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It's enough to make you sick

Hey, who's up for a bite at Mistral? Good service journalism in the Globe.

Also interesting: The city wanted $2,000 from the Globe for copies of inspection reports. Why? The stuff is already available in handy database form and it's hardly the Globe's fault that the public online report search tool is not easy to use: There's no way to sort by date (i.e., to see the most recent reports in general) - and the neighborhood classifications are often wrong (the Brendan Behan is not in Roslindale).

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Comments

The situation that's described in the article about various restaurants in many communities, including Boston, being in gross violation of the sanitary codes, etc., which has long, long been a problem in this area, is a situation that's clearly gotten worse. It's clear that many restaurants, clubs and bars, particularly the trendy ones, rely on patrons not knowing what really goes on behind their kitchens' swinging doors. Come to think of it, I still remember reading and hearing of this problem back in the late 1960's and early 1970's.

It's pretty sickening--and, on reading the article, my gut instinct to stick to restaurants that I really
know aren't in that catagory, and that my friends, family and I go to frequently, has been re-inforced.

Why don't those restaurants, etc., that've been known to have sanitation code violations clean up their acts??

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When I was growing up, the state I lived in had a transparent and easy to read system of inspection codes. Restaurants were inspected yearly and they displayed the state rating prominently at each major entrance.

Most restaurants received and "A" rating for good hygiene. The second tier were "B" restaurants, and were often given that rating because their buildings or surroundings made "A" ratings impossible (antiquated equipment, old buildings, etc.). The "B" restaurants were still considered to be safe in practice.

A "C" rating meant big trouble. Nobody goes to a "C" rated establishment because they are all-but closed down or closed down for violations. If the violations aren't fixed, they would close down (although many closed because nobody would go to them).

What is so tough about implementing this? I mean, it would require the state, and not the towns, to do the inspections ... but the transparent system of rating and prominent public display of rating is really pretty effective at keeping places in compliance.

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The way people handle food in kitchens would probably surprise most diners. If you go to a really good restaurant, the probability that someone has had his hand right on your food before you eat it is almost certain. When presentation is important, foods get nudged all over the plate by hand. I've done it, and I still do it. Tongs? We don't need no steenkin' tongs!

Personally, I don't see a problem with that -- as long as the cooks wash their hands. Hands in and of themselves aren't dirty; it's the other things that might be on the hands that are dirty. The biggest problem isn't potty time; it's cross-contamination among the different foods in the kitchen. It's going from grabbing the raw chicken to grabbing the cooked chicken that's a problem, and whether that's done with tongs or with hands is irrelevant.

Gloves are also irrelevant to the problem. I even consider them a step away from kitchen safety, because they discourage hand-washing. For me, it's a bad sign if the kitchen staff are wearing gloves. You can't feel it when you've got some schmutz on your glove like you can on your hand. Gloved staff probably change gloves less often than ungloved staff wash their hands. The simplest way to vastly improve food safety would be to mandate more hand-washing sinks to make it more convenient for the cooks.

And then there's rodents. I have to say, this quote is stunning:

Milano, asked about the rodent issue, said: "I take objection to the word 'rodent.' It's mice droppings." And mice, he said, "are in the same family as squirrels." He said he spends substantial money each year on pest control. "We have high standards, and we uphold them," Milano said.

Oh, yeah, real high standards.

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