A few weeks back, I wrote about our latest Tampa Underbelly Tour along Nebraska Avenue. In the story I mentioned that I had learned a food axiom: If a restaurant parking lot is full of work vehicles, eat there. Blue-collar guys know good food.

So I posed a question to my friends on Twitter.com: What food rules do you follow? They replied:

Markradams: If you don’t know what is good, order the dish with the name of the restaurant in it. Surely they won’t give bad food to the namesake.

Chefsusan: Don’t eat at a place that has no cars in the parking lot and/or nobody sitting at the tables.

Culinarysherpas: Never eat at place where you have more teeth than the staff combined.

ChefMark: When abroad, never eat at a restaurant that has pictures of the food and the menu in three languages, with the native being the last.

GingerCM: Never eat at a restaurant with a health inspection score lower than 90. Or one with gum stuck on the wall of your booth.

Mjk1: Never eat at a restaurant with a sign that says, “Cook wanted.”

Since then I’ve heard from several readers with their own guideposts.

From Marilyn Hett:

1. Never stop at a restaurant that hangs a sign, “FOOD.” This rule is magnified by the height of the sign. (No matter how many cars/trucks are parked in the lot)

2. Never return to a café where the food servers handle the cash from the customers also. (There are many downtown Tampa places on my never-return list.)
Marilyn also notes:

“I have dragged my husband into many highly rated Zagat places that do not have lots of cars in the parking lot and lots of tables occupied. That does not mean the chef and the food do not meet the high Zagat rating. It means that locals don’t appreciate the place, or the time of day is off (earlier than 9 p.m.) This situation may increase if the local economy continues to tank and business expense accounts are cut. But we need to support good venues and chefs here, independent from the number of trucks in the parking lot.”

Marie Burg of Sun City Center writes, “Just have to offer a couple more ‘Never Eat In A Restaurant’ rules:

1. ---------- with a dirty front door. If it isn’t clean, you can bet the kitchen isn’t either!

2. ----------- which says “Home Cooked Food”. There are a lot rotten home cooks anymore!

3. ------------ where you haven’t used the restroom before ordering. If it is dirty, just imagine what the kitchen looks like!

Jennifer Wills in Lakeland suggests, “Never eat at a restaurant where a roach crawls out of the wall and into your salad. True story.”

Dianne Greenleaf of Spring Hill echoes Marie Burg’s third point: “Check out the bathroom first and if it’s gross chances are the kitchen isn’t so great either. Possibly the staff doesn’t wash their hands after using the facilities, so just walk out the door!”

And Antonio Bayani of Tampa advises, “Don’t eat at a restaurant with a sign outside: ‘WE ACCEPT COUPONS FROM OTHER RESTAURANTS.’”

Over at Chow, Lessley Anderson had a similar column last year.

Her list included:

1. The restaurant’s got clogged pepper shakers or ketchup bottles with dried ketchup caked around the lid.

2. The menu is pointlessly long—anything in the neighborhood of five pages should be a warning sign.

3. The menu uses excessive adjectives in dish descriptions, particularly the word luscious.

6. The menu is under a piece of plexiglass laid on the table.

8. There are glasses hanging upside down over the bar, and they’re all dusty.

Got a rule you follow? Shoot me an e-mail at or leave a comment on this post.

UPDATE: J. Daleny of Clearwater sent a tidy little list:

* Never eat catfish in the Middle East ( they catch them in the bottom of their trash pits and they taste just like a trash pit)

* Never eat Mexican in Paris.

* If it deserves a complaint, complain. When they give you a coupon for a free meal at some other time, leave and either throw it away or give it to someone walking in.

* Never, EVER eat “fresh seafood” in a restaurant more than 20 miles from where that fish is commonly caught ... the further away from the coast, the more this rule becomes more important.

* Food “value” is in an inverse relationship to its price. I have had awful $400+ meals and fantastic $2.99 specials

* The more a restaurant advertises, the worse its likely to be.

* Good food is not lots of food on one 20-inch plate.

* Never eat at any restaurant owned by any “celebrity"… I’ve had more bugs in dishes, flies in coffee in those places than even in an open BBQ joint alongside the road.

* “Homestyle” means trash food and reheated frozen plop like Mom used to make when she was too busy watching the soaps, smoking etc to cook for you.

* When ever someone says “try this, its great” it means they dont like it and am trying to lessen whats on their plate so they dont have to eat it ... a sort of pass on the misery.

* #1 RULE: never eat out in a restaurant when you are hungry.

P.S.: there are no bagels in Israel, no French fries in France, no waffles in Belgium, no Chow Mein in China, no pizza in Italy, no London Broil in London, no crabs in Dungeness, no dressing in Russia and no Bleu Cheeses in France ( there is fromage bleu) ... sorry to burst the bubble of exotic travel.