Good grief - guilty!!!
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A place near me proudly announces that it does not have a childrenās menu. I recall it words it something like āWe do not have a separate menu for small people aged under Xā. But, if preferred, it will make smaller portions of several of its main menu items. Thereās usually a goodly number of families - evidence that kids do not need ākids foodā.
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Anytime they put an actual dish in quotes to describe something they are making that is actually something else.
Eg - seafood āpaellaā - is it paella or not?
Or
Beef āosso bucoā - if it is just braised then say braised, osso buco is an actual thing all by itself.
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āHouse madeā has described both the worst ketchup and the worst breakfast sausage Iāve ever had.
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Or some of the bestā¦
Some of these callouts are getting picky for pickyās sake.
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and seem to be more in line of āpet peevesā vs. a menu red flag.
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one manās peeve is anotherās flag . . . .
I guess the only real āflagā I could get from a menu would be crushed, crusty, dried food bits stuck all over the menu. If you canāt keep the menu clean . . . . probably best to move on to another restaurant.
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I guess I could have said more. For me, itās a red flag that a restaurant feels the need to point out that they made the food Iām ordering. In my experience, most of the places that tell you something is āhome/house madeā end up serving something worse than I would expect. This is more true with something like ketchup, where Iād be happy with heinz, while the āhouseā version tends to be too sweet or to just be tomato sauce.
Iāve had some very good āhouseā sausages, but I sort of expect that if Iām eating at a decent place theyāre making that stuff and not defrosting something from Sysco. The terrible breakfast sausage I had was at a diner kind of place, where I was surprised to see that they had started making their own. They shouldnāt have - it had the dry, mealy texture of meat that got too warm during grinding. When I complained to the waitress that it was dry, she replied that āoh, itās actually homemade!ā which has stuck in my mind ever sense.
I guess my general point is that itās a red flag to me if someplace is trying to remake the wheel, because itās often unnecessary or they donāt know what theyāre doing. Itās not that I hate āhouse-madeā food ā itās that its use as a marketing term on menus usually means Iām about to have a disappointing meal.
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Iāll see your ādeconstructedā and raise you a ācuratedā. 
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Did you read the Tampa Times article? Just because a restaurant lists sources doesnāt mean thatās where their stuff came from.
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My red flag is any description of a dish longer than just a few words, especially if it uses first-person plural, especially if the menu is laminated. A local favorite cafe changed their menu, obviously hiring a menu-writing consultant, producing things like this:
āOur burgers are 100% Certified Angus Beef, and we open-flame grill them to your preference. Served with our French Fries.ā
This was when they switched from Niman Ranch beef and hand-cut fries to save money. I complained to the manager, and havenāt been back.
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Do we use the second person plural in English - other than colloquial phrases ( eg yāall)?
Oops, I meant first-person plural. I corrected my post.
I can see not liking the switch from Niman Ranch, and the potato change, but would you pre-judge the food based on less-specific text? To anyone who didnāt know the previous specifics it would seem fine.
Itās a fucking burger and fries.
In linguistics, there is a set of principles guiding appropriate conversation, called Griceās maxims.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griceās_maxims#Grice.27s_Maxims
One says āDo not make your contribution more informative than is required.ā, and another āBe brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity).ā Including the extra information can result in suspicion. If theyād said, āmade with real beefā, wouldnāt you be a little alarmedāwhat else could it be made of?
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Oh, OK. Unnecessary flowery descriptors. I get it. But, come onā¦ youāll put half the writers in the world out of business. ;o)
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ādeconstructedā can be quite helpful as it often indicates use of certain ingredients but not in the classical fashion
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Really? Weird, Iāve honestly never seen it in that context. Whenever Iāve seen ādeconstructedā as a description of a food item, itās specifically meant to describe a well-known dish thatās presented in a way for the diner to assemble themselves. For example, a ādeconstructedā black forest cake might have slabs of cake, a dollop of cherry compote, a container of coconut, and a dollop of walnut paste smeared on a plate.
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Oddly, I just looked up the menu for that cafe, hoping to provide more āfloweryā descriptors. But they changed it again, and all it says now is ā100% Angusā.
Half the āwritersā in any world are below average ability, although weāve heard said that the Lake Woebegone Exception applies where every kid in the neighbourhood is Madame Currie, Mary Cassatt, and Madonna wrapped into one precious parcel whom the āguidanceā counselors adore (at the risk of helicopter parentsā wrath).
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