You can always tell a great Chinese restaurant by how they make kung pau chicken and hot and sour soup.
You can always tell a great Italian restaurant by how they make antipasto and linguini.
You can always tell a great sushi restaurant by how they make california rolls and miso soup.
Agree? Disagree? Other examples? What two dishes determine if a particular type of restaurant does every other dish well?
Mostly disagree, but strongly disagree with “Great Sushi” and “California Rolls”. Those two things are completely unrelated IMO.
Is it compulsory that we do these threads every month?
Despite there being much better items on the menu, you can tell the quality of a thai restaurant by their pad thai.
I really really disagree with a california roll being any indication of a sushi restaurant’s quality. All that will tell you is how good their rice is, as anyone can get a strip of steamed crab meat, some jullienned cucumbers, and an avacado. IMO, sushi restaurants really vary their specialty, so no one thing is going to be a good standard across the board, but something standard from the nigiri menu should do it, like unagi or a tuna.
For family style italian, the lasagna should be a good benchmark - but like thai food, there are better things on their menu. I prefer to go with ravioli for pasta, or a spedini or marsala for non-pasta.
Yes. Check the User Agreement - Section 13, subsection 75, paragraph 47, line 84, footnote 3c.
If you’re not showing any regional variation in Chinese food. So maybe for a Szechuan restaurant. Not so much for a Hunan restaurant or other varieties.
For me, I don’t know that I go by any particular dish, more I know I’m in a good place if I look around and I see a lot of Chinese people eating there. If so, I can communicate well enough to convey for meat I’m limited to birds and fish, I know I’ll be happy.
Never actually had antipasto in an American Italian restaurant so couldn’t say. And when you say “make linguini” are you talking about a specific dish with linguini or just the noodle itself?
Way wrong. California rolls and quality sushi are almost on exclusive planes. Miso soup, to a degree, but there are so many takes on it, some I like more than others (I prefer more seaweed, less tofu) that just because it isn’t my favorite I don’t hold it against them.
For me, if I think it is a fine sushi place and not just a basic sushi restaurant I’ll go with judging them based on their tamago. Gives a chance to experience the rice without a lot of competition and their care in making the tamago (or using packaged stuff if not much care) is, I think, a decent indication of attention to detail.
Agree? Disagree? Other examples? What two dishes determine if a particular type of restaurant does every other dish well?
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When I try a new Italian place, the three staples I try (not all at the same time of course) are 1. A Pizza with Sausage 2. Chicken Parm Sandwich 3. A Ham Salami and Provolone sub. I do have places that make pizza I don’t care for but have good food and sandwiches and vice versa.
For Chinese my staples are Won Ton Soup, Roast Pork Lo Mein and Pork Fried Rice. Also Chicken and Broccoli.
I gauge “Mexican” restaurants on their Chile Rellenos, and country or “Southern” restaurants on their chicken fried steak and biscuits.
^^This, along with the presence of menudo on the menu on weekends. I’ll never touch the stuff, but I view its inclusion as a sign of seriousness of intent.
For Mexican places I judge by whether or not they have tamales de elote.
(Though Cheesecake Factory does and they are omg amazing.)
I judge regular, average cafés/pubs/etc. on their french fries. If you can’t make tasty, hot fries, you should go out of business.
whorehouse / handjobs
Definitely go by the tamago. With chirashi you can see the art of the chef. Also see how well the tako is cut. Thick slabs are like rubber, a skilled ripple cut should be artistic and reduce the thickness to something chewable. Miso is a good measure, it should be hot with the miso churning in the broth.
Any restaurant that serves a steak, can they cook it rare properly. It’s amazing how many places bugger that up.
I don’t think I have any general rules. I just try whatever dishes they are known for or define as their “speciality.” That’s it. Plenty of Mexican places make mediocre-to-shitty chiles rellenos or don’t make them at all, but have other mind-blowing dishes, for instance. I personally have not found it useful to have broad rules like this. Even the whole “if ethnic restaurant X has diners composed mostly of people of X ethnicity, it’s gotta be good” doesn’t work often enough. It’s a good sign, in general, but doesn’t necessarily mean anything.
I do, however, try to get down to basics. If a restaurant is a hamburger joint, I start with a simple hamburger or cheeseburger, not some monstrosity with 100 ingredients on it. If it’s barbecue, I start with whatever cut of meat they do best, sauce on the side. That sort of stuff.
I’ll judge many types of restaurant by how they treat their fish.
As it is so easy to over-cook it acts as a barometer for their approach to fresh ingredients in general.
Squid is one of my favourites and if they can serve up butter-tender squid then I will take off my metaphorical cap to them and will trust them with something more challenging.
Wrong.
It’s footnote 2c.
Footnote 3c states that unless somebody comments that the thread topic is a recurring theme, the SDMB will immediately shut down.
ETA: I like to try the General Tso at your typical Americanized chinese places. You can tell a lot by the crispiness of the chicken and the heat level of the sauce.
I think with sushi it’s even easier than ordering a specific dish. Any nigiri would do. Of course you can generalize even further by walking in and seeing if the guys behind the counter are offering omakase without even ordering a single dish and get a gist of if the chefs are serious or not.
For Thai, many people order the pad thai as their “judgement” food but I order the drunken noodles. It takes a certain degree of skill to make sure that dish doesn’t end up too greasy.
For chinese food it’s a real craps shoot. A look at the appetizer menu and having it go beyond dumplings and spring rolls is a good sign (things like cucumber salad, radish cake, etc. depending on the cuisine). Also dishes that don’t come with an egg roll and a soda (chinese food is meant to be eaten family style). I like a dish that’s pork intestines and congealed duck blood because again, it’s difficult to make that dish without it being swamped in grease. If a place offers peking duck, properly sliced and bags up the carcass afterwards is also a good sign.
I’m not so sure about that. The restaurant that got me to start this thread didn’t have any Chinese diners. It was more the Early Bird Special crowd. And the food was amazing.
A lot of Italian restaurantsdon’t have antipasto. The ones that do usually just have a wedge of iceburg lettuce, a few slices of salami, and a few slices of provolone. Waste of good food. But a really good place will have a variety of cured meats, cheeses (in blocks, not sandwich slices), and marinated vegetables. It’s a playground for the senses.
When I said linguini, I just didn’t have anything better to offer. 
I like the idea of lasagna and pizza. But it seems like the higher end Italian places don’t offer those. (Some do, many don’t.) In that case a good bolognese sauce or fra diavalo sauce is a good yardstick.
At a Korean restaurant, I’d probably order bulgogi or galbi, so I guess I’d judge it based on that.
I haven’t been to a Chinese restaurant that serves hot and sour soup for a long time, so that seems like an odd thing to judge by, personally.