It’s uncovered so Flies, or a passing stray could either eat, or piss on it. Food uncovered and left unrefrigerated more than 1.5hrs, is totally illegal
I'm a health inspector and I've seen worse and continue to eat out at those locations.
However, kebab meat is risky AF because no kebab shop handle it in accordance with the guidelines.
Can you share how kebab meat is meant to be handled versus how they typically do?
I can see how chicken is pretty risky, I typically never get chicken, but surely lamb/beef/mystery meat is slightly safer?
Ok so most kebab shops get their meat pre-made on the spit and freeze it. Best practice would be to defrost the meat fully in the cool-room over 1-2 days and then cook it. If the entire spit isn't used in one day the remainder should be cooked and shaved to be cooled In the fridge for use the next day. Shaved spit meat should always be grilled.
Most kebab shops just take it out of the freezer and start cooking it straight from frozen. This results in the outside being hot, the inside being frozen and the middle nice and like warm ideal for bacterial growth. As above Most kebab shops don't go through a whole spit on one day and just take the hot spit off and put it in the cool room over night and bring it out the next day further allowing for bacterial growth through the cooling process. All of the above can create a perfect storm for bacterial growth to get to a point where it can't be effectively killed through additional cooking.
I have worked in a kebab shop and can confirm that is what we used to usually do, 30-40kg meat straight from the freezer onto the rotisserie when opening up shop and then for closing once the flames are turned off and the meat is comfortable enough to touch it's wrapped in plastic and chucked back in the freezer.
I hadn't thought about how there's a nice and cozy zone where it's the ideal temperature for bacteria to grow inside before now.
I suspect that this is exactly what happened that one time I was opening up shop and one of the chickens smelled really funky when it came out of the freezer and started to get cooked.
That being said now about 3-5 of the 40kg chicken is kept in the coolroom to defrost overnight.
Out of curiosity, is there anything mentioned regarding safety when it comes to lifting up those heavy meats? Most warehouse jobs I've seen mention 10-20kg as the heaviest weight a person might have to lift but these meats at the kebab shop are nearly half as heavy as I am and from what I've seen there is very little in the way of guidance for lifting and manoeuvring them about.
Used to work at a supermarket with an in-house butcher. The meat delivery guys would bring in huge sides of beef over their shoulder, walking down the tiny steps on the back of their truck and into our storeroom. Think they must have been maybe 80-100kg. Seems like OH&S has completely skipped some areas lol.
I use to scaffold and picking up 3m stars would be like 20kg each, people were taking up to 6 of them at a time, OH&S misses a lot of areas because people everywhere wanna get stuff done faster, cant blame OH&S for people who don’t care
Yeah, my father is a butcher, has been since he started apprenticing in his teens (he's nearly sixty now), he got a hernia years ago and it was assumed it was from all the heavy lifting of beef sides and the like. It's expected of you in the meat industry, my partner worked for Harvey Beef and they had him pushing beef carcasses on his own even after he twisted his ankle.
One of the regular delivery drivers that delivered to us was a big islander guy, tall and strong as anything. One day some other guy showed up instead of him - because he'd fallen over coming down the tiny steps of the truck (carrying a side or something) and broken his neck. They guy was paralysed and we never saw him again.
My mate worked for cokesworth as a butcher had to go on conpo and got a reasonable pay out because of a shoulder injury he received working for them doing this
Had the falafel one a few weeks back and was sick for 10 days straight (1 day of vomiting, 3 days of barely eating and the rest feeling low-level shithouse).
Never again
I had the worst food poisoning of my life from a falafel kebab. I still get nauseated walking past a kebab shop 20 years later. They always seem so grimey.
This thread has reminded me someone I know who works at Coles said the owner from the Chinese restaurant in their shopping centre’s food court had been caught going through the bins at Coles for thrown out chicken. Did not make me eat at that Chinese place any less though.
Hazardous manual tasks such as heavy lifting are the responsibility of the shop owner to educate employees on. WHS Act being the relevant legislation. This includes demonstrating correct methods to lift or implementing controls that reduce risk to the individual. Though I’m not surprised this may not have occurred.
