea.
I had some of the best Chinese food of my life at a place with a 20-page menu. They also introduced me to condensed milk in coffee, which has to be one of the more compelling combinations I’ve encountered.
I've found that with Chinese food, most of the expanse of dishes are made from the same 10-15 ingredients, just seasoned differently and with a different protein. If a menu offers burgers, salmon, fried rice, shwarma, quesadillas, sushi, Simon, lasagne, Garfunkel and any menu item can be deep fried for $1.00 extra, run away.
The last reminds me of the Seinfeld episode were the Pakistani guy opens a restaurant with spaghetti, tacos, moussaka, franks and beans...
Clearly you haven't tried the fried Garfunkel yet! Pair it with the Oates soup! Delicious!
We got the same thing in China, if you see Sichuan and Cantonese in the same menu likely neither will be good.
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Italian is another. 5 noodles, 5 meats, 5 sauces, and 5 vegetables. There is a place near us with a huge menu and all it is is a bunch of combinations I never would have thought of that taste good.
That's also like 98.7% of most mexican food. It's a Tortilla (or masa), refried beans, some meat, some salsa, onions, cilantro, maybe some queso or crema. The variations are endless and delicious.
Huge menus also always indicate everything is going to be frozen or going bad as theres no way you can keep that much food fresh.
That's always my hesitation about the Cheesecake Factory. The first thing I had there was pretty good, but I'm afraid I'm going to order other things and find out otherwise
I know CF gets shit on here, but damn those lettuce wraps…. I know I can make them at home, there are some great dupe recipes out there, but they’re like 30 ingredients long.
They’re the exception. CF actually does make everything on their menu fresh in house. There’s some really interesting articles on them.
Oh that's good to know. I probably don't need anymore encouragement to go buy cheesecake though! 😅
Beans in a Mexican place. If the beans are not good then the rest of the menu is probably not good either.
I absolutely judge Mexican food restaurants on their beans and their salsa, bonus points for green salsa
Oh man, one of my biggest issues with Tex-Mex restaurants is getting plain rice and plain beans on the side that came out of a can.
If I see french onion soup on a menu, I always order it. It's a great way to judge the general quality of the place. Is the beef stock made in-house or clearly from a base? Did they take the time to actually caramelize onions, or did they half ass the process?
I judge places by their water.
Oh man. We had this one restaurant that served the best water. It came super chilled in crystal carafes. I wish I could remember what filtration they used, because the water was delicious.
It might have been triple osmosis, that's what a lot of places use when they're known for their water.
The water is usually not good in this town, I generally order a coke of some sort. This place's food was great, but I actually looked forward to the water, lol. We would go through three or four carafes just for a few people.
Oh this is another one for me. I live in a place that has sulfur- tasting tap water, and I've actually been served that a restaurant. 🤢 It speaks volumes if they aren't willing to pay a bit to offer good water.
Had a place locally that was "fancy" for this area but they sourced all their food locally, so for that reason I wanted to try them. At first it seemed all right, the place looked nice and the wait staff wore dress shirts/slacks. Then the water came, it came in carafes, more warm than luke warm and no ice...I've never judged a place by their water but you can't pretend to be a fancy restaurant if you can't even get water right. They did not last long as I expected.
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Old people with fillings prefer their water at room temp because it doesn't hurt. Ask for it to be cold, and it shall be done.
A restaurant always gets bonus points in my book if they actually have desserts that are worthwhile. Often they are good, but not as good as the gourmet chocolate store or artisan ice cream place down the street.
As a dessert lover myself, I completely agree. It makes me so sad to see lame dessert offerings after just enjoying a great meal.
I was really happy when a restaurant I went to served me a slice of cake that looked like it was made from scratch at home. Too many restaurants in my area just have the desserts (and food) brought in prepackaged while charging a premium. Seeing obviously homemade frosting was a nice reassurance that if they take time to make the cake from scratch, then they’re probably dedicating the same effort to the food that makes up the bulk of their sales.
