What red flags should people look out for when they go out to eat at restaurants?

The first thing they told us in culinary school when you're learning the basic rules for food safety standards

is if you enter a seafood restaurant and you smell fish, you should leave.

I always say if you enter a seafood shop or restaurant, it should smell like the ocean,

mostly like fresh air and salt water. That means everything is fresh. If it smells like restaurant, it should smell like the ocean, mostly like fresh air and salt water.

That means everything is fresh. If it smells like fish, it starts to become bad, and if it starts,

it's going to be bad very fast. A $4 steak is not a good steak. There was a restaurant on my

school campus that would have a $3 steak night every Monday during happy hour.

You wouldn't be allowed to choose the rarity of your steak, and they were usually pretty small pieces,

but also came with a side of fries.

Sometimes you got lucky and got a medium rare piece of decent steak.

Most of the times it was pretty dry, though.

It was fun because you could get a pint of beer for three bucks, so my friends and I would go fairly often just to shoot the crap and have crappy steak.

If employees try to argue with you about food quality in order to dissuade you from sending

something undercooked back, just leave. It means they have a cook who can't take criticism

and your chances at getting a sneezer are greatly increased.

Back when my husband and I were dating, we went to a Thai restaurant.

We ordered broccoli and noodles, and when the dish arrived, we saw there were loads of black specks all over.

Looked closer and they were aphids.

Grossed out, we called the waiter over.

He took a look and tried to argue with us that it was black pepper, not aphids. Dude, there were obvious legs and wings. He wouldn't budge, so we walked out and never went back. I kind of thought that was going to go in the direction of, oh, I'm very sorry, sir, I'll be right back with the bug spray. You should ask where your oysters come from.

If they don't know, you don't want them.

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