Last time I heard about lifting weight regulations it would vary from person to person because it's "what is ok for you" by Work Health and Safety standards (this was in WA before we adopted the national OHS though)
Companies often max out around 15-20kg in their policy to cover themselves. But if you can lift 30kg fine and safely then go for it. If you personally cap out at 35kg then feel free to ask for help. Or even other way, if you cap out at 15kg then ask for help.
I do deliveries and quickly discovered there is a wide range of what "too heavy" is for people. Some have said 20kg is too heavy while I can do that on one arm.
Office supply warehouse I used to work at I think 30kg was the "get help" limit. A box of 5 reams of paper was 25kg and we all would move those 2 at a time all the time fine
Tl;dr figure out your personal safe lifting limit, don't be afraid to ask for help
Not to mention the fact that there is absolutely no way to cool such a chunk of meat in the recommended time without the use of a blast chiller.
However, this goes for certain items in most restaurants. There is no way to cool a 20L or even a 10L bucket of sauce/soup/stock.
However, the risk does seem low for these, and the food safety guidelines are on the extreme end.
Worked in mining with tablets and Bluetooth probe thermometers. Everything had to be done to temp start to finish or thrown away. We had to break food down to shallow trays on trollies wheeled into a freezer.
Eye opening experience!
I can tell you it wasn't for us when they rolled out. When you're actively monitoring food properly, you could give yourself some grace period with paperwork but not with the tablet system. It became almost a full-time job for an entire shift, but we shared the job around with 3 tablets used by the whole team.
Some of it was just a waste of time also.
Eg: Rice starting temp and finish temp.
Rice is either cooked or not. It only makes sense when moving to hot holding start temp and onwards.
But there is no way lamb shanks I've served in many restaurants or pie mixes were cooled properly. But again, it was low risk, and nobody ever got sick.
I can imagine minesites more so than anywhere else, if there was a major food poisoning outbreak among staff it could drastically affect the bottom line. I consider myself to be a pragmatic health inspector, I do concede some of it is a bit overboard.
I think most health inspectors are pretty good unless you have complaints or serious issues. It's also your job to find at least a few things.
You are right about the bottom line, also the fact they take the cooled down food for lunch, keep it in thier rooms bar fridge, transport it to work, store it in whatever they have there, heat it in whatever they have there. There is a lot of room for bacterial growth after the food leaves the dining room.
We had to throw out anything that was prepped 3 days prior if not used for this reason.
Yes. There was a kebab chain in Sydney a few years ago that gave a huge number of customers food poisoning. Still around though although not sure if their practices have improved
Now I was under the impression if it’s frozen and the put it on the spit, as long as it cooks quickly enough(meaning they have enough customers to pump out ALL the meat on a whole frozen spit within a 2-4 hrs), and once done they throw the left over or as you said cook it all down, then that would be fine?
When defrosting and cooking mince you have a certain amount of time you need to actually cook it before you hit the sweet ass spot for bacteria to grow like crazy.
This highlights a general issue with corporatization in general.
Coles & Woolies do heaps of shit wrong too. You're given the guidelines and are instructed (but staffers don't actually follow the guidelines because they're understaffed and overworked).
Then you get health & safety or JASOL come in once a year, and we're given fair notice because the sister stores call in advance and forewarn us that the inspectors are *''in the area''* so be vigilant.
Generally, when neighboring stores give you that warning you know you're likely to be inspected within the day if not then the week. So for that entire one week of the year your store is on its best behavior, appropriately staffing, and following the guidelines until they inspector shows up.
Then they go back to not following the rules and being understaffed for the next 51 weeks of the year.
There used to be a chippy in Glebe that gave you diarrhoea 90% of the time. Me and my housemates just accepted it and if anyone got constipated from our diet of booze and meat we’d go there like going to a doctor for a prescription 😂
not op but there is meant to be a kill step, where they take the cut meat and chuck it on a hot grill and flip it for a bit to guarantee bacteria is killed (either because it was sliced from a not cooked enough portion of the meat roll, or it was cut earlier and has been sitting).
Then there would be handling issues while wrapping the kebab (eg clean hands).
heat kills bacteria but it wont remove the toxins that the bacteria has created. endotoxins need 250c to kill them so i doubt that last step will do much. contamination from being low to the ground and dirty hands is a factor but the main factor is having high risk foods in the "danger zone"
Sometimes, my friends tell me to fuck off with my work stories when we're eating out.
