Publicizing Restaurant Cleanliness

According to this article, in New York City, restaurants will…

soon will share some common ground — a letter-based A, B or C — grading system aimed at informing diners about cleanliness and food safety.

And it has some restaurateurs worried that restaurants that earn a B or a C will go out of business as diners flock to the competitor with an A in the window.

Um, well, yeah.

This grading system is not a bad thing.

If you have to question and worry as to whether or not your restaurant and its kitchen is A-grade quality, then it is not A-grade quality.

David Chang says,

“It is our goal always to get an A.  If we don’t get an A, we fail.”

This publicizing of restaurant cleanliness is not a bad thing, and it is not a new thing.  I remember being in Toronto a few months back and noticing that all restaurants have a mandatory sign posted on the front, indicating if after inspection, the restaurant was a “Pass”, “Conditional Pass” or “Closed” in terms of cleanliness and food safety.

David Chang on what Chafes his Ass

“I don’t watch him, but Guy Fieri… [cooking is] not fucking sunglasses and that stupid fucking armband. If you ever caught me in my home kitchen like that… throw me down a set of stairs.” 

If you know me, you know my position on Guy Fieri.  

It’s the same as this guy’s (see above.) 

David Chang on Bitching in his Restaurant

“I always want to rate restaurants, like movies get rated – PG-13; NC-17.  We’d get an adult rating – an R, which means no babies, no one who’s going to complain about the music, no special requests.” 

Momofuku Cereal Milk

As much as I am an admirer of Momofuku Milk Bar and its concept, the idea of cereal milk repulses me.  

Cereal milk at Momofuku is made by toasting corn flakes and steeping them in milk, then draining the concoction.  It’s supposed to bring back memories of eating cereal as a kid then drinking the milk left in your bowl afterwards.  

I didn’t know kids like to do this.  I think I was in shock, with my chin dropped down to the floor when I read about cereal milk. Is this for real? People like this?  This was probably my least favourite thing about eating cereal. Leftover milk.  Too much milk with last bites of cereal.  Even eating a spoonful of cereal that has an unbalanced milk to cereal ratio is barely tolerated. 

When I was little, my waste-not-want-not mother demanded that I drink the milk leftover in my cereal bowl.  I was always incredibly grossed out by this; warm, weirdly tangy sweet milk, unwillingly sliding down my throat from the bowl held to my mouth.  

Apparently now a huge corporation has snatched this idea up, and has begun to make it in cans too. 

When I eat cereal today, I put the minimal amount of milk in my bowl as possible.  I like my last bite of cereal to coincide with my last spoonful of milk.  If this doesn’t happen, last bites of cereal and last splashes of milk go down the drain.  Sorry, mom.  Banished are the days of having to drink cereal milk – I’d never voluntarily do that. 

Another example of how memories associated with foods strongly shape your taste perceptions.  And your gag reflex.