We’ve all been there, done that. Come to a new town, on business, pleasure, or for a change of venue, and wondering where to go to get good food. Some people seem to equate “good food” with “pricey”, which isn’t always the case, and tastes are different from person to person (as my current Twitter conversation with @chefjayl somehow shows, he likes Gordon Ramsey’s food while I found portion size and preparation at RGR and Pretrus atrocious). Others head over to Yelp, OpenTable, or Zagat – all great resources as long as one’s own taste is that of the average restaurant-goer.

Instead, I have been relying on a different means of choosing my restaurants. Read on for my top ten of things I try to avoid like the plague…

10. Running televisions inside the establishment.

I come to eat, have a great conversation, enjoy my food, and focus on the people and place. I’m really not interested in the Nicks, Cubs, Law & Order, MMA, or NCAA. If I was, I’d be at home, cooking, and watching the same content on my obscenely huge flat screen TV. Restaurants running TVs may be forgiven in some cases (Superbowl Sunday, for example, or a national tragedy – but who’d want to eat quail during a national disaster?), but are usually the culinary equivalent of a parlor trick: “Here, look at this shiny bunny (TV) while I hide the Ace (bad preparation, dirty plates, milky meat) behind my back.”

9. Servers wearing street clothes

Serving (and cooking) is a job. Jobs come with job requirements. That doesn’t mean that your average T.G.I McFuckenbad’s uniformed flair-wielding servers are a mark of culinary quality, but if all else seems in order, this is a definite turnoff for me.

Also: servers chewing gum, servers wearing stained clothing, servers wearing “flair”, and servers playing with their hair or beard while standing around. Run!

8. Mispeled (sic! see what I did there?) Menus

Apparently this one wields some kind of charme factor when it comes to Chinese and Mexican restaurants. Excluding those, however, a menu is the closest a Chef will ever come to communicating directly with his or her diners outside of their dishes. Pride in one’s menu, its design, spelling, and contents, is inherent in good Chefs. More than one of the greats I have met has agonized for days over their menu. Spelling mistakes or generally unappetizing looking menus show either a lack of care and pedanterie on the Chef’s side or – worse – a powerless cook in the back with an uninterested GM pulling the strings. Avoid.

7. Menu Tomes

The more dishes a restaurant serves, the less care every single dish received. Good restaurants strike a balance between too little and too much selection, focus on the Chef’s and brigade’s strengths, select good product and create great dishes. Six pages of food (or, even, three) require an insane amount of holding for service and a lot of cowboying to make things not go bad while the likelihood a dish is choosen goes down with every additional item on the menu.

Even worse, should you choose the one dish no one else ever eats you’ll be subjected to food that’s been held for hours, prepared by a cook who can barely remember how to make it.

6. Extreme Menu Adjective Abuse

“seared to perfection”. “a dream in…”, “lovingly created” and so on. Also “zesty”, “tangy”, or any other overused adjective. Stay away from any place using “EVOO” on their menu. A good menu tells about the dish, its components, its name, and – in rare cases – its particular reason to be on the menu. I want everything I eat to be made as close to perfection as possible and I want it to be lovingly created. I call this the DRC syndrome – like the Democratic Republic of China, which is neither democratic nor a res publica, if you have to spell it out for people to believe it it’s likely not true.

5. Restaurant reviews and magazine articles are copied, cut, and put in the window or framed in the foyer.

Ok, ok, I have to qualify this. Small casual eateries, new restaurants, diner-style places, carts, or taco trucks are exempted from this rule. We all remember our first review, good or bad, and we all proudly displayed our firsts. After a few years in business, however, our customers should come for reasons other than some local reviewer’s opinion in the window. Window reviews practically scream “hey, please, eat here, we are liked…”.

4. Bread baskets on the counter

They’ve been there for hours. If, walking into an establishment, you spot bread baskets on the counter, stacked two-high and three-cross or so, walk out. Another sign you chef cares nothing about good foods.

Also: condiments on the tables placed there before you arrived.

3. You are made to wait 5+ minutes while there are more empty than filled seats

To be fair, restaurants often have less staff than seats – especially during the week. Sometimes the only two servers’ tables are taken and you’ll be asked to wait for a few minutes. Nothing wrong about that. Where it gets iffy is, if only three tables are taken, there’s two waiters, and you’re still made to wait. Either the restaurant tries to look more exclusive than it is, or the host simply doesn’t like you. Leave.

The same is true for reservations. Allow no more than ten minutes above the reservation time to be seated. The restaurant will happily give away your table if you don’t show in that timeframe, you should do the same.

Also: the place is almost empty and you’re being seated next to the kitchen or toilets. What are they hoping for? Someone “better” to come along shortly with their personal staff of 45 diners?

2. (after the fact): The manager comes over, apologizes, offers to take something off the bill, and then doesn’t.

You already ate here, so it’s almost too late. But it’s never too late to not come back. This is a common trick, make diners feel good while “forgetting” to inform the staff. In the end, most diners are more likely to pay the tab than to ask to see the manager again. A win-win for him, a loss for you.

1. It’s a chain

… ’nuff said.