CHINA’S FOOD INSPECTION RATING SYSTEM

If you have ever dined in a Chinese Restaurant…

You may have noticed a food safety inspection rating on the wall inside the restaurant. This rating is supposed to alert diners the sanitary levels of that particular restaurant.

There are three ratings:

Smiley Face (usually green) means the restaurant has passed food inspection with flying colors
Expressionless face (usually yellow) means the restaurant has passed but with minor infractions
Sad / Angry face (usually red) means the restaurant has failed miserably against food safety standards

The food inspectors are to evaluate the restaurants on the following (source):

Their personnel management records
The overall shop environment
The facilities and equipment
The food ingredients and food served
The food preparation operations
Tableware disinfection
Any food additives
How food is served (kitchen -> table)
How food is transported to the kitchen
Taste and quality of food served (they must sample the menu)

This is a good way to know if the food you are eating is safe.

So when our local tour guide took us to this breakfast place called 粿然李记粿汁 I fully trusted there is no issues with sanitation here, and that they would have passed the food safety inspection standards without any problem.

Then I saw their food safety rating:

………….

…………

At least the food was good…

The dish that we had contains some weird texture that is similar to noodles. I was also told it was quite bland.I wouldn’t know. I added fucking beef to my bowl so it was flavorful as fuck. Was told by my father this is a really popular Chaozhou dish. He also enjoyed it so that’s a good thing.
Yeh the above dish might not look appetizing, but it’s damn delicious. It consists of:
- Eggs
- Pig Intestines (its good)
- Tofu (I think)
Overall, this went very well with our bland noodle like dish (except for mine, my dish was full of flavors yo!)

Even though this place got an unsatisfactory grade….

I was not too worried about it. This IS China after all.

I even saw Starbucks with a needs improvement grade. So yeah, either the food safety standards here is super high, or things are just dirty in general in China.

Whatever, I survived.