Avoid any restaurant located on a street with multiple "$100 reward for lost cat" handmade posters on the walls and lampposts....

Exactly. I believe that the law in Italy requires all restaurants to offer a tourist menu (prix fixe).

Depending on the hotel, you can often get good recommendations. Some may be unscrupulous, and you may find the occasional lazy concierge who recommends the same restaurant no matter what details you give, but in general, decent hotels have to be able to recommend a fair number of good restaurants and, in my experience, the most common kind of bribe that a concierge will tend to get from a restaurant is a free meal, so if they like it (and they have decent taste), they'll generally steer you pretty well.

That said, if you are looking for a specific type of cuisine or a particular area, their knowledge may be limited and the cab driver/person on the street recommendation can be good. But it's key to make sure you frame it well--i.e. where would you go for a special occasion if you wanted to spend (no more than) XX amount of money? This way you reduce the parameters of their personal quirks/taste for a general idea.

My mother always said this, dad!

...then you might go hungry in Japan. (Disclaimer: I haven't been to Japan for 20 years, so maybe the plastic food has disappeared from every restaurant window, but it was ever-present on my last visit.)

I guess I hesitate and am concerned about a restaurant when the staff looks like they're not so sure what they're doing. I also just like places to be clean.

The plastic food is still there.

.....

except for Can Porta ... then its ok

Hi

First thing I look for is attitude of staff. If Front of House staff is ho-hum with the "whatever" attitude, I say "just looking". And If I peek in and see empty-handed staff just walk by things on floor ... clearing glassware via the "spider fingers" technique (grabbing the lipsticked rims - ewww, as opposed to middle or base), no way I stay.
I figure, although the food may be good, how are they going to handle it -- not to mention the dinner rolls they put in my basket -- when they're handling glassware like this? It suggests "laid back" management's standards aren't too high, or they don't know to teach such things.
Oh, If thers'a a sign out front promoting "Special's ... Pizza's ... Home made Soup's"..., I keep walking. The apostrophe for plurals epidemic can be telling as well. Not very conscientious (and they're going to be handling your food?

1. ANY chain.
2. Restaurants that have you make the dishes instead of having them designed by an actual professional. If you choose a starch, side dish(es), sauce, etc, then the restaurant really doesn't know what they're doing.
3. Any restaurant that includes a salad as a standard part of your main course.
4. A plastic laminated menu is a clear sign that you should go somewhere else
5. Any restaurant where the wait staff expose a table when changing a tablecloth

That should be a good start.

At least here in Montreal : any restaurant that has ceasar's salad on the menu is guaranteed to be mediocre.

If I saw an employee scraping the front window with a griddle spatula, I'd avoid the joint.

Here in San Antonio there are many good restuarants with the name Taco, but you are their for tacos, which is fast food. It is good in that it tastes good but it is not somewhere you go for the dining experience.

Dito on never eating at a restaurant over 100 feet of the ground with one exception. Before the Ft Worth Tornado took it out, there was a good restaurant on top of a downtown building. I think it was Riatas, but not sure. Fairly decent but I prefer Del Friscos in Ft Worth.

Add to the list with any restaurant that tries to serve everything (BBQ, Mexican Food, steaks, seafood-how can they do it all) which you can tell when they bring you the menu and it is a book.

Chain restaurants that I will not eat in are Applebees, Chilis (unless at an airport with no other choice-stick to burger), Bennigans, TGIF, olive garden, johnny carinos, Macoronis, any all you can eat buffet restaurant. I do not know why people bother to eat at these restaurants unless it is simply to avoid doing the dishes. All they do is heat and reserve, they do not cook-you might as well go to Sams, and buy a TV dinner.

Chain restaurants which are impresive in consistency and quality is anything by the Papa's family out of Houston. It is funny, but in ABQ, it is the best sea food restaurant in a city so far from the ocean, and it is a chain.

The shame is that I had the pleasure at eating at Chilis back in the 70's and early 80's and it was very good. The Burgers were great, chili was excellent (they won the chili cook off), and my favorite thing on the menu was the chili soft tacos. There use to be a line out the door at all times at their Dallas Greenville location. The problem now with chilis is they got way into the southwestern cuisine theme. Everything is so over flavored and they put cumin on everthing so it all tastes the same. They need to take a cue from great restaurants, only one flavor laden food on the plate with everything else complimenting it. They strayed from their roots, and now have canned chili. Wendy's chilis blows it away and that is only adequate but only $.99.

Basically, a good restaurant is easy. Do not over flavor, and start with fresh quality food. If you do not have fresh quality food, there is no way to make it good. You can only screw up a fresh piece of fish or a good steak by over cooking it or drowning out the original flavor.

Last advice, with seafood look for a packed restaurant with high turn over. This equals fresh seafood, because of the high turnover.

When in doubt and on the road, stick with the simplest think on the menu. Prime rib, burger, roasted chicken, chopped steak, and hotel favorite, club sandwich.

I forgot my biggest test of a good restaurant. I call it the Ice tea test. To make good ice tea, all you have to do is keep the tea maker clean. Most restaurants lease the tea maker and get the tea for free, so in one area, it is likely that all of the restaurants are getting the tea from the same place, be it lipton or whatever.

So it is a great equalizer. It is made the same everywhere, with the same machine and tea or like product.

If they do not keep it clean, it will taste stale/bitter and be cloudy. If they keep it clean, then the tea will be crisp and clear. I figure that if a restaurant is so lazy as not to keep the tea maker clean, then they are cutting back on other areas. So the first thing I will order is the tea, if it is not good, I will pay the $1.50 and leave. Also, must use real lemon or lime, no fake juice.

A really nice restaurant will not merely refill your tea, but bring you an entirely new glass, may be even on a saucer plate.