work for the health department in a major city doing restaurant

What's the nastiest thing you've seen on the job

What kind of restaurants have the most violations?

>>7946818
Charbroiled dick

>>7946818
Deepfried pecker

>>7946821
Your mom's cooking faggot

whats the deeeaaaall with airline peanuts?

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>>7946818

roaches are always the obvious answer, although desu there are far worse things that can be going on in a kitchen. a few roach ones have been really bad though. one place had roaches on the bottom of stools in the dining area, where people were eating, which gave me a new thing to check every time I eat somewhere. another place was soaking wood chopsticks before uses in a solution that, when checked, ended up being like 80% floating cockroaches, which again was pretty fucking gross.

grossest thing though, for me, would probably be this upscale thai place that was in a real touristy, popular area. they were storing their raw meat (massive chunks of beef and pork, plus smaller cuts of chicken) on a slice of cardboard at the top of the fridge. the cardboard slice was covered in blood and meat juices. on the shelf directly below they were storing ice cream for their desserts, with the lids off. there was visible blood in the ice cream that had been dripping down from the top of the fridge. the ice cream was almost empty because customers for the last month or so had been scarfing down blood meat ice cream. that shit was probably the nastiest.

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>>7946821

no one type. usually really depends on the place and specifically the management, ie what standards they let their employees abide by. anecdotally, carribean/jamaican places almost always have had every dish out of temperature (either overstacking hot holding units or using shit machines), and a lot of places in the chinatown area of the city do whatever they want and don't give a fuck because that's the one place where a B instead of an A won't hurt your business.

>>7946849
>places in the chinatown area of the city do whatever they want and don't give a fuck because that's the one place where a B instead of an A won't hurt your business.
That's true though. If everything I'm eating comes out of a boiling pot, a steamer or a 400+ degree wok I really couldn't care less about how clean the kitchen is.

>>7946843
>>7946849
So, besides giving them a grade, can you penalize them or take away a license or anything?

>>7946849
You probably wouldn't care about food hygiene standards either if you came out of a country of a billion soulless Asians. They hardly even care about their own countrymen.

>>7946867

there are certain critical violation conditions that do result in closure, but closure just means the restaurant fixes its shit (or just cleans it for that day) and then gets a reinspection the same day. Honesty the initial inspections don't matter all that much, especially since any restaurant can just go to tribunal and get an instant A

>>7946810
Why the fuck wont you yellow card some of these assholes that are clearly fucking your rules over? they definately don't have the money to be paying you off.

>>7946908

See earlier response, assholes go to private tribunal with zero standard of evidence and get easy instant A

>>7946888
To be fair their food is often better than ours.

>>7946908
Why are you incapable of spelling "definitely"?

>>7946915
because I'm an idiot who can't spell.

Which minority are the dirtiest: Asians, Hispanics, or Blacks?

>>7946919
That makes you the filthiest of them all.

My old boss grew up in nazi controlled Warsaw. He'll refuse to throw out anything

What are some of the more subtle health violations that most people wouldn't be aware of?

is there a way for the average person to know whether or not the place their eating is clean or not??

Is it easy and worthwhile to transition from working the line to working for the health department (assuming you're not a complete idiot)?

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>>7948303

Lot of less sexy violations. Unprotected sewage lines is a big one that almost every restaurant gets written up for (unwrapped pipes above food contact area). Most places have no idea what pipes do what and how they need to cover them, but it's a serious issue because the right condensate can get people really sick. On a similar line, places often don't install vacuum breakers or proper backflow devices. Also many have incorrect PPM's for chlorine in the sanitation area.

Another one that people aren't always aware of is almost every ice machine is covered in mold. It contaminates drinking ice and is a serious issue that most establishments choose to ignore.

Ton of construction violations as well (holes, cracks, crevices, puddles, chips, non-shatterproof bulbs, wrong signs up etc).

>>7949119

Not really. In the city I work in, maybe 50% of establishments get A's on the actual inspection, but 93% of places in the city have A's because they all go to tribunal, where the restaurant almost always wins. The more profitable places get better representation in tribunal as well, so don't trust a nice place or a chain on its face - I once dealt with a very popular upscale BBQ place (three locations in the city, people on this board constantly recommend it) that got a C on their inspection (it's REALLY hard to get a C, you have to be gross af), then went to tribunal with a highly-paid rep and got it upgraded to an A. Super common occurrence.

>>7949137

Easy in the sense that you have basic food safety knowledge, which is basically what I went in with from cooking. Biggest help would be if you were re food safety certified and had some sort of background in foodborne illness. Honestly though, if you're not a complete idiot, it's not a terribly difficult place to work, depending on what you want to do - most inspectors just go to a few restaurants and point out obvious stuff, letting the nit-picky stuff slide.