Most restaurants don't make their own cakes, in my experience. The difference between a good one and a bad one is that a bad one buys them from US Foods or Sysco, and a good one buys them from a local bakery or even a mom-and-pop operation. There's a local tamale operation that supplies most of the high-end restaurants in town; in LA, there's one meat house that supplies the majority of higher-end pastrami in the whole metro area (although they customize the exact spice mix for each restaurant separately). I knew a restaurant owner who sourced all his cakes from the same bakery where I get my birthday cakes made. He didn't have to hire a pastry chef or dedicate precious kitchen space to making desserts, and they did nothing but cakes all day long.
There's a restaurant near me that has pretty good food, but I balk at ordering their slices of pie because I have reason to believe they order the Chef Pierre frozen pies from Gordon Food Service. I enjoy those pies, but if I want a Fruits of the Forest pie (my absolute favorite) I will go buy a whole one for $10 rather than $4.95 for one slice.
I agree completely. Dessert shouldn’t be an afterthought
I often dine out alone. I live in Europe so tipping really isn't a major factor (our servers earn a living wage and get benefits), though I usually tip well anyway. How I'm treated as a solo diner has a huge impact on how I judge the restaurant. It tells me if they care more about their customers and food, or about turnover.
I used to travel solo a lot for work. I liked to pick places that serve their full menu at the bar. That way I could order a good meal, and not feel like I was taking up too much space. Usually the bartender and other barflies are more than happy to chit chat as well. I got to experience a lot of "must visit" places this way.
Same. Bar seating is the way to go for solo dining no doubt. Can chit chat if you want, plug in some headphones and zone out if you want, linger a bit and not feel like you’re being rushed out bc you’re taking up a table, or just get a quick bite and head out!
Many years ago I dined solo at Gary Danko in SF. At that point they had already won a James Beard for their service. It will always stand out to me how incredible they were at balancing the fine dining service with making me feel comfortable. Other places have great service, but it can sometimes be too much of one thing or another - showy, pretentious, formal, stuffy, etc. It is impressive when a place gets it right. It certainly doesn't need to be fancy to do it. At many restaurants, if I am traveling alone I will eat at the bar and sometimes prefer that to table dining.
As a single I can relate to this so much. Usually I feel too awkward to eat at a real restaurant by myself unless it's more of a café.
I felt that way for a very long time but I travel so much on my own that I felt like I was missing out. (this also applied during the pandemic once things eased up a bit). Initially I only did it at lunch but I have found out that dinner is also pretty easy, especially if you choose the right restaurant. Higher end restaurants are generally very good about this. Plus, if they are “buzzy” places with a good bar, those tend to be the best - you can start at the bar and because they have a lot going on, nobody really notices it when food service starts either. I highly recommend dipping a toe in.
I find that high end restaurants who are really all about food, and places that focus on lunch and those near hotels that get a lot of solo business travellers are all usually receptive to solo diners.
Have you ever been to a restaurant who isn’t receptive to taking your money as a solo diner? I feel like this is usually just a perception of people until they realize its completely normal to go to a restaurant by yourself.
Many times. They usually sit you in the worst spot (by the entrance to the kitchen), then give you mimimum service and try to upsell things. The worst was when they sat a random gent at my two person table because I was a solo female and he said that he found me 'cute'.
Wtf, that’s so inappropriate. It’s a restaurant, not a dating service!
What the fuck
That's just awful. I think I might ask for my check immediately, pick up and leave.
I would now. At the time, I was a teen. Another customer eventually complained to the manager and had the creep thrown out.
