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Professional Chefs Share Red Flags To Look For When Eating Out

Professional Chefs Share Red Flags To Look For When Eating Out

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Who doesn't love eating out (at restaurants)? The food is only one small part of the experience, and the atmosphere of the place often serves as a preview of how good your food will be. Is the place clean? Is the menu too big? Is there soap in the bathroom? Is the staff happy?

Yuckyporkfarts asked, Chefs, what red flags do you look for when you go out to eat?

Submissions have been edited for clarity, context, and profanity.

Soda fountain spouts should be cleaned daily... if they're gross, sashay away.

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I worked as a server and occasional line cook for several years.

Number 1 red flag is the spouts on the soda fountain. Those things are one of the easiest things to clean in the entire place, so if they're 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 the day. But those spouts take multiple days of no washing to get to a point where they are noticeably disgusting.

I've always appreciated when servers recommend what they like, rather than what's the most expensive. Expensive doesn't always mean better.

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If your server recommends something that isn't the highest priced thing on the menu, appetizer or entree, you should probably get it. Your best bet it's their personal preference, but they eat that food daily, as do us cooks. And if we can eat it after weeks/months of cooking/serving it, it's probably worth your time.

It's an unwritten secret that not all food is cooked fresh... but you can taste when it's not.

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Food comes out cold or dry you know they kept those until someone ordered it

Restaurants should smell... ok, they shouldn't smell, but if there is a smell, it should be pleasant.

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I'm sure others have said this but the general smell. Not only can smell deter me from visiting a restaurant but the restaurant I work at recently had our pipes replaced and the dining room smelled of raw sewage for about 2 weeks. We lost a lot of business because of it.

Then again, if he's eating with cameras where you want to go, you might wanna go elsewhere. Or stay for the drama. Yeah, stay for the drama.

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If I see Gordon Ramsay eating with a camera crew at the same restaurant I'm in, bye my guy.

Under-cooked meat can contain salmonella and other pathogens that are really unpleasant.

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Food isn't the right temp.

Massive menus are confusing and overwhelming.

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Massive menus. A good restaurant, specifically finer dining, will not crutch on a large menu but will have a consistent one - maybe a page or 2. Bigger menus usually mean that some items won't get ordered as often, and will have been likely sitting, especially if they're on the menu (i.e. lower cost).

Edit: Big menus can be very appropriate in context - such as those of ethnically specific restaurants. I've been to my share of Indian, Thai, and Japanese that had extensive menus, but expertly prepared dishes. This is most feasible though because a small number of ingredients are usually used in many dishes, such as rice or chicken.

Poor service means poor management, which could very well mean yucky food.

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If the servers take 10+ min to greet the table when the restaurant isn't full, it has always been a poor experience overall. It tells me nobody is managing the entire restaurant correctly. And that carries over to food.

Dirty bathrooms, or unstocked bathrooms, are a deal breaker.

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Bathrooms. If dirty or missing paper. GTFO. Same with dirty menus.

Edit: For clarification purposes, a dirty restaurant does not necessarily determine the quality and taste of the food you would be eating.

All I am saying is that your food will taste fine and there's a tiny chance of you getting sick due to the cleanliness of the restaurant/cook. Point of it is that the chef still has shit bacteria on their hand when they're handling your food. In reality, you are eating their poop.

Life Pro Tip: Washing hands properly. My only note on this that you should wash your hands for 30 seconds, not 20 seconds.

Also, recently when in the bathroom at my local grocery store, no soap, no paper towels. I brought it to the attention of the store manager and called the health inspector. Not a lot of businesses realize the nastiness of their facilities.

If the parking lot is empty, there's a reason.

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A big one is definitely an empty parking lot during Lunch and Dinner. If the entire town is skipping out, you should too.

It's not a special if they have it every day. Makes me question the food overall.

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If the daily special consists of items found in the standard menu it's probably not fresh and they're trying to get rid of old stock.

What's the old saying? Never trust a skinny chef? Ok, it's not absolute, but if they're thin AND sad, I ain't buyin'.

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The great French chef Fernand Point left us some advice: "If I go somewhere new and the chef is very thin, I know my meal will be bad. If he is both thin and sad, I leave as quickly as possible."

I rely more on the sad thing than the thin thing. If I walk into a restaurant and I can feel sadness and anger from the staff, I leave.

Days-old fish? Bye.

