Red flags to look out for at a restaurant!

chefs what red flags do you look for when you go out to eat anthony bourdain said dirty menus if they are not cleaning the menu they are not cleaning other things chinese restaurant doesn't have chinese people working in it i worked as a server and occasional line cook for several years number one red flag is the sprouts on the soda fountain those things are one of the easiest things to clean in the entire place so if they are mildewy that kills my interest in eating there i'm fine with a bit of mess elsewhere especially in a high volume place since it will get messy over the course of a day but those spouts take multiple days of no washing to get to a point where they are nautically disgusting i went to brunch recently and the head chef slash owner walked in the front door with an axe walked through the dining area and into the kitchen where he proceeded to wax the walking cooler to shreds not a chef but i think that's a red flag hi actually a chef here one divorce your mind from the bathroom is dirty idea bathrooms are not always the responsibility of the kitchen and don't necessarily reflect the state of the kitchen also bathrooms see a lot of use so it being untidy not covered in crap but paper on the floor etc isn't uncommon especially at peak hours a clean bathroom is a sign of good management same idea applies to menus to check the glassware and silverware and plates if they are spotty there are two reasons they are not polished or the system they are using isn't being maintenanced this is a good sign of very few fricks being given in both the front and back of house three if you have the opportunity to see the entrance to kitchen from the outside that should give you a clue about whether or not the kitchen staff is trained to take care of the premises if there is a stack of empty boxes bags of trash litter then they don't care pests and road and seat anything if you leave it out they learn where to be then they find how to get him for a little harder but the train die and experienced eater can learn a lot by what is in the menu some places use whatever processed product their main liner sells them cisco us foods arumark etc they might be clean and well run but still crappy i suggest looking for the local places over the chains though this doesn't always help fight server attire generally speaking a well-dressed staff means good service it might not say anything about the food but appearances count six are they busy if they're in the main part of town and not busy that should tell you a lot overall if your first experience doesn't leave you satisfied not well amazing but good then don't go back i went to wenders and saw hellerans on the soda machine and when i mentioned it they said oh we know not a chef but my thing is size of the menu this isn't always true but oftentimes i think the smaller the menu the better the food if the place has an enormous menu i always assume they are lacking on quality huge menus very few restaurants can do many things great and i don't want to go somewhere that does a lot of okay meals if gordon ramsay is there i worked in a restaurant for seven years and there's pretty much nothing within reason that would prevent me from eating at a restaurant not personally a chef but i have heard from chef friends that if the bathroom is disgusting the kitchen won't be any better in nicer restaurants servers who don't know the menu a server should be able to describe any dish on the menu in basic terms if they can't there's some fundamental communication problems among the staff personally i'm very cautious of any buffer at all whenever i've had to replenish food out at the buffet the customers just freak everything up with the utensils and sometimes the utensils for dishing the food is clean so that means they are using their own forks or spoons that they've had in their mouths then you have the little craphead kids that the parents aren't paying attention to that are just grabbing food with their bare hands or spilling into other foods old people like 80 year olds that frequent the buffets are gross enough when they are constantly coughing and clearing their throats and spitting while talking in the lineup smacking their lips and crap makes me squirm judge me for being judgey but i've seen it first hand at nearly every buffet i've worked but i won't go near one that isn't manned by a cook or server at the stations if i see customers in sweet pins and a t-shirt at a buffet i order from the menu ask the staff what do they recommend if either they haven't eaten anything on the menu or they don't know what to say it's a red flag there is a reason why they don't eat the food there son of a chef oven chips besides the fact oven chips are crap if they can't be asked to hand cut potatoes i don't put much faith into the rest of the meal anything that looks like a general piece of frozen food think chicken keys always look the same shape size etc if anything comes out steaming hot that shouldn't be hot for example jacket potato if that comes out and it's erupting with enough steam that the glassware gets condensation then it's been zapped in the microwave melted cheese which hasn't got brown or burn marks on it except on a burger it has been microwaved instead of a flame to you guys saying that the bathroom being disgusting is a sign of gross stuff please go work at a restaurant for a week unless you're talking about non-busy hours the bathroom is going to get super gross in a matter of minutes i could not keep up with the public's disgusting bathroom habits and still do the rest of my job and i'm a picky but fast cleaner it was much easier to keep the kitchen and tables clean than the bathroom for some reason people think it's okay to stop being a decent human being in public bathrooms not a chef but bartender here when i sit down at a bar i watch how the bartenders pour from their taps if they stick the tap into the drink while they are pouring i stick with a bottled drink