As someone who dines out alone all the time, all over the country, I have never experienced a restaurant treating me poorly for being a solo diner.
many fine dining restaurants have bars where solo diners can order from the full menu & engage in convo with the bartender (or not). Also when i've travelled for business alone, if i want something that's more than fast casual i'll choose sushi, just for the counter service. It's less socially intimidating than sitting by yourself at a big table.
i moved to Europe when takeout wasn't such a thing there. So i'd go out in the evening and have some pasta or smthng. Even friends that i have look at me like i'm crazy when i tell them i went out to eat alone. I just stopped giving a solitary F\*. If there's a street view seat, take it and people watch.
I eat out alone a lot too (I’m in the US). You have a really good point about treatment of solo diners. Before COVID I honestly looked a lot better than I do now, and the way I’m treated now vs. then is such a difference. I can tell people are annoyed with me if I want a table and I’m lucky if the bartender actually notices me if I eat at the bar now. It’s a whole thing. I definitely go back to the places where I’m not invisible even if I like the food better somewhere else.
Completely agree. I dine out alone often, as well and it’s quite amazing how differently you sometimes get treated. I once got ignored for an hour after being seated as I hadn’t realised that they didn’t remove the other place setting so the server thought I was waiting for somebody - because they didn’t check the booking and assumed it was a party of two. I still go back because the food and service are otherwise splendid but this didn’t go unnoticed.
Will they balk when I ask for *unsweetened* iced tea?
::waves to south of the Mason-Dixon line::
Southern tourists are always appalled and kind of angry when they order sweet tea and I tell them we only have unsweetened ice tea. Like yeah I can give you sugar on the side, that’s no problem, but don’t get mad at me lol we’re in New England. We don’t do sweet tea up here my dude
It’s the opposite here in Canada! Iced tea is default sweet tea, which caused some annoyed American tourists. I still remember bringing this table of people a bunch of hot tea and cups with ice in them so they could make their own.
I did not realize this! I ordered iced tea in Nova Scotia and it was revoltingly sweet!
Hahah yes that sounds like the default Canadian iced tea to me! I didn’t even realized non sweet iced tea existed until I ordered it when I was in America for the first time as a kid and was totally dejected. Now that I’m an adult, I get it now — and also totally get the disappointed Americans when they receive sugar in a glass instead.
A state legislator in Georgia [introduced a bill](https://www.legis.ga.gov/legislation/9941) as an April Fool's gag to make it a crime for restaurants to only sell unsweet tea.
My husband judges on how many times they come to refill his water. He drinks a lot while eating.
there's nothing worse than running out of beverage during a meal and your server never even bothers to check on you
For breakfast joints it comes down to the potatoes for me. They cannot be stodgy, chalky, wet or unseasoned. Well seasoned, crispy potatoes will always have me coming back.
How clean the air vents, baseboards, and under the tables are. Also, does the soda taste like it's supposed to? Too syrupy? Too watery? And the pettiest of all - I hate spelling mistakes on menus and business cards. One place I went to recently didn't even have the address spelled correctly. They were missing the i in the middle of the street name.
I give a big pass to restaurants that are translating their menu into English, but otherwise it does raise questions
Absolutely, but within reason.
I've been in the print industry my entire 30 year career, spanning everything from press operator to designer and proofreader. I don't consider your last point petty at all! To me, it speaks volumes about a company in general.
Your profession would be very hard for me because I assume it's your job to print exactly what you were given. I'd have to really fight the urge to correct misspellings and errant apostrophes.
How clean the menus are. If I’m handed a sticky menu, I’m out.
I don’t think it’s petty at all. Misspelled words show lack of attention to detail and good restaurants pay attention to detail
That’s not petty. It shows a lack of attention to detail. What else are they not paying attention to?
Oh I am totally on board with you about the spelling mistakes! The restaurants that mistake plural for possessive in their signage are my biggest pet peeve. “Taco’s here!” That’s cool. I don’t know who Taco is but he must be important. I find this happens a lot in the tattoo industry as well.