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Fish on the Sunday brunch menu. It got there Thursday and they are trying to get rid of it before it spoils. If the dish is fish with hollandaise DO NOT EAT IT!!! The fish is more than likely bad and they are hiding the smell with the hollandaise.

TIL cracks in plates hold germs and grit. So... not looking for that.

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Plates with chips (large cracks) in them is a big indicator for me. Those chips host a lot of germs and if the restaurant isn't throwing them away, then they're probably lacking in other areas of food safety. (My mom was a chef)

Unless it's a truly unique special, it's probably... not that special.

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I was a line cook for four years - "special" just means what we have a surplus of or is expiring soon.

Flies mean either a) filth or b) other pests.

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I'm not a chef, but my mom is. She told me ANY flies in a closed restaurant is a really bad sign. She also said that really dim lighting can be bad if you are not at a really high-end restaurant.

Having soap in the bathroom is super basic and shouldn't be neglected. Gross.

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I walk out of any restaurant if the soap dispenser in the bathroom is empty.

Workplace morale is a pretty good indicator of the type of experience you will have.

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The attitudes of the waiters. If my waiter is demoralized and unfocused then there is a really high chance I'm going to have a bad experience. Either because of shitty service or a bad workplace culture that affects the quality of my food as well.

If nothing in plain sight gets wiped down, imagine what happens behind the scenes.

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I work in hospitality and have for over 8 years. I say if the glass on the cabinets or windows have hand marks all over it and are gross, I'll tell you now that your food will be too.

The Worst Cases Of 'Rich Kid Syndrome' People Have Ever Seen

A Redditor asked: 'What’s the worst case of “rich kid syndrome” that you’ve ever seen?'

We are now aware that the distribution of wealth is severely skewed to the top one percent of the population, and rich people have a completely different perception of how the world works and what's "hard" than middle- and lower-class people do.

But what's so disheartening is how their beliefs and limited understanding of hardship trickle down to their children, and how those children are interacting in society is honestly shocking.

Redditor WaterWire asked:

"What's the worst case of 'rich kid syndrome' that you've ever seen?"

The Jet Doesn't Count

"I used to work with someone who proclaimed to be an environmentalist. She was very preachy."

"Once I had a can of Coke on my desk. She said, 'You're going to recycle that, right?'"

"She used her father's personal jet all the time. Once, just to fly from NYC to Boston to see a baseball game."

- LiterallyOutToLunch

Disposable Cars

"A girl I went to school with crashed and totaled six cars in three years and her parents continued buying her better newer cars because every accident 'wasn’t her fault' and if she had stuff like a backup camera and sensors they 'wouldn’t have happened.'"

"She got into a fender bender in the school parking lot and her dad showed up with a wad of cash and paid the other student off."

- nosenseofpermanence

A Simple Grade Change

"When I was in college for my grad degree and I was working as a T.A. (teacher's assistant), during a specific term I was helping my professor with some admin duties for one of his post-grad courses he taught for a different field than mine, and we had this one student who was arguing that she wanted a higher final grade than the one she had gotten."

"We listened to her explanation to see if there was any merit to her request and there was something that needed to be changed, but it basically boiled down to, 'I think my grade is too low and I deserve a higher grade because I say so,' and we simply told her that after reviewing her performance we could confirm that her final grade was correct and there was nothing to be done about it."

"She completely lost it and transformed into a Super Karen and after arguing for a bit, she stormed off and started emailing me and the professor and copying everybody in the email chain: her program director, the department head, the head of our registry office, Will Hunting, the security guard, the librarian, etc., and every email she sent was progressively ruder and more entitled than its predecessor because everybody kept telling her that she was unfortunately in the wrong and there was nothing to be done about it."

"Eventually, she sent a really smug email where she said something to the effect that since everybody was a dumba** and incompetent at our jobs, we had forced her to copy her father who was really close friends with the dean to the email, so we were f**ked and we had to do as she said or daddy would get us all fired. Keep in mind, this was a grad student in her mid-twenties."

"The highest ranking person in the email chain replied, reiterating that we were all very sorry, but she was in the wrong, her grade was correct, and it would not be changed."

"Then her father replied to the email chain and just said, 'There you go, dear. I hope you learn from this.'"

"She didn't reply anymore after her daddy's email, and the matter was closed. To this day, I like to imagine that dear old dad tore her a new one for dragging him into her bulls**t and making him look bad in front of a bunch of professors from a well-known university where his BFF was the dean because she, his grown-a** daughter, chose to behave like a spoiled brat."

