When done properly, images of a certain restaurant's food will make you hungrier and totally obsessed with eating, say, the amazing-looking stick-meat chicken right away.

But sometimes restaurant-food photography is a disaster. This usually happens when hopeful eatery owners snap their own pics of various items on their menu, hang them in their front window in a misguided attempt to lure passersby into their establishment -- and fail miserably.

Asylum scoured San Francisco for some of the absolute worst food photography the city's restaurants have to offer, and luckily for all of us, mission accomplished. Click through the images to see more meals and menu items made unappealing by bad photography.



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Unintentionally Terrible Menu Photos

First up is this delicious photo, taken outside the Iron Wok restaurant in San Francisco. They may be calling this dish Sweet and Sour Pork, but the photo has us thinking that it's actually a Jackson Pollack painting.

Unintentionally Terrible Menu Photos

Important tip from a Tenderloin coffee shop seemingly named Java/Juice: When snapping a photo of your sandwiches, make sure to use a flash so bright that it reflects off the bread roll -- and to safeguard the image behind dirty protective plastic.

Unintentionally Terrible Menu Photos

There's nothing like pizza from the 1970s. In related news, Bambo Pizza is currently wearing bell-bottoms and listening to "Y.M.C.A." on repeat.

Unintentionally Terrible Menu Photos

This sad chicken thigh, shot by the crew at Oriental Restaurant, appears to have been encrusted with some kind of radioactive mucus. Yum!

Unintentionally Terrible Menu Photos

What could possibly be more refreshing at the end of a long day of photo hunting than a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice? Unfortunately, the wrinkly sheet of paper seen here suggests that this so-called Java/Juice establishment is serving up hot butter instead.

Unintentionally Terrible Menu Photos

Like sausages? Well, then you probably won't want to go to Cafe Ramind. The "super awesome deal" seen here seems instead to be the fingers of an old man dying from an overexposure to radiation.

Unintentionally Terrible Menu Photos

Honestly, we don't even want to guess at what the special ingredient in "Salty Chicken" might be.

Unintentionally Terrible Menu Photos

At the food trailer Antojitos in the Mission District, it's only two dollars for ... something topped with something. But my, what a decorative plate!

Unintentionally Terrible Menu Photos

Was this food brought to our planet by space aliens? Or could these sautéed creatures actually be the space aliens themselves? Only Golden River restaurant knows for sure -- and we're scared to ask.

Unintentionally Terrible Menu Photos

I think what killed this fish was eating whatever it is on the right side of this dish, yours to order at the House of Banquet.

Unintentionally Terrible Menu Photos