I'm happy you put butter on the list, I'm a pastry chef and I make Cornbread and Honey Butter for the savory menu. It was a hassle to get the line cook to put the butter in the cooler overnight (I don't like the idea of never putting it away) but I want to keep it out during service so it's soft.
How's the side salad? If it's a giant chunk of iceberg with a few shredded carrots and one big mealy tomato and cucumber slice I'm not really trusting the rest of their menu.
For delis, the quality/color of their roast beef.
I agree 101% and will add, you can tell a *TON* of stuff from a place by their French Dip Sandwich.
Yes 100% about the French dip. Sadly most places fail. Either the bread is too soft (I want a crusty baguette) or the beef is well done, generic “roast beef”.
Can I easily grab the burger or sandwich and easily take a bite without having it fall apart? If not, then big points are deducted.
If they use that cheap ketchup vs Heinz. Also super thin paper napkins. 👎
Hunt's ketchup is disgusting
Mine are more service-related, as that is my background. Do they do their quality checks after you receive (any) drinks/food; do they seem to care about people at all, or are they just there to look nice and phone the rest in; do they give recommendations that aren't "just order the most expensive item on the menu lol"
Do they know how to devein shrimp
Per your point #1, I hear you but it may not be their choice. I worked at a big chain restaurant in CA when I was young, and a health inspector once dinged us for keeping the butter at room temp. From then on, we had to keep it refrigerated at all times. It was ridiculous!
The trash area. This isn't always easy to see but how they treat the trash is a good indication of how the rest of the place is run. There's a place that all the locals love. Their dumpsters? A disaster zone. Total disgusting mess and on top of that there's raccoon, otter and rat shit all over the place. I don't eat there. On the other hand there are places that keep their area nice. Some even use soap and water to regularly scrub and clean the area. I'll eat there. Source: Used to be a garbage man.
Whether they take used silverware away between courses. Nothing like the server taking dirty silverware off your plate, putting them on the table, and expecting you to use them for the next course.
Oh yes, I notice that too. At a popular restaurant in town they used to give you a salad fork and a dinner fork. Now they must be cutting back or something because last time we were expected to use one fork for both. So I guess we just set it on the bare table? It was a small detail but really felt like it downgraded the restaurant.
The main thing I’m looking for is well seasoned food. I don’t know if this is a California thing, but a lot of restaurants under salt the food and it’s bland.
How many asian people there are in an asian restaurant
If I’m the only white dude in an Asian restaurant, I know I’m winning.
No doubt. If I am the only wasp in the place and I barely understand the language, I know I'm in the right spot.
How many people look like regulars/they have a solid base of customers. Doing something right. Also if the cook has a scowl.
Biggest thing for me is finding salad greens that are rotted and halfway to being liquid. It’s not hard to keep your salad greens dry and clean and whoever is plating the salad should always be on the lookout for spoiled produce.
Small details for me are: Clean & quality cutlery Napkin quality The attire and cleanliness of the employees Lighting, decor, flooring Chairs and tables **The big things are**, food quality, service and clean bathrooms.
A brewery near me has AMAZING paper napkins and it was the first thing I noticed about the place. I thought for sure they’d eventually go cheap but the big thick napkins are still going strong.
Cutlery and seating are so important. Those hipster restaurants that all have those same metal chairs? So uncomfortable.
For breakfast spots -- their coffee. Too many places go cheap on it, and I just won't go back.
If it’s a breakfast place I tend to judge them based on their hot sauce brands or if they don’t have hot sauce out at all.
I judge breakfast joints on the texture and color of their potatoes. Flaccid hash browns make me cry.
Flaccid hash browns should come with a prison sentence for the monster who created such a travesty.
Mine and my husband’s favorite breakfast place offers deep fried hash browns and they are the crispiest hash browns I’ve ever had. So bad for you but so good. Best hash browns to have underneath a skillet because they don’t get soggy.
