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Frogleg
 
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Default Top 10 dirtiest fast-food restaurants ranked. Think twice before going out for food next time!

On Mon, 17 Nov 2003 09:45:27 GMT, Blair P. Houghton > wrote:

>Cindy > wrote:
>>Top 10 dirtiest fast-food restaurants ranked. Think twice before going out
>>for food next time!
>>
>>Ranked by NBC Dateline:
>>
>>http://go.jitbot.com/10-fastfood-dirtiness

>
>IHNJH, IJLS Lea Thompson is an old friend of my Dad's from
>when he was the news director at WRC-TV in Washington DC
>(ca. 1970); and, for a time, her husband was my attorney.
>She's a pioneer in the field of consumer reporting in
>broadcast journalism. If she says these clowns are dirty,
>I for one believe it.


I can believe it, too. In fact, I've *never* believed that any
restaurant kitchen was 100% in compliance with 'standards'. Nor any
home kitchen. There's a sidebar in this story to view restaurant
inspections in various states. I checked a lot of these when it was a
hot story in local media a few months ago. The problem with regs and
stats of violations is that it's very difficult to tell whether one
restaurant has rodent droppings all over the place and another's
'fridge is 2 degrees off spec. Ex: one local "critical" violation was
"Light bulb in refrigerator not shielded, coated, or otherwise
shatter-resistent." [This was an entirely random pick.]

Remember, this is a 'sweeps' month. "Dirty Dining" is a lot sexier
than "restaurant employees don't wash their hands enough."

It's kind of fun to follow up. A couple of non-critical violations
were "bamboo handle of strainer is not corrosion-resistant,
non-absorbant, and/or smooth," and something about forks and spoons
being stored face-up (possible contamination of the "lip-contact"
surfaces, which doesn't make any sense at all).

If the piece had surveyed fast-food restaurants that had been shut
down for "imminent health hazard" (sewage overflow, no hot water,
fire, pest infestation, disease outbreak, etc.), and one or more
chains were significantly more prone to this than others, it *would*
be useful information.