Food hygiene ratings

Ignore at your peril!!!!

Oh yes! Sometimes I'd deliberately use the loo in order to steal a peep at their food prep section. An open kitchen is best.

No. When I was younger we used a curry house where you could enter by the back door and walk through the kitchen while they were cooking. Cardboard all over the floor to soak up the oil. They use to do a 3 course lunchtime special for £1.50. Never had any food poisoning & to this day remains my favourite Indian.

I don't go near the places.

Oil on kitchen floor comes under Safety, but poor food hygiene is Health predominantly; food contamination is extremely unpleasant, and could be fatal to the young and elderly. Avoid at all costs.

Street food stalls abroad may look and seem unhealthy however, the food there are mainly cooked to order and prepare under intense heat. But best no liquid unless bottled.

I do.  Here's a challenge: find an Indian that is rated 5.  My local chinese was a 5 but then it was taken over and plummeted to 1.  Luckily, I found another that is not too far away and a 5.  It should be the law to have the rating in the window.  I believe it is in Scotland but not in England.

A hugely successful carvery near us went straight from a 5 to a 1 after being taken over recently. Several people mentioned to me that the place had gone downhill regarding many aspects, though none were aware of the hygiene rating crash. It shows what difference good management makes.

It's a shame as the Chinese had an open kitchen.  Maybe they had mice in the store room.

Chinese normally very clean, Indian's not - a food hygiene inspector told me that. I've had food poisoning 3 times in my life and each time it's been shellfish and nothing to do with restaurants or takeaways.

I don't trust the signs, too easy to make your own. If it hasn't got an open kitchen I'm out the door.

Dec 24, 2018 -- 8:33AM, McCoy Carp wrote:

Chinese normally very clean, Indian's not - a food hygiene inspector told me that. I've had food poisoning 3 times in my life and each time it's been shellfish and nothing to do with restaurants or takeaways.

It's generally the other way round in my experience, McCoy.

I've -in leaner times- done some delivery driving and had experience of quite a few Indian restaurant kitchens, and have yet to see one that wasn't spotless and kept absolutely clean. The trouble is that turmeric and oil can be messy and stain things.

The bout of salmonella poisoning I suffered about 20 years ago was blamed on the local Indian and they were thoroughly checked out and cleared of all blame. It turned out the culprit was the local Somerfield supermarket's smoked Salmon.

Never ever order or eat seafood from restaurants let alone takeaways unless it has been fried as they are more hassle and could damage one's health irreparably; these defrosted and unused produce left in room temperature are deadly if used in prawn fritters, salads, etc.

From experience I think the Chinese are more grateful to repeat businesses (for longevity) and treat their loyal customers with respect and not as a given. On the other hand Asian ones are more geared to profit eg personally witnessed an owner buying up the entire bulk of reduced/specific used-by-date beef of rump at my local supermarket.

Also, Asians are less likely to pay sufficient attention to customers complaints/requests as indicated by the recent court cases of restaurants and takeaways disregarding allergies of customers; doing business with them is extremely difficult too as they would squeeze blood out of you if they could.

do places get closed down with a zero ?  most places seem to get 4s or 5s 

walked past a kebab shop last Saturday night  which got a rating of ZERO !!  and was trading with queues of people outside  ...

Ordered a fish last week....the guy told me I had to wait 10 mins...went out to check my car was alright and noticed when I came back it had a 1 out 5 rating......didn't really enjoy that fish