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5 Dirty Restaurant Secrets To Know About
And the point is not at all what happens in the kitchen, which is closed from the eyes of visitors. Everything is much more obvious.
How are restaurants usually rated? By the level of service, by Michelin stars, by titles of chefs, by reviews of critics, by comfort, in the end, by prices. However, there are dark corners even in the most glittering restaurant.
The dirtiest thing on the table
You would never guess. This is not a pepper shaker or a salt shaker – they take honorable second and third places. The most disgusting item is the menu! The fact is that the waiters do not wipe it or the salt shakers with pepper shakers and sauce bowls between visitors. The menu is generally changed as the dishes are worn out or renewed. This was found out by a team of scientists who were sent to test items on the tables of 12 restaurants by order of the program ““. So they found out that the number of bacteria on the pages is almost 16 times more than on the pepper shaker. It is logical – everyone touches the menu, but the food is not. So our advice to you: first place an order, then go wash your hands.
53 percent of employees of catering establishments admitted that they are not going to miss a shift just because they caught SARS. This is in the USA, but it is unlikely that things are different with us. After all, sick leave hits wages a lot. So in the fall and spring, the kitchen is full of sneezing and coughing cooks, helpers, dishwashers, cleaners. And sometimes you can even see the chef smoking on the back porch of the restaurant, coughing into his palm. Ugh? Of course ugh. What to do here? Avoiding catering establishments in the midst of the cold season, there is no other recipe.
Gloves are not a guarantee of cleanliness
When we see the chef in our presence masterfully twists the rolls with his hands tightened in rubber gloves or disposable plastic ones, we somehow calm down. But it turns out that this sense of security is false. After all, a cook with these same gloved hands can touch anything: the door handle, the refrigerator door, raw food, even the phone. Sometimes even a check at the checkout is punched without taking off their gloves. All of these items are champions in the number of bacteria. So the only guarantee of safety is when the chef puts on new gloves with you.
To understand how things are going with sanitation and hygiene in the kitchen, you can just go to the restaurant’s toilet. If it’s dirty, just imagine what is going on in the kitchen and staff toilets. Nobody sees them. And in some establishments, there are no separate toilets for staff at all. Where do they wash their hands after cleaning the table or after a smoke break, when visitors are queuing up? The answer is obvious and very unpleasant.
Even if the calorie content of the dish is indicated on the menu, you should not believe this data. According to a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, 20 percent of low-calorie meals contain 100 calories more than stated. The calorie content may differ even depending on which chef is on the shift: they cook a little differently, some ingredients may be more, others less. And the most reliable calorie intake is in a fast food cafe. Yes, the same typical fast food.