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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To not want to eat food from restaurants, cafés or take always that have less than a five star hygiene rating?

79 replies

HangingBasketCase · 02/10/2014 22:53

Since it's become compulsory to display the hygiene ratings in windows I've found myself becoming more and more choosy about where I eat. I have relatives who work in the catering industry and run a pretty successful business, they have five stars. According to them it's not hard to get the perfect rating, most of it's basic common sense, anyone falling short is just being lax and sloppy.

I used to eat fairly regularly at pub place near my home, it's a very busy chain place but it's only got a 4 star hygiene rating and I'm avoiding it now. I can't understand how they fell short when my local backstreet takeaway has managed to get 5 stars? Despite having the signs displayed everywhere the pub is always packed with families. I don't get it?

I'm not particularly anal about food, but I do want to eat somewhere in the knowledge that the food has been prepared to a high standard of hygiene.

OP posts:

BlueBrightBlue · 03/10/2014 10:06

I refuse to eat off a chopping board.

Beats my how you are not allowed to prepare food on one in a commercial kitchen but can serve food on one.

DifferentCountrySameShit · 03/10/2014 10:19

You need to apply a bit of common sense to the ratings and not take them on face value!
The rating shows what they achieved at the point in time they were last inspected and while a 5 score is a good indicator of good practice it is no guarantee!!! A kitchen can be spotless but if they have made a mistake on any of the records they will be marked down. My brother is a chef and has recently done some agency shifts at a hotel (four star hotel national chain) with a 5 rating - the kitchen was filthy, so bad he took photos and refused to ever work there again.

If you were happy eating at the pub before I would carry on doing so - use the score as a guide and not the be all and end all!!!!

GhoulWithADragonTattoo · 03/10/2014 10:19

I do look for the hygiene rating (my mum used to work in the industry and administered the hygiene check for her employer) and would be reluctant to go anywhere that didn't have at least a 4 start rating. My DC's old nursery had a 4 star rating and the food was great and the reason it wasn't 5 was something to do with paperwork so I thought that was OK.

MiuChoos · 03/10/2014 10:23

One of our local take-aways has a 0 rating! 0!!! What the heck do they have to do to score a big fat zilch?!

GhoulWithADragonTattoo · 03/10/2014 10:24

I have just looked up the hygiene rating for my DC's school and it is 5* awarded in June 2014. Great you think. Except that the school has built a new kitchen over the summer and it wasn't operational until September 2014 (previously they used to bring food in from a nearby school so had no kitchen). How does that work then? Makes me more suspicious that the testing isn't very rigourous.

GhoulWithADragonTattoo · 03/10/2014 10:24

The kitchen didn't even exist in June 2014 when the 5 * rating was given is what I mean.

samesizetoes · 03/10/2014 10:28

The hygiene rating is like an MOT. A kitchen may receive 5 stars because it passed the test on that day but it doesn't mean it fit for purpose any other day of the year. Paperwork may well show due diligence but it doesn't mean it is hygienic 6 weeks down the line after inspection.

momb · 03/10/2014 10:37

I do look at the ratings for carveries and buffets because it's important that they take the turnover of food seriously and I know not all do.

We used to get takeaway delivered fropm a place with 5 stars and I popped in to collect once....never ordered from them again!

In short, I trust my own eyes rather then the stars for most things.

FreakinScaryCaaw · 03/10/2014 10:39

My exdh got food poisoning from a kebab shop, twice! Why would you go back? This was years ago when he was young.

flowery · 03/10/2014 10:39

Good grief the chip shop two doors down from me has a 1 rating...bleurgh. Will be getting my pie and chips from the one in town this evening!