- Tough_Stretch

First. World. Problems.

"I'll never forget a former friend stamping her foot and crying because 'Dad sold the jet and I have to take a commercial flight to our raaaaanch.'"

- tnrivergirl

The Cost of Priorities

"An 'Influencer' wondering why other people in their home country don't spend their life traveling like them."

- OrderIntegration

"I love the 'I’d rather have a passport full of stamps than a house full of expensive things!' schtick."

"Most of my furniture is from the free section of Craigslist and I would be thrilled if I ever get to a point where I can afford an international trip every few years."

- TogarSucks

No Help At All

​"Not me, but a friend of mine was an assistant trainer at a Panera store. They hired a teenager who was only working there to meet people, and one day had a group leave a huge mess in the dining room."

"Apparently the teen turned to my friend and said, 'Should we get the help to clean that?'"

"My friend had to explain that they were the help. He quit not long after."

- SailorVenus23

Garage Entitlement

"I was complaining about having to clear off my car from the foot of snow we'd gotten. A guy at work told me there was no way I had to clean off my car. I definitely did and it took a long time."

"Him: Well then, it's your own fault for not parking in the garage."

"Me: I don't have a garage."

"Him: Everyone has a garage."

"I'm like, look out the window next time you are driving?"

- Okay-Cheetah-9125

The Intrusive Thoughts Won

"A senior rich kid in my HS was driving his dad's Jaguar when his buddy asked him what would happen if he threw into reverse at 60 miles per hour. So they tried it and essentially blew the transmission and the motor up."

"A few months later, he got a Porsche for Christmas."

- New_Section_9374

Humbling Experiences

"I had a guy work for me in the military. He thought he didn’t have to do anything because his parents would just 'call their friends.' He ended up getting kicked out for LSD and cocaine use."

- ElfLordSpoon

"I did my mandatory military service when I turned 18, seven years ago. I cleaned s**t more than once, and my father had prepared me for it by saying, 'In the military, it doesn’t matter who you are, you’re still going to clean toilets.'"

"Only a few of my mates from back then knew who my family was and that was after a lengthy, alcohol involving, conversation/interrogation, lol (laughing out loud). You don’t wanna be standing out."

- RolexWearInGray

Unrealistic Shopping

"A therapist once asked me how much money I spent on clothes each year."

"I told her about 100 to 200 dollars, depending on the year and what was needed."

"Her response was, 'You can’t even get one dress for 100 dollars' and then proceeded to tell me that maybe I didn’t value myself enough."

"All I was thinking was, 'This b***h has never been to TJ Maxx?!'"

- FortunaLady

Very Different Backyards

"When I was in elementary school, this kid lived in the only gated community in the area, and the houses were all mansions. He was telling me a story about his tennis court in his courtyard."

"I said, 'Wait, you have a tennis court at your house?'"

"He looked genuinely shocked, and responded with, '…you don’t?'"

"It blew my mind as a little kid who had to share a room with my single mom, lol (laughing out loud)."

- Spare_Invite_8191

College Tuition

"Some girl in my college classes was genuinely shocked there were students who had to take out loans because their parents couldn’t afford to pay the 65 thousand dollars a year for tuition."

"I have a lot of extended family out in California who I’ve never met, but I sometimes hear stories from my parents who keep in touch with a few relatives out there."

"One of my distant cousins, who was like 17 at the time, intentionally totaled the new BMW his parents bought him because he wanted a Mercedes instead. Can’t remember if they ended up buying him that Mercedes or not, but they probably did. Sadly."

- Scortor

Exam Buyouts

"Rich Dude in my high school chemistry class flat out asked how big of a check his dad could write to get him out of taking a major test. He was serious. Nothing happened to him."

- GrayBox1313

Poor Packing Skills

"I had a friend who worked as a counselor at an American summer camp somewhere in Pennsylvania. He said that these kids would leave so much of their belongings because they couldn’t be bothered packing them up and they would just expect their parents to replace what they had left."

"He came away with Beats headphones, brand new shoes (although a few sizes too small), and gaming equipment."

"He also said that one day they were playing a game of flag football and one of the kids fell and grazed his cheek. This kid was some child model, so his parents had him HELICOPTERED OUT OF THE CAMP so he could get plastic surgery over the injury."

- amerika0210

Messy Kitchen Dilemma

"I had a roommate who would cook huge meals and destroy the kitchen. She would eat her meal and head to her room."