Food law in Australia is very conservative and so even a business doesn't comply to the letter of the law it's likely going to be okay.
As an anecdote one of my favourite restaurants in Perth has a semi open kitchen. I saw them preparing/chopping veges on plastic bags in the floor. On principal I should continue to eat there.... But they are so fucking tasty and I'm a sucker for punishment.
Another funny story is my friend took me to a chicken and rice place in the city touting it as some of the best chicken rice he's ever had. I told him straight up that my spidey senses were tingling just off seeing the dining room decor alone (drab cool room panneling which had yellowed) and I didn't trust it. A few weeks later, he ordered takeout, got home cockroach in the food. I felt so vindicated.
My son is a chef, he is so fussy about where he eats out or gets take away. sometimes we walk in places and he’s only in for a few minutes and he’s like, nope, not here.
Yeah I flat out refuse to eat at your suberban Asian/indian restaurants. They are more often than not sub par.
I'll always happily eat at a chain fast food restaurant though. They are so tightly controlled. People who claim they got food poisoning from a McDonald's/HJs/KFC etc are usually wrong.
Hmm where to start....
Shortly after a new story broke about a deli owner putting their semen in a bottle of water, we received a complaint about a person who asserted that a Chinese restaurant had put cum in their rice. Our first question was how do you know... the guy dead pan "said i know what cum tastes like" (it was a false allegation)
Ive seen more cockroaches than you can imagine crawling in/out of/around cooking equipment mid service and the workers just go on their merry way as if there is no problem.
Went into someones house and there was human faeces on every surface of the kitchen. With the sink full of empty cat food tins
I investigated an odour complaint where an entire residential block could smell sewage (think like a 250 m radius. Turns out an appartment complex which was completed but then possessed by the bank had been unoccupied for 6 months straight and all the toilets and P-traps had evaporated out venting sewer direct into 30 apartments. I wish i i never experienced that smell.
A bit more mundane but, a lunch bar was just defrosting chicken in a bucket out side in the rain.
And last one to top it off a cook in a wok-in-a-box knock off accidentally chopped his thumb off. In the painic all the staff covered the ready to go take away food... The thumb couldnt be located and you can guess where it ended up and how it was discovered (just like in the movies ;) )
That's just a few that stand out from my near 7 year career
>And last one to top it off a cook in a wok-in-a-box knock off accidentally chopped his thumb off. In the painic all the staff covered the ready to go take away food... The thumb couldnt be located and you can guess where it ended up and how it was discovered (just like in the movies ;) )
Well for the lucky customer who found it, at least it would stand out like a sore thumb
There was an Indian restaurant in Melbourne that was hugely popular. They had photos all over the walls with the owner and local & international cricketers. The guy got busted for multiple food safety violations. It was so bad he was banned for years from running a restaurant, then when the ban was over he reapplied and was refused a licence. During the ban his wife left him and he ended up living upstairs in the closed restaurant.
I am fascinated.
I have an ultra sensitive nose for mouse piss as my parents ran a bakery for a while during my teens. Sometimes I’d turn a bread roll over and couldn’t be entirely sure if what I was seeing was a mouse turd or a chocolate sprinkle. My mother’s solution was to get 2 bakery cats. What’s your take on bakery cats? One of them met their unfortunate demise in the external fan of the walk-in freezer. Twas a warm place to go in winter :(
Anyhoo, if I walk into a place and smell mouse piss - I walk out.
you should also make friends with a nurse, preferably an ER nurse, they have amazing stories
Also army guys have some funny fucked up stories, navy guys can be hit and miss, most stories are about "their friend" in SE asia etc
Cops can have some good stories, problem is finding one that isnt up his own ass on a power trip, detectives are usually a little more grounded then uniformed cops. Forget AFP, everything is "I cant talk about it" or anything, honestly it just feels like the most boring govt job in the country
The cop in the ACT I chatted with at a work party, he was husband to someone I briefly worked with, all, ALL he went on about, was how much pot he smoked.
