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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 |
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Here is the crux of the biscuit (nods to Frank Zappa),
I'd hold r.f.c membership reccomendations far and way above the TV or newspaper critics. Andy |
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Andy wrote on Sun, 14 Sep 2008 09:14:51 -0500:
I'd hold r.f.c membership reccomendations far and way above the TV or newspaper critics. My personal opinions tend to concur with the Zagat guides (and not the idiosyncratic opinions of Tom Sietsma in Washington publications!) -- James Silverton Potomac, Maryland Email, with obvious alterations: not.jim.silverton.at.verizon.not |
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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 I don't value the opinion of reviewers because many seem to have an agenda or are just wanting to fill column space. I like to get the opinions of "real" people such as friends or associates. In the case of Asian communities I like getting tips from the locals on where they eat. I also have a rule that the more a place is marketed telling us all of its imagined virtues the better it is to avoid. I also get lots of information from my buddy who has a commercial refrigeration business who really gets to see the backend of restaurants. He says many of the heavily marketed big box industrial places are the worst followed by some of the "upscale" locals. He has all sorts of stories of food items spilled on the floor and scooped back up, unrefrigerated seafood and filthy conditions. My niece worked at one of the bigbox places and she said that if the whipped cream and fruit pies weren't sold they would wash off the fruit and store it for the next day. |
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James Silverton said...
Andy wrote on Sun, 14 Sep 2008 09:14:51 -0500: I'd hold r.f.c membership reccomendations far and way above the TV or newspaper critics. My personal opinions tend to concur with the Zagat guides (and not the idiosyncratic opinions of Tom Sietsma in Washington publications!) James, I'm clueless about the Zagat (well respected) review. I did have the $50 Four Seasons omelette once and ONLY once. DAMN GREAT OMELETTE, THOUGH!!! ![]() Best, Andy |
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![]() "jmcquown" wrote in message ... 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: 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 What we don't know is if any of this is true. Disgruntled employees tend to "get even" with management, often in childish ways. In industry, they call OSHA and complain about safety violations. OSHA must respond and they usually know when the complainer is serious and when they are being spiteful. The restaurant review host should do some checking too. The reviewer may have been fired over his drug use. Or he got caught banging the owner's wife. Or he was drinking up the profits at the bar. We just don't know. |
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Andy wrote on Sun, 14 Sep 2008 09:51:22 -0500:
Andy wrote on Sun, 14 Sep 2008 09:14:51 -0500: I'd hold r.f.c membership reccomendations far and way above the TV or newspaper critics. My personal opinions tend to concur with the Zagat guides (and not the idiosyncratic opinions of Tom Sietsma in Washington publications!) James, I'm clueless about the Zagat (well respected) review. I did have the $50 Four Seasons omelette once and ONLY once. DAMN GREAT OMELETTE, THOUGH!!! ![]() Best, There are a lot of Zagat reviews for many places and a difference is that they rely on a popular vote not that of a single "gourmet". Mind you, I like the European Michelin Guides that use teams of inspectors if not the American ones whose information density is low. I don't need pictures! -- James Silverton Potomac, Maryland Email, with obvious alterations: not.jim.silverton.at.verizon.not |
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"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 |
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Edwin Pawlowski wrote:
"jmcquown" wrote in message ... 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: 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 What we don't know is if any of this is true. Disgruntled employees tend to "get even" with management, often in childish ways. In industry, they call OSHA and complain about safety violations. OSHA must respond and they usually know when the complainer is serious and when they are being spiteful. The restaurant review host should do some checking too. The reviewer may have been fired over his drug use. Or he got caught banging the owner's wife. Or he was drinking up the profits at the bar. We just don't know. Excellent points, Ed! I'll take slow service or poor service or bad food reviews by patrons into consideration. Jill |
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In article ,
"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? Austin.food is a good one for that in my area. -- Peace! Om "If you don't read the newspaper you are uninformed; if you do read the newspaper you are misinformed." --Mark Twain |
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Edwin Pawlowski wrote:
The reviewer may have been fired over his drug use. Half the people in the restaurant biz would be fired if they started firing for drug use. -sw |
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Edwin Pawlowski wrote:
"jmcquown" wrote in message ... 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: 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 What we don't know is if any of this is true. Disgruntled employees tend to "get even" with management, often in childish ways. In industry, they call OSHA and complain about safety violations. OSHA must respond and they usually know when the complainer is serious and when they are being spiteful. The restaurant review host should do some checking too. The reviewer may have been fired over his drug use. Or he got caught banging the owner's wife. Or he was drinking up the profits at the bar. We just don't know. If someone really wants to know the inside scoop about a particular restaurant's conditions and kitchen sanitation (or lack thereof), check out the health inspection reports. However in the USA, it depends on the state, county, & city/township laws and regulations. In most cases, restaurant inspection reports (and other establishments like grocery stores) are a matter of public record, but sometimes it takes effort of the part of the 'curious' in that a 'freedom of information' form may need to be completed in order to get the report from the local health department. In some communities, the health inspection reports are posted in an obvious location for the patrons to see at will. Sky -- Ultra Ultimate Kitchen Rule - Use the Timer! Ultimate Kitchen Rule -- Cook's Choice |
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My teenaged daughter's first job was with McDonald's. Her manager was
more than a little creepy so she sought employment elsewhere. She was hired at KennelWood, a dog boarding and training facility, and gave two weeks notice at McD's, which I had insisted on as being a responsible employee. When she told her manager she would be leaving he said, "So you'd rather pick up dog shit than work here?" She told him, in her own inimitable fashion, "Yup", and he fired her on the spot. So thanks ever so much, "Mike" for teaching my daughter this important life lesson: Sheer douchebaggery trumps responsibility every time. The KennelWood job fell through (the manager who'd hired her was fired), but she was hired at Taco Bell. Now, McDonalds, for all its flaws, was and is meticulous about health, sanitation and safety. Taco Bell? Not so much. I loved their cuisine for its total junk foody goodness. That's all been spoiled for me now. Word to the wise: Don't drink the iced tea. NGAH!!! |
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On Sep 14, 7:02*am, "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? *[snip] Our town is the greater Los Angeles area, so reviews are mecessary to cope with the huge number and the huge turnover in restaurants. We have two or three good print sources and several on-line sites. We find that the longer, more informative reviews can be useful while the brief 'I liked it' of 'I hated it' are meaningless. Rants like your example are best left ignored as completely unreliable. What we find useful in reviews: what's their aim--elegance, comfort, culinary adventure, star- gazing (this is L.A.) how well do they achieve their aim -- quality and consistency of food what's on the menu, ethnic specialty, wine list price range service (including, do they honor reservations or always make you wait) noise level Some reviewers regularly hit all these points. Those that don't are less likely to entice us to try a place out. -aem |
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"jmcquown" wrote in message
... 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? Yep. For restaurants in the Houston area, I always found houston.eats to be a good resource. Also, http://www.b4-u-eat.com/ is an *excellent* website, with lots of reviews for tons of places. I'm still searching for similar resources for places here in Baltimore. Mary |
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