Here are the 5 dishes you should NEVER pick from the menu of a restaurant you do not know well
Who does not love going out to a restaurant? Just sit comfortably at the table, order, and eat without having to worry about cooking and then cleaning up everything. If you love going out to restaurants, no matter what their specialized cuisine may be, you should keep in mind that it would be better not to order these five dishes.
It is a question of hygiene and dispassionate advice coming from those who work in the restaurant business and have witnessed everything that sometimes, unfortunately, happens "behind the scenes", that is to say, in the kitchen. Let's take a look at what we should avoid and why.
NB: With this article, we do not want to put restaurateurs in a bad light, but rather to help consumers choose the best as they try to deal with the jungle of offers - often very attractive - that they receive every day.
1. Buffet (especially stay away from chocolate fountains!)
Buffets, you know, are very appetizing! There are different types of dishes all ready to be tasted and there is no limit of quantity! However, if the buffet is not run by a catering company, that have specialized food servers behind the counters to impose order to the "participants", it is best to avoid a buffet. Children often stick their hands in more than one dish or taste whatever they happen to touch, because their parents are rather distracted by the amount of food.
Also be wary of chocolate fountains! Many people immerse all kinds of objects and, according to food servers who have cleaned the bottom of these fountains, they have even found gauze and band-aids!
Ice cubes
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If you order a drink at a restaurant, avoid asking for ice. Why? Because ice-making machines, more often than not, are a depository of bacteria and mold! In addition, many food servers and restaurant staff are accustomed to taking, when it's hot and they want to cool off a bit, some ice for themselves with their bare hands. Of course, one should not tar everyone with the same brush, but it is better to avoid --- if you can go without putting ice in your drink.
3. Soups
Ordering a hot soup in the colder months may seem like a good idea and instead, it is not. Unfortunately, in many restaurants, soups are kept in large, always hot containers, that are never allowed to cool down. In addition, the soups are famous for being, in some unreliable restaurants, made from leftovers and food scraps. In short, better to decide to order a nice plate of pasta.
4. The offer of the day
If you are a fan of "the offer of the day", maybe you'd better change your mind. Unfortunately, many offers of the day are made by restaurant chefs with ingredients that are not fresh, which are going to deteriorate or expire soon and therefore need to be cooked and used quickly. So it is better to order a slightly more expensive dish and not the "special" of the day.
5. Bread
Remember those baskets of bread in the middle of the table, full of delicious, fresh, and fragrant bread? Well, maybe it's actually bread left by someone else. Sometimes it happens that the food servers are told to warm up and serve old bread to new diners. Therefore, if you can do without bread at a restaurant, do not eat it ... unless you can witness the exact moment when it is sliced, or if you are in a restaurant you can trust.
