It's been almost a year since I ordered from or ate at a restaurant, I'm sleeping easier

[fabulouslyghetto]

I remember a couple of occasions when something happened later that made me cringe about a restaurant choice...

First time, I was on a road trip with my mother, and we stopped at some fast food place. A week or tow later, that chain was in the news, due to a risk getting some food transmitted disease.

Second time was going to a small restaurant for lunch with my father towards the end of his life. His health was in decline by that point. Not long after, the place got closed a few days, having failed a health inspection.

it's super weird to me that places don't get closed more often for failing health inspections. somebody's blowing somebody.

 

[seven2go]

how's the cleanliness of your restaurants? are they routine INSPECTED and by INSPECTED i mean if they're dirty they get closed down, in America they just get a 'tsk tsk' and maybe a mean sneer from the inspector then back to business.

It doesn't work that way in the upper midwest or here at least
If an inspector finds deficiencies or violations they are give × days to shape up and if they don't: C L O S E D until they do.

 

[fabulouslyghetto]

It doesn't work that way in the upper midwest or here at least
If an inspector finds deficiencies or violations they are give × days to shape up and if they don't: C L O S E D until they do.

must be nice to be able to eat somewhere and not have to do a lap around the dining room to make sure everything is clean.

 

[Latimer]

My partner and I often eat at restaurants where we know the owners either personally or by reputation, and we trust their integrity. Last Saturday we ate at Alice Water's restaurant in the Hammer Museum (yes, that Hammer) near UCLA. I trust that the exacting Waters and the kitchen staff that comes from around the world to work with her are performing to the highest standards. (Waters, we learned in a conversation with the manager, turned down the Louvre in Paris because they didn't agree to her requirements. The restaurant that did open at the Louvre, Cafe' Marly is one of my favorites in the city, although as much for the decor as the food.) Moreover, Los Angeles County has health inspectors who visit restaurants regularly and give them health grades that they are required to post.

A number of years ago a restaurant owned by the mayor of Los Angeles, the popular and historic Pantry Restaurant was shut down for a week (I think) because of violations. We were once given a tour of the kitchen by the manager of Bouchon, the restaurant in Beverly Hills owned by Thomas Keller (of French Laundry fame). It was immaculate and then some. It didn't surprise me when I learned that Keller's father had been both a Marine and a disciplinarian...

 

[Latimer]

^
Which isn't to say that expensive equals safe. About five years ago my partner and I had breakfast at the Rosewood Sand Hill Hotel in Silicon Valley which caters to a very moneyed tech crowd. He had Eggs Benedict with Hollandaise on the side (he's wary of sauces). Just a bit of Hollandaise that had gone bad led to a violent. frightening attack of food poisoning that night, and he ended up at two in the morning in the emergency ward of the local hospital for the next eight hours.
After that we vowed to stay away from raw or undercooked fish and meat, and any sauce that might have been sitting around unheated. It took him days to feel he was fully back to health.

Having read that consuming alcohol with potentially dangerous shellfish led me to down a pint while eating mussels on the southwest coast of Ireland a few months ago. (The mussels, by the way, are brought as youngsters from the Normandy coast to mature in Irish waters and are then brought back to France. These were mussels that didn't make the journey home.)

Recalling Whoopi Goldberg's glass of water revenge scene in The Color Purple leads me to always treat my restaurant servers with the greatest respect. I've also heard about some of the tales that Anthony Bourdain tells in Kitchen Confidential. (Saw him, by the way, only a few days before he died. Was staying at the same hotel in Fiesole outside of Florence.
I read now that he was supposedly drugged up during this period, but he looked perfectly normal and healthy to me.)

 

[me203]

Which isn't to say that expensive equals safe

Well, the only thing "expensive" equals for sure is it's "expensive."

Admittedly, the higher cost should mean a better product in general...but that's not always the case with anything.

 

[fabulouslyghetto]

Well, the only thing "expensive" equals for sure is it's "expensive."

Admittedly, the higher cost should mean a better product in general...but that's not always the case with anything.

HONEY I almost threw myself off a cliff when I read sanitation scores for a few of these $90 steak dinner restaurants at the heart of downtown Charlotte. Same problems as any fast food restaurant, roaches, rats, food stored improperly, date labels missing, kitchen staff not using gloves. the only guarantee was at least their hot water was running.

 

[Latimer]

From the Basil the Rat episode of Fawlty Towers

 

[Latimer]

Basil the Rat is Cleese's favorite episode: