If food safety is your priority when dining out in China…..
Then you should get the fuck out!
Unless you are eating at some fine dining restaurant, food safety will always be an issue in China.
Our dining experience at 长平肥姐 in Shantou is a perfect representation of the food safety issues in China.
# 1 – The restaurant just doesn’t look clean
Just look at the entrance of the restaurant:
Who dares to come in?
I think most of my foreigner friends probably won’t.
Heck even I was a bit hesitant coming here. And I’ve been to a lot ghetto Chinese places.
# 2 – The standards of handling food is not there.
People don’t seem to have a proper standard when it comes to handling food. I don’t even know if the chef washes their hands here after going to the washroom.
Similary, at 长平肥姐the food was just lying there getting a fucking tan, like a damn boss.
Yeah seriously, have a look at the food that we were ordering:
Not sure if the flies had the first bite at this but whatever…
# 3 – You don’t know clean the bowls, plates and chop sticks are
Have you ever seen dishes being washed in a Chinese restaurant?
I have.
It was not pretty.
These ghetto places hires this 70 year old women to “clean” your utensils. And by clean, they literally just rinse it with hot water. Not even sure if they use soap.
And I am sure they use the same bucket to wash all the plates…..
That being said, local places are still the way to go.
They just simply offer a kick ass dining experience.
A local experience you will get no where else.
Further these kind of places like 长平肥姐 simply offer kick ass delicious food.
You just need to learn to ignore all the other food safety signs haha.
An interesting note about Shantou – people seems to eat quite early here. We arrived at 730 and most of the food were gone already? Damn man!
Written from Hong Kong, Home on April 7, 2018
EAT SOME CHOI 
100% the hot water chopsticks “cleaning”…and the rag they use to clean the table they use ubiquitously for all spills…. But you gotta build your immunities:) Some real gems in these hole-in-the-wall restaurants.
Haha definitely. Thats why i feel like western society has so much more illnesses…we weak man!
And don’t forget the chef’s beads of sweat sprinkled on the food. I thought all that you mentioned added to the taste.
Hahah. Maybe the bead of sweat was the main secret ingredient!