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

[HangingBasketCase]

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.

If there's tons of rats running round the streets in broad daylight then I wouldn't want to live in London!

I know there's rats everywhere, but when they're so brazen and in the open It's a bit worse for me ??

When I was considering doing cakes commercially I had the council inspector come around - he sat at the table of my (gleaming) kitchen, did not look inside the (spotless) fridge or cooker, talked vaguely about using anti-bac washing up liquid (which I already did), said he didn't need to see my food hygiene cert, said for what I was planning it wasn't worth doing the regular fridge testing etc. and left after a chat about how I kept my ingredients (he didn't actually look at any of my airtight containers).

I then got a 3* rating and an accompanying letter to say it wasn't higher because of paperwork and my appliances weren't stainless steel.

I have to say it didn't fill me with confidence about the standard of inspection given!

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.

well, surely in those cases you could also see the food being cooked? Most restaurants in the UK don't let you see the food being cooked fresh do they?

One of the best places I have ever eaten was in Thailand. It was basically some plastic patio chairs and tables on a patch of wasteland next to someone's house with cooler boxes of beer. The food was cooked in the house and was amazing! We were the only non Thais there, which I took as a decent sign.