>>7946843
>on a slice of cardboard at the top of the fridge. the cardboard slice was covered in blood and meat juices. on the shelf directly below they were storing ice cream for their desserts, with the lids off. there was visible blood in the ice cream that had been dripping down from the top of the fridge. the ice cream was almost empty because customers for the last month or so had been scarfing down blood meat ice cream. that shit was probably the nastiest

This kind of shit triggers me the most. Not the bugs, not the hair in my food, and not the food that's maybe a few degrees off from storage temp.

Cross contamination is the worst. Especially when it's that brazen. I wish further disciplinary action could be taken against that kind of negligence.

>Ctrl+F bribe
>Ctrl+F grease
>>7946810
Were you ever offered a bribe?
Did you take it?
Were your fellow employees ever offered a bribe?
Did they take it?

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>>7949314

I wasn't, and inspectors generally are not (at least not beyond the offering of food or drink during inspection, which happens literally all the time and inspectors just laugh at. oh, also awkward "buddy buddy" shoulder rub and pats during inspections). Taking a bribe would be too risky most of the time, and the people who would be offering know this; the inspector is out in public with cameras and a ton of witnesses (inspectors give people the grade/summons at the end of inspection, so they don't have any interaction or control beyond the inspection).

Most of the rumored high-value corruption is within the tribunals (where restaurants litigate their grades). Tribunal judges are part-time and only make like $25/hour, with no benefits. They also have almost no oversight/accountability. Those two factors combined create a real lack of motivation to do the job right. Never had any concrete proof, but when establishments have every charge dismissed without good cause, you wonder.

>>7949655
Easy way to fight that corruption: the judge has to eat a three course meal at every place they upgrade to an A.

>>7949221
That looks fucking tasty

>>7946810
why won't you let me use a residential refrigerator or freezer?

>>7946810

What's the strangest violation you've seen on the job? Not the grossest or most egregious, but just something where you couldn't fathom what could have possibly led them to do whatever they did.

>>7946810
do you look above drop ceilings?

The boss is gonna have a fucking fit if we get below a 90, but we will almost certainly get below a 90 because no one cleans anything, and it certainly won't be me that does it.
What if I get a hooker to give you a good tug in the bathroom, would you just let us pass then?

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>>7949757

all about that papaya

>>7949812

usually res fridges/freezers means shit temperature control (fluctuates, warms dangerously quick when open, spotty cooling). also the inner surfaces are often not commercial-grade, i.e. don't resist bacteria as well. but to be fair, especially for smaller places, the whole "no res equipment" standard is kind of a bullshit side effect of needing one size fits all rules

>>7950089

there are definitely some things restaurants do that are just confusing. one place had the required employee bathroom no smoking sign sitting inside the sink. like a large steel sign, covering the handwash sink drain, smack in the middle. we asked how the sink was supposed to be used. apparently employees were taking the sign out every time they washed their hands, holding it with one hand while washing, and then putting it back. the thing was covered in rust. nobody in the restaurant could explain why it wasn't put on the wall. it had been that way for so long nobody knew who started it or why it was the standard.

we caught one fancy af restaurant canning liver puree in the basement with non-commercial grade equipment. they panicked and said it wasn't for consumption; it was for decoration for the restaurant. said they needed to seal it to keep the smell away. mind you, liver puree is not the most attractive substance. we had to come back a week or so later for a followup inspection, and sure enough, cans of thick liver paste lining the decorative walls. all to avoid like a $400 fine that they probably could have gotten dismissed in tribunal.

>>7950104

nah, other departments may for other inspections, but the only time we fuck with the ceilings is if we see an obvious crack or gap that could be conducive to pests, at which point we'd check to see where it goes. if theres no holes your weed stash is safe.

>>7950136

how clean is the bathroom

Do you take bribes? And if so, for how much?|

My mother, a bio teacher, never has ice in her drink because of the inevitable slime mold. Slime mold facts are one of my favorite thing to explain to the uninitiated-- just happily prattling on about their efficiency and locomotive abilities while the other person's face just gets more and more grossed out is hilarious. Most of my friends don't get ice anymore either.

Does slime mold also tend to exist in those aluminum tea drums? When I was a waiter, we cleaned them daily, but you never know...

>>7946810
My knowledge of Asians and particular Chinese behavior leads me to believe that that they are more likely to be complete fucks when it comes to health standards.

For the most part I suspect all restaurants run by 1st generation Asians to be suspect until proven otherwise, how validated am I in this mindset?

I also don't trust chain establishments run mostly by blacks or hispanics for the same reason.

>>7946859
>>7946888
>>7946913
I always worry that it's cooked in gutter oil made of sewage and expired animal fat