i was taught very early on not to do that and having worked at a lot of places where i've seen the smegma of built up moldy drink residue dead fruit flies that comes out of those things when they are cleaned usually after many many months or years has passed in some cases i'll always pass on tap drink if i see that crap it's an often undercleaned uncovered unwiped part of the bar and most people on the other side of the bar ever think twice it's also a sign that other things like their soda gun and ice well potentially being cleaned and sanitized properly not to mention their eggs aren't being swapped out and sanitized the list goes on i don't bishop the bartender i don't make a scene i just order a bottle because that isn't being handled by that establishment other than when they open it also don't get me started on star snacking out of the garnish tray like the smell of the restaurant when i walk in it should smell good and not of sewer service can tell things on the restaurant if you enter the restaurant and servers don't pay attention to you it can mean two things they are too busy or they are not motivated to work if they are too busy it means owner doesn't want to hire more people which means the owner wants to save money or does not pay attention to his place if he wants to save money by not hiring enough he will do so in kitchen if they are not motivated to work there are problems among stars or they are not getting paid enough old russian restaurants usually have quite big red flags we'll leave now i'm not very bothered with smell ctc within reason obviously a chinese restaurant cooking traditional food will smell different to a mexican place etc red flags for me if there is a weekly slash daily special board mondays are whole off burger day tuesday it's two stakes for one day etc if the place has a dedicated birthday song slash dance they force the staff to perform i run it a lot of people who aren't chefs there's not a lot that'll put me off dbh basically only if there's nothing on the menu i'm willing to try i don't eat fish but i'm willing to give anywhere a chance dirty toilets aren't always the responsibility of the staff someone could have come in and ruined them just before you go in there and the place is so busy that the server slash runners haven't had a chance to clean and it's usually before slash after service they are cleaned salt and pepper mills hmm any place i go to i'm hoping i'm not gonna need them the food should be seasoned correctly to the chef's tastes so that extra salt is not needed in general if the staff are rude i'll probably give it a pass but apart from that i'll give anywhere a go it's a good way to get inspiration for new stuff too and what not to do sometimes honestly everyone should just pick up a copy of kitchen confidential by anthony bourdain seriously one of the best reads i've ever had rest his soul one when the menu has a large variety of options but they are not closely related to each other or even the theme of the restaurant two empty parking lots at peak times and an empty room three when front of the house or servers don't know their menu four when it takes ten minutes just to get water five flies not nats i'm talking about house flies six dirty menus cups and plates i just assume they are all gross and drink to forget about it i always look at how many piece of flair the serving staff is wearing i see 15 pieces as a bare minimum so anything less than that is definitely a red flag anything more than that is cheeky fine it a lot of people pointing out that a lot of people in this thread are not chefs sarcasm aside i don't have a culinary degree but i did spend 10 years of my life in professional kitchens show up early and grab a drink at the bar if the bar smells like dirty mop water gtfo if the bartender has to ask you what goes in an old fashioned gtfo if the bartender is a rubric gtfo if the front of house is bad the back will be even worse i consider the maitre d as simply the guy who greets me not necessarily how i judge front of house you can only tell so much from polish silverware that's not hard to do and almost every place stays on top of it doing things like making sure there isn't any dust on the bottles behind a bar even the ones that hardly ever get used and need a ladder to reach that takes real dedication and attention to detail other sure signs of trouble at the bar is last night's garnish if your line doesn't look and feel like it was cut in the last hour gtfo conversely if they use the good luxado cherries instead of the dayglow red abominations you're probably at a place that gives a crap about ingredients in the kitchen as well not quite an answer to the question but if the kitchen closes at 10 pm don't order food at 9 55. the chef is going to hate you because you're now the reason they have to stay in work longer they're either going to rush your order and make it bad or actively hate you and spit in it or something most chefs are [ __ ] and super highly strung and or coke heads sorts waiter four years when you see the kitchen nightmares van parking outside the chef should never leave the kitchen in his hat or apron it should be reflex habit to remove and put them on at the door along with washing hands if they do not then he'd say they are likely to be super run clean mice droppings roach is moving and yes dirty restrooms at italian restaurants i look at the olive oil that's given on the table if it's a light colored oil then it's not that great in quality and they're cutting corners it makes me wonder what other corners they're cutting all of the top answers say they are not a chef but lol okay well i'm a chef and the answer is i rarely go out to eat the last thing you want to do after working all day is go to another restaurant frankly going out is almost always a letdown it is hard to enjoy a meal when you know you could have made it better yourself for a quarter of the cost former cook here i can't bring myself to describe my previous job as a chef as i