If you're curious and nosy like me, you can pore through the 900-something food penalty notices website for a lark :-) very interesting to see what places have received penalties, and oh boy - some of the fines are eye watering!
https://www.foodauthority.nsw.gov.au/offences/penalty-notices
Here's the victorian one: https://www.health.vic.gov.au/food-safety/food-safety-register-of-convictions
First on the list is an $6,500 fine with such jolly violations as:
> Standard 3.2.2, clause 24(1)(c) – did fail to take all practicable measures to eradicate and prevent the harbourage of pests on the food premises and those parts of vehicles that are used to transport food
My brother worked at maccas in his younger days. A story he told me always stuck in my mind. He was making a cheesburger and dropped the patty on the floor and picked it up. His manager yelled 'good catch'.
Did it stop me from going maccas? Hell no. When you eat out just expect shit to not be as sanitary as you would have it at home.
I generally agree with the chains, except I once got sick from opportos north parramatta, really sick for about a week
I didnt eat anything until I ate it for lunch and was sick by afternoon. It had a sour hint to it, but if you get a bondi burger it has lemon grass in the chilli and I always get extra chilli
used to love it, didnt eat there for 10 years and it also fucked up my NYE as the doc said no drinking, so here is me probably the only one sober in the city. I dont know how people can take their kids in, having to deal with the drunks, the crowds and then trying to catch a train home.
Try the Colac Macca's, every burger is stale. I don't think country towns get the same rate of deliveries. Same goes for the local subway, thought the bread was at least fresh, but last I tried was so dried out it was crumbling like a stale biscuit. No issues in the suburbs and city though.
My daughter worked at a maccas. They only cleaned the ice cream bins out when they were warned it was necessary. There’s a hungry jacks near me that I’ve walked in, seen the kitchen and walked out. A few years later I worked with someone who was given weekend manager at 15 and said the place was gross. And a ton more bad stuff.
> ...one of my favourite restaurants in Perth has a semi open kitchen
On that note, one of my all time fave Chinese places is this place called Wok'd in Pakenham, Melb. They're kitchen is fully viewable, with perspex or whatever all round and you can see *exactly* what they're all doing! The food is top notch.
But lets be honest, its a processed meat. Very few kebab shops do real kebab meat from stacked meat slices. These are gigantic sausages that come from a factory that has plenty of preservatives, sulphur dioxide and other things to make the meat safe. It is a requirement in law that any processed meat must have these preservatives added to them to prevent botulism. Its only whole raw meat that cant have these preservatives added to them which is committing crime despite numerous butchers using this technique to extend shelf life and freshen up their meat with that nice red glow! They love doing it to the rump steaks that are always on special! You could probably leave that kebab sausage out for a couple of days or more before it would even begin to go off. No different to any processed deli meat or sausages.
Second this, I worked in commercial refrigeration for quiet some time.
The amount of seemingly nice restaurants with a very unhygienic back end would shock people.
I remember starting in kitchens as a dishy and to this day I will never eat in a restaurant 🤣 I've seen health inspectors walk into places I know should be shut down and pass them with flying colours 🤢
I worked at a busy tourist place with a cafe and the owners I worked for kept that cafe so freaking spotless, it was impressive. It also had a huge window so anyone ordering could see right in. The health inspector used to come there for coffee and scones, despite us being slightly out of town.
My friend who trained there and ended.uo running the cafe couldn't stand working in most other cafes she went to after she moved on from that job. She just got out of hospitality altogether.
I’ve just gotten into the pest control industry and I come across so many restaurants where I have no idea how they are still running. And not just from a pest perspective, but from general hygiene.
My brother in law is a fridgy and he is constantly telling us about all the revolting kitchens he sees. It has definitely cut down on our options for places to eat out.
Worked at Maccas and have seen kitchens of some proper restaurants that charge you upwards of $50 per meal. Can confirm that Maccas standards are wayyyy higher and maintained than most independant shops
Whatever aforementioned spew and floor scum you've cleaned up in the bucket – tip 'er into the master stock pot and cook it off. Use as stock base for gravy for chippies. Serve.