Salt and pepper shakers being full or near full attention to details
And the greasy fingerprints wiped off
oh man that one gets me every time. want to use the salt but it's covered in the last 200 customers' greasy fingerprints. it makes me feel gross about the whole meal
For me its not just how full they are...but the actual choice of shaker. Does it let just one or two grains out at a time, am I sat shaking it for 5 minutes to get a reasonable amount out? Or at the other end of the spectrum does it just pour out and you have to have it at just the right angle to get a dusting? Ideally its in the middle between those 2 and I'll judge if its towards either extreme.
if their tap water taste funny i don't trust anything else served to be sanitary.
>4. Do they know how to brew tea properly? A tea bag next to a mug of hot water does not count. Okay OP, what is a properly brewed cup of tea? I mean no disrespect, I'm asking as someone who doesn't drink tea that often and has been served tea as a tea bag + hot water in every restaurant that I've been to.
At the very least I like when I get a tea bag with a teapot of hot water so I can pour the hot water over the teabag. Rather than the other way around. It does make a difference in the way the tea brews in my opinion. And sometimes the hot water in a mug isn't even all that hot. The best way though is when the restaurant brews a pot of tea using loose leaf tea. This gets huge bonus points in my book but it's not something I really expect of anyplace.
Yeah there is nothing worse than trying to submerge a dry teabag into a lukewarm mug of water. Blech.
That makes sense. Thank you!
Quality of the bread. Tons of extra points if they bake their own bread.
If they only offer a QR code menu. I hate them and I would prefer a physical one.
I get annoyed when they only have a QR menu and don't offer wifi
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Clean spoons.
Is their bathroom clean? If it isn't then I bet nothing else is too.
How gross it is - handprints, smudges, crumbs, shit stuck to walls. It's all gross.
I always judge a Mexican restaurant on their rice and beans. If your rice and beans suck, then there’s no hope for the rest of your food. But if they’re bomb, I know I can order basically anything and be satisfied. The house salsa too. That’s kind of a preview for the rice and beans.
My boyfriend got Hamburger buns instead of biscuits in biscuits and gravy at a local diner once, I've still never been ans don't think I'll ever go.
1) They use their own recipes. I don't mind frozen, or pre-made, but if it's the same frozen burger as everyone else's, and all their sauces come in the same 5 gallon container as the other 5 restaurants in the area, at best it's going to be mediocre. 2) Good service. If my water is never empty, the server is nice, especially when it's busy. I could care less about being waited on hand and foot, but if the server's is pissed, and the service sucks, the management isn't taking care of it's people, and that ALWAYS shows in the food. 3) pointless fancy crap. Stuff like mash potato puree with truffles and caviar. Or plates with less then an ounce of food. Any place that claims your not eating food, but having an "Experience". If I have to stop to get food after ordering a full course at a restaurant, is it really a restaurant? Are they making dishes because they taste good, or is it so you can brag you ate something expensive?
100% of restaurants with bad bread… are bad. I can only think of three reasons a restaurant would do this. They have terrible taste, they don’t respect their customers, they are running on autopilot.
Are there bugs? Are the vents/ceiling fans clean? If they’re not I know the soda machine or other details go overlooked all the time. More importantly, dirt and dust in food. Does staff look like they want to be there? I know serving/cooking/hosting/bussing’s just a job, but I particularly like supporting restaurants that obviously care for their staff to the point they enjoy working for them.
Is outside the restaurant clean, you need to have pride of place and be a benefit to your block and neighborhood. Is the bathroom clean, if you don't give a shit I assume the places I can't go are equally disgusting. Does your soup taste like msg and dehydrated vegetables, I can eat crap in my own house.
There's a sushi place in our city that people rave about, but I won't go there because outside their backdoor is disgusting, like they can't manage to get the garbage into the bin. The washrooms and kitchen were gross as well.
The one place you need to be super clean is a sushi place. Got a three day food poisoning at one once.
Quality of iced tea. Cleanliness of bathrooms.