Monday, October 8, 2007

We discussed a theory about Asian grocery stores a few months ago, and I’m loathe to say it’s been next to impossible getting it published in any respectable journal because the theory–that such stores are shitnasty–rides completely on anecdotal evidence. Now I’ve got some hard data for you: the sanitation rating for this particular store? Eighty-five-point-oh. Let me explain the significance.

Here in North Carolina, every dining establishment boasts a score dispensed on a scale of 70.0-100.0, with anything below 70.0 leading to automatic closure. 95-plus is kosher, and scoring above 97 is a testament to sterility. Low 90’s hint at minor culinary indiscretions, such as your angel hair pasta containing an actual hair from Angel. Go below 90, especially around the mid-80’s, and the line cook willfully sheds into the cheddar fries, soup tureens are routinely mistaken for chamber pots, and the floor doubles as a wok.

Perhaps I’m alone on this, but when I worked in foodservice I made damn sure those burgers and pancakes were flipped with pride and a frickin’ chef’s hat planted firmly on my head. It’s this idea of quality control, or more precisely the lack thereof, that drives me nuts. But the free marketplace has spoken, and if you wrap a turd in tin foil at the Most Honorable Shack of Forbidden Values and Heavy Eatings, well, it sells.