"jmcquown" wrote:
>
> Sheldon's query about Chinese restaurants in Seattle got me thinking about
> this. �Do you read restaurant reviews prior to eating in one? �Even if it's
> in your own town? �There's a place in Memphis called 'Mortimer's'.. �I've
> never been there (heh, I remember when there was a dress shop at that
> location.) �I was doing a search for someone and ran across this rant by a
> former employee (no, it wasn't me!). �Talk about waiter rants...
>
> "I am a former employee of Mortimer's, and I would like to take this chance
> to warn anyone who might think of dining there about the godawful unsanitary
> conditions there. Some examples:
>
> 1. I once saw a waiter carrying a sandwich out to a table. Just before he
> exited the kitchen, he dropped the top piece of bread on the floor. He
> picked it up, dusted it off on his shirt, put it back on the sandwich, and
> took it out to serve it.
>
> 2. I saw an employee knock over a five-gallon bucket of shrimp which spilled
> all over the floor (the floor in the kitchen is filthy, by the way). The
> dishwasher began scooping up the shrimp and throwing it in a garbage can.
> The kitchen manager ran over and started cussing the dishwasher, saying that
> the shrimp was way too expensive to just throw away, and that he (the
> dishwasher) would either put the shrimp back in the bucket to serve to
> customers or he would be fired.
>
> 3. Each table is given a complementary basket of rolls. There is a basket
> next to the dish area in the kitchen. When servers bus a table, they are
> required to salvage any rolls that have not been eaten off of and put them
> in this basket to be recycled for the next table.
>
> I don't know how a place this filthy and disgusting has managed to stay in
> business. I can only assume that they pay bribes to the health department.."
>
> That's enough to put me off a place. �But I probably wouldn't have read it
> if I hadn't been looking something else up.
>
> Jill
All restaurnts do that to various degrees.
But I don't see any connection between my request for a restaurant
recommendation and some crank's rant about unsanitary restaurant
conditons... anyone looking for sanitary shouldn't be eating at any
restaurant, not ever... those signs in the terlit that employees must
wash their hands offers me no comfort, in fact needing to remind has
just the opposite effect... I find those signs extremely
discomforting, they certainly dull my appetite. The mere thought that
those disgusting fetid terlits even exist in a food service
establishment makes me rather eat home. I've never seen anything even
approaching a clean public restroom yet and the worst examples are at
food establishments... what good is a sign, most kitchen workers are
totally illiterate.
I don't think terlits should be permitted within the same premises
where food is handled... instead provide a chain link fenced-in area
some 100 feet away from the building, containing port-a-pottys and a
fully open area so folks can be observed washing with soap and hot
water, and an attendant gives a good spritz of anticeptic spray before
they can leave... don't need any stinkin' signs, they prove nothing
that anyone washed... about half the people I see leaving rest rooms
don't wash, especially the employees, the best they do is barely wet
their finger tips with cold water and wipe them on their filthy work
whites that are more filth than white... I've actually seen wait staff
leave the terlit picking their nose.
I never asked for a cleanliness recommendation, I know full well that
*filthy* is the default for _all_ restaurants. That's why I
recommended the Pike Place Market, there are restaurnts there but
everything one could possibly think of to eat is available out in the
open and few foods are prepared out of sight. They found a dim sum
stand there, baked/steamed food is like autoclaved, and they bought
some fresh fruit (said giant nectarines were delicious) and assorted
pastries to snack while waiting to board the flight... after spending
a week on a cruise ship where sumptuious viands are served 24/7 they
really weren't starving. About the safest food one can eat out is
baked goods, especially pizza.... no germs are gonna survive 15
minutes in a 600F oven
I'm sure they did better at the Pike Place Market than at any
Chinatown joint might have been recommended by a stranger. Many large
cities have similar markets; Los Angeles, Vancouver, Toronto, New York
of course. San Fransisco doesn't have such a market, their lousy
restuarants couldn't handle the competion... Frisco has the most over
rated tourist trap eateries on the planet.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pike_Place_Market