Common things you avoid at restaurants?

people

Pasta 

Haven't been to a China Buffet in quite a while.  If I visit one,  I avoid the 'Sushi Rolls'.  

Any restaurant that has packets of sugar at the table,  I always grab a handful of the Aspartame ones for Ant poison.

I can't figure out if FOM' s dish is "Chicagoland Pizza"  or Lasagna with canned artichokes.

Cameras.

Food trucks

restaurants

Seafood in a landlocked state,,,

What’s that dish pictured there FOM?

I don’t avoid anything as a rule maybe I avoid the specials sometimes because I think they’re trying to get rid of it. 

Koto ~

&

Letting any food I am about to eat, hit the sides or bottom of that plastic French Fries basket, that has never been cleaned, ever.

Anything Alfredo.

I NEVER put my utensils on a table without some sort of plate or napkin for them to lay on.

Communal condiments...

Calamari ever since I found out that pig rectum is a substitute.

Do tell.

If true, I see your point.  If you're in the mood for pig rectum, you order a hot dog.

table near the john.  anything that requires a sneeze guard.

Fish on Mondays 

^^^^^This, me too. Salad bar here in VT got a bunch of people sick recently!

Bar fruit. Most bar tenders do not wash their fruit before prepping it. Ewwww. Most serving utensils are put through a washer that should get them pretty clean. Tuna is frequently reddened up with shark blood according to a buddy in the seafood industry.

Fish on Mondays<<

Hmm.  Monday Fish & Chips special at our local-ish diner.

Seriously, tho, anyone else heard the calamari thing?

I remember seeing a thing with Lisa Loeb and Dweezil Zappa (can that be right?) where it said there was a huge market for chicken anus in the far east.  In case you were wondering.

Fresh fish is delivered on Tuesdays.  Diner's probably frozen stuff anyway.  

Never heard of the pig thing.  I cook a few hundred pounds of calamari for our Italian club feast every year so I don't touch the stuff anymore.  

The best fried calamari:  toss with fried pickled cherry pepper rings and gorgonzola cheese while the calamari is hot.  Marinara dip. 

Hand squeezed lime at a bar. No fucking way.

Tapwater.

... 

Onions

First I've heard of pig ass masquerading as Calamari.  There's one Italian place around here that makes great Calamari,  both the 'traditional' and a spicy one with the Cherry Bomb peppers. 

The other 4-5 places I've tried,  you might as well be eating pig ass,  or Arthur Treacher's fish & chips.

>>Common things you avoid at restaurants?

Meat gravy or fish unless I know it's good, ketchup from old looking containers, toilet seats, of its a manual toilet I use my shoe to flush.  FOM if I was a waitress.

Most decent restaurants get fish in every day....(except sundays, and even then some will get deliverys 7 days a week)....and any one ive ever worked at (many) sends silverware through dishmachine 2-3-4 times....and all modern machines not only wash, and rinse, but have a sanitizer cycle....its much more about where you eat...than what you eat.

>>toilet seats, of its a manual toilet I use my shoe to flush.  

Do not try and conceptualize, that is the same wash room that the cook of our food has their bio-breaks in, like I just I just did..

Knot --

Is that the Missus before & after the 'All KFC Diet' ??

Thanks for sharing !!

Healthy Food

· How about places where the waitstaff brings food and clears the table of your snotty napkins and slobbered plates?  Any hand washing going on in between? I doubt it.

· Traveling in foreign countries I try avoid eating food that is cooked and served by the same person handling the dirty money in their all cash society.

· Also try to avoid eating in places where the tv is on.

Come to think of it I like to eat at home, besides my kids say the food is better at home.

I like the Phö places (Vietnamese) and have never gotten ill there.  But it's the nearly-boiling broth,  to which you add the Basil and sprouts and flank steak.

Pretty close to Sterile lab technique.

soup. most of the time.

*bzzz*