merely warmed up food i always watch out for stressed out staff if the staff are overworked and not coping in the customer-facing side of the business then things could very well be much worse behind the scenes people will cut corners and will do anything to get rid of backed up meals and tickets cleaning and hygiene can go out the window in stressful situation you tell your waiter there's a fly in your soup and he adds it to your bill how are they cleaning tables is there any sanitizing solution being used or are they just pushing the crumbs off culinary student here could beef anything if you can afford it chances are it's not the real thing real coke beef was only very recently approved for sale outside of japan on an extremely limited basis and it's several hundred dollars per pound so if you see code b sliders for nine 6.99 or an eight ounces coke filet mignon for eighty dollars that means whatever place you are in eating in thinks you're a dim witted sucker which means they are probably inflating a lot of the other food on the menu two saying jiu is a little better and it's more common now that it was a few years ago but american hua jiu is still mostly just a prime that was finished on a little drink if i walk into a mexican restaurant in texas and i'm the only mexican i know i can just walk the frick out and not miss out on anything my former lpo true for most ethnic foods if you live in an area with a large population of eggs and you only see white people going to that restaurant that should tell you something about the food it not a chef but former health inspector here the first thing i notice is smell everything has a unique odor and after doing it long enough you can pick it out pretty quickly drains that aren't cleaned have a smell standing water has a smell mice and rats have a smell cockroaches have a smell within five foot of the entrance i know what kind of sanitation a restaurant has after that i look for personal items if there are personal items strewn about the bar wait stations pass through window kitchen etc i'll leave purses drink snack food from outside honesty people do some weird crap at home i don't want that stuff all over my restaurant i was in three restaurants across the u.s every day for over three years i've seen some crap but you never forget the smells waiter not chef but i agree with a lot i've read here general cleanliness if they can't keep the small things clean they're cutting corners everywhere with hygiene a good restaurant keeps on top of that stuff maintenance again relating to cutting corners if items aren't maintained condiments and the like then you can be sure that there are lapses elsewhere stuff this is an interesting one but from experience if the staff don't seem to work well together or not there's a red flag that the restaurant isn't being looked after properly leading to issues with the first two there's probably a bunch of other stuff i've missed truth be told restaurant biz is usually high pressure so everything like cleaning is done as quickly as possible often that translates to poor quality i usually go out with a skeptical eye because of what i've seen slash heard some of it can be right dodgy not a chef but here's a sap most restaurants get their fresh fish on tuesdays don't get the sunday slash monday fish special i only really skimmed but nobody really answered the question sushi any kind of sushi burrito always fresh never frozen nope sushi great fish has to be flash frozen because almost everything has parasites if they are actually serving fresh caught fish they are dumb about food safety lion king roll shrek roll any kind of bombs really big pieces of fish on the jury sushi for college kids and whoever is cutting the fish doesn't know what they are doing hearing water continually running behind the sushi counter that means they are improperly thawing something that doesn't get ordered much and whatever they are thawing will have most of the flavor washed away meat coke beef burgers they are lying flat out lying to the point where it's disrespectful because they think they can get away with it and they usually do grilled to perfection you are at a chain restaurant perfect grill marks that only go in one direction this piece of meat has never even been in the same room as a grill red flags in general almost all panation inspired cuisine a paragraph at the bottom of the menu describing their philosophy on food sustainability or saying now this is a double-edged sword there is house made anything on the menu cocktail menus that describe in too much detail using words that people other than bartenders don't really understand gosh rabbalia sakharin this just means look at me i know how to make duck fat washed bourbon i'm just gonna tell you this much i worked at a golden carol for two and a half years and the cleanliness of the bathroom has no bearing on the cleanliness of the kitchen because when people hit that bathroom door it's like some of them turn feral and forget how to act i can't tell you the number of times i had to go clean the bathroom during busy times because some nasty methurf riker crap on the floor or mad all over the place because they think that thing between their legs is a sniper rifle one time i had to clean up crap from behind the toilet physically right behind the bowl that couldn't get there without someone throwing it there don't blame the kitchen staff because you're in the bathroom after some nasty [ __ ] if a bbq joint don't have a couple health code violations are they really trying to put out good food 1. serve as aggressively pushing certain drinks or items two multi-page menus with every freaking cuisine imaginable three the floor is the floor clean or is it disgusting i won't eat somewhere that has dirty floors and isn't like a street eats kind of place [Music] [Music] [Music] you

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Id: zSNkOm5YGNs

Length: 19min 42sec (1182 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 18 2020