"A couple of hours later, she’d come out and be fully p**sed off that the kitchen was still a mess."

"She’d had servants most of her life and was now on her own."

- msjammies73

Though we know that the rich are often incredibly out-of-touch, these examples were still really surprising. Not only is their perception of money so different, but the disposable nature of big purchases, like vehicles, is just wild to think about.

It's easy to take our lives for granted and to forget how lucky we are in our own scenarios, but perhaps the rich experience this even more so.

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Markus Winkler/Unsplash

According to the Cleveland Clinic, over 50 million men have had a vasectomy.

Although avoiding sexual intercourse is the only effective way to avoid pregnancy, the male birth control procedure still has a low failure rate.

Those who are apprehensive about having a vasectomy fear the following: pain, impact on sex life, effectiveness, and side effects like cancer. (The National Cancer Institute and the American Urological Association have found that the procedure does not increase the risk of prostate cancer).

To seek some reassurance, Redditor GaleNotTheWind asked:

"Men of Reddit who have gotten a vasectomy, what was your experience?"

Guys discuss what happened after the snipping.

Making Sure

"For the love of God, do the follow-up appointment. The last thing you want is to be accidentally playing with a loaded gun."

– sleepypanda59

Wise To Wait

"The paper work I got for mine which was done less than 2 weeks ago said that you could have sex 2-3 days after but... definitely said to wait another few days."

– SisterPhister666

Follow Post-Surgical Procedures Or Else

"Had it done twice while living in Japan no less. Why twice? The first one failed."

"... apparently, so did the second (says my now 6 year old daughter)."

– shoelessmarcelshell

These men found that the procedure itself wasn't a big deal.

Assurance

"I was super anxious, but I had a great procedure. I was more freaked out about the shot of numbing agent to the balls, but it was legit nothing to worry about."

– Reddit

Normal In No Time

"Little operation, blue balls and no wanking for a week, then back to normal but without getting anyone pregnant."

– Bright_Composer_3901

"Made the mistake of having a pop after a couple of days. Jesus, the regret."

– Alante

Best Money Ever Spent

"When I woke up after the anesthesia - yes I asked to be put under, best $55 (after insurance) I ever spent - the caffeine headache I had upon waking was the most painful part. The preoperative instructions were nothing but water the evening before, no water for 4 hours before going under. The Safeway brand cola that the angel aftercare nurse brought me was pure refreshment."

– HarrumphingDuck

Cherry On Top

"Local anesthesia stings for a second or two then all you can feel is tugging after all is done the pain I would describe is like blue balls for like 2 days tops. I took a week off work recommend by doctor since I’m a construction worker and the heavy lifting but I felt like after day 3 I was good to go. Cons: minor pain discomfort, no hanky panky until last semen sample came out clear. Pros: , no unplanned pregnancies(it’s still possible very rarely)."

– Secure_Requirement84

Some final thoughts.

Only Pros

"To me, the only bad part was the smell of the cauterization of my vas deferens.. the procedure was fine. Local anesthesia before and during just felt slight tugging no pain. Recovery was easy. No pain. No cons. Only pros. And if absolutely need be it’s reversible. Much easier and less invasive than a woman getting her tubes tied and significantly less harmful than birth control. I’m an advocate. Get it done!"

– PunchARacist

One Unsettling Thing

"For me, it wasn’t the smell but watching the little puffs of smoke during the cauterization. That was truly and deeply unsettling."

"Otherwise, yeah, nothing major to report. Stayed in bed for a day watching old horror movies and assembling a Lego plant. Pretty much business as usual after that."

– GuestCartographer

The One Constant

"Got a vasectomy, it worked. Got it reversed, that worked.... twice Got another vasectomy...17 years later, all good. Just go to a legit great Dr. I mean top of the field Dr. For ANY messsin around down there. Vasectomy is WAY easier now than 25-30 years ago. In/out in an hour... The only thing that hasn't changed? ... The bag of frozen peas ..😂"

– richwat00

Vasectomies are performed via two methods, the incision vasectomy or a no-scalpel vasectomy, and both use local anesthesia to numb the scrotum.

Always consult a healthcare provider before undergoing the procedure and–most importantly–make sure you don't want to have children or that you and your spouse don't want to add additional family members.

Based on the anecdotes above, there's nothing to fear, so feel free to man up and get to snipping.

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For me, growing up Roman Catholic meant demonic possession and the AntiChrist were on the list of plausible fears.

But what films offered possible Hellscapes for others?

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