We normally do that anyway as it tastes nicer, but have been known to go to the one here if the other one has run out of pie.

unlucky83 · 03/10/2014 10:41

Sometimes you can't do anything about giving someone food poisoning
I used to be a chef ...and I gave two customers salmonella. After the investigation I came out of it with flying colours - I couldn't have prevented it (Duck livers already contaminated, customer ordered them pink). I was proud of myself. If I had done anything slightly 'wrong' I could potentially have poisoned the 30 others who had duck livers and if I had been sloppy even more...people who hadn't eaten the livers.
We didn't have ratings but we did have paperwork...one thing was evidence of checking the fridge temperatures several times a day with a probe. I've never worked in a kitchen where these weren't made up to some extent - didn't mean you didn't keep an eye on the fridge temps or they weren't checked every morning etc but often not recorded (just filled the sheets in randomly every few days, with different pens) ...
During the investigation I couldn't lay my hands on the old sheets (EHO wanted older than 6 months ones) - forgotten where I'd filed them! - that would have been it - I would have been fined...luckily he was stood next to me when I did remember which filing cabinet they were in and he witnessed me pulling them out...
Also later I started working (it was temporary thing - their head chef had walked) in a restaurant with a mouse infestation. When I went it was horrendous, surfaces covered in mouse crap in the morning, half eaten vegetables in the store etc - it took me a month to get it nearly under control. But EHO were 'happy' - even before I started - because the restaurant had a Rentokill contract and they came out and put poison down every so often...

Original poster

HangingBasketCase · 03/10/2014 10:42

MiuChoos there's an all you can eat Chinese place near me that also had a 0 rating, this was of no surprise to the people who'd ate there because it was vile. They were given so many weeks to improve or be closed down, they then managed to then get 2 stars so are still open but I won't ever eat there now.

OP posts:

FuckOffFerret · 03/10/2014 10:54

I'd eat at a 4.

at eating at a 1.

serennu · 03/10/2014 11:07

I always check the hygiene ratings of where I eat, even check on the supermarkets. my family take the piss out of my slight obsession with it!

Stampysladygarden · 03/10/2014 13:33

Sometimes the website they are on isn't updated properly.

I have four stars because although we only sell prepackaged food, our hand basin isn't close enough. Nothing to do with hygiene or cleanliness simply distance.

raltheraffe · 03/10/2014 21:00

are you Jo from Netmums? saw you on a cached copy of the Mumsnet Amy thread. I am ex NM (got banned for 3 months) will be returning when my time is up

Smugfearnleyshittingstool · 03/10/2014 21:04

My coffee shop has 4, unless the toilet area is fully re plastered and wired we can't get more, landlords are not likely to contribute towards those costs soon so we will have to put up with 4. Paperwork must be spot on to get 4. 3 is certainly clean enough for me to eat in.

DreamerOfStars · 03/10/2014 23:05

The thing is a 5 might not still be a 5, but a 1 or 2* has definitely been a 1 or 2...

whatsagoodusername · 03/10/2014 23:19

I think YANBU, but you are being very unrealistic if you want to eat out much.

AgaPanthers · 04/10/2014 01:27

I don't really give a fuck. We are not living in Sub-Saharan Africa, where it might be useful, or India.

I eat anywhere, I survive.

If the chef didn't wash his hands after taking a shit, well better that I don't know.

combust22 · 04/10/2014 07:12

It would never cross my mind to check the hygiene rating of somewhere I ate.

I have eaten in some pretty basic places - street food in Bangkok, vendors grilling on the beach in Bali, home farms in Sri Lanka- never had tummy trouble. I use my eyes to judge.

VivaLeBeaver · 04/10/2014 07:19

Pub in the village has a 0 because the landlady lets her dog in the kitchen. Everything else is fine.

Doesn't bother me. My dog comes in my kitchen.

LosingAllTheLego · 04/10/2014 07:23

It's insane to take this rating as gospel rather than actual experience, for all the reasons already stated.

My local hospital has a 5 and it is a fucking hovel. I wouldn't even have a glass of water there. Because it's in a hospital the paperwork will be bang on, and it's a purpose built unit etc. But it's minging!

LosingAllTheLego · 04/10/2014 07:35

Also there's a retail park in my town that has rats. You sometimes see them in bright daylight running around. (The canal runs alongside the retail park so maybe that's why??)

All the food establishments there have 5 stars. I drove past the McDonald's there a few months ago and there was a massive rat Sat under one of their picnic benches.

I couldn't be paid to eat there!

combust22 · 04/10/2014 07:41

losing- just as well you don't live in London then. You'd never eat out.

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