Ways To Choose A Good Restaurant

While NewMexiKen has his list of 10 signs that you need to pick a different restaurant, I have my own list of the top 4 indicators of good eats.

1. If you see a place with cop cars appearing at random times, odds are it's good food. Same rule applies if you see paramedics, firefighters, park rangers, truckers and cab drivers as well. These guys live with a vehicle strapped to their backs and usually know their areas better than someone who grew up there.
2. People who are overweight always show up to eat there. Not to sound cruel, but those that are overweight don't usually get that way by eating lousy food. They know where the good places are, so listen to them.
3. If inspecting a ethnic restaurant, regardless of which ethnicity's cuisine you happen to be hungering for at the time, take a peek at the kitchen. If that ethnicity is well-represented in the kitchen staff, immediately seek out your favorite dish. However, there is no one from that specific ethnicity in the kitchen, turn around and leave.
4. Also regarding ethnic restaurants, if there is a good sampling of people from that ethnicity actually eating there, order with all due speed. If it's good enough to remind them of their mother's cooking, (or well and truly beat out their mother's cooking to the point that the mother in question recieves the recipe tucked into a Mother's Day card with a small note saying "Learn, Mom.") then they have to serve the real McCoy there.

And that's all she wrote... All my culinary wisdom boiled down to 4 easy signs. Oh, and here's number 5... If more than one of the above conditions are met, the odds of that being a source of good food shall improve exponentially.

But most important to me is the latter half of Rule 3. If I wanted to have a bunch of white folks cook Mexican food for me, I'd go to Del Taco. Or, better yet, do it my own damn self.