If this turns you off from eating there, boy oh boy you should see the state of some kitchens in Melbourne. Have done service work in close to a hundred kitchens from top end to average kitchens, these joints sure look clean on the surface but are far from it. Mouse shit, roaches, old grease under every bench or counter you name it, most kitchens will just wipe the bench and leave
I did a hospo course in Melbourne. After doing stuff on food safety they sent us to observe the food handling in the local food court for a few hours. No one ate at the food court for weeks afterwards due to the multiple violations we witnessed
I was helping my friend clean up a kitchen they work at after close and it was tragic. Nothing like months of build up or anything like that but just the simple shit wasn't done. Definitely would have been furious if I was the next day starter.
I hate leaving my kitchen dirty. I worked 0500 to 1900 yesterday, with the last hour spent cleaning and putting shit away. Makes me feel like I'm starting behind to come into a messy work area. Clean before cooking? Fuck off 🤦👿
But yeah. I looked up today at the wall above the deep fryer, and thought, when am I gonna have time to clean that? 😞
I actually had an experience going to a kebab shop where the woman dipped her hand, in a glove, into a bucket of cleaning product with a sponge, then take my order and pick up the felafels in that same glove covered in cleaning product. She then started to heat them up. I said no, absolutely not and walked out.
First of all, am from Turkey and I refuse to eat any doner in Australia because doner needs to be made from marinated lamb chunks not this shit mince beef. Hygiene side just makes things worse.
I’m a tradie that does a lot of works in buildings with food courts… if you would see what’s going on in the back rooms and kitchens, storage area you would never eat from any food court again.
Everything is dirty af, theres roaches, flys, rats, mouses, birds…
LOL you're concerned about health/hygiene but eat kebab and HSPs, granted its not a good look, practically speaking its fine.
Nothing a 600C flame can't sterilize
I witnessed a delivery guy in Sydney lose his grip on one and it rolled about 30m down the road before it stopped and he had caught up with it. He stood it up and gave it a wipe, put it on his shoulder and strolled into the shop. She’s apples.
Absolutely. The dirtiest, oldest, most run down food places regardless of what they're selling are where the best food is.
Do you know how hard it is to keep a restaurant profitable long enough for it to get to that stage?
If they can get that grotty and people still keep coming back, you KNOW the food is good 👍
Sure would ! They clean, dry the equipment, have a clean floor and don't put the meat on the concrete. Best kabab is one that has dried slightly, crusts up the edges that we so like.
I wanna know where I can get one !
Ngl that will be the greatest kebab I've ever tasted, the more rundown a place is the better it'll taste. Don't care if I get the shits tommorow it'll be worth it.
No I wouldn’t.
Buckets and mops are colour coded to represent where they are to be used.
How mops are cleaned and hung to dry is important too.
The state of these mops indicate a lack of infection control
Absolutely not. As a chef… everything about this is A HARD NO. WTAF? I thought it was like a concrete table umbrella stand.
Send this directly to the health department. PLEASE.
I was about to order a late night bab in the Northern suburbs.
Now I will not.
Shitty and inaccurate Thomo Maccas will get my money. And that's saying something!
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First glance I thought it was the mop
I thought it looked more like the toilet plunger
Who's to say it's not their toilet plunger? 🤨
Mmmmmm seasoning
I had to zoom in.
Me too, and when i did i did an audible "OOOHH"
What Oh Ohhhhhjuhhhhhhhh
Floor lamb
I wish it was beef so I could say ground beef 😔
*groans in American*
^this was me
~~tasty~~ ~~edible~~ meat mop
Now we know how it gets it's flavor.
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This comment made me cackle so loudly on the tram
It’s uncovered so Flies, or a passing stray could either eat, or piss on it. Food uncovered and left unrefrigerated more than 1.5hrs, is totally illegal
Including whilst it is rotating in front of the cooker? Luckily this photo was taken at 1.49 hours and they avoided to totally illegal situation.
Ohhhhh........🫣
Great username
I'm a health inspector and I've seen worse and continue to eat out at those locations. However, kebab meat is risky AF because no kebab shop handle it in accordance with the guidelines.
Can you share how kebab meat is meant to be handled versus how they typically do? I can see how chicken is pretty risky, I typically never get chicken, but surely lamb/beef/mystery meat is slightly safer?
Ok so most kebab shops get their meat pre-made on the spit and freeze it. Best practice would be to defrost the meat fully in the cool-room over 1-2 days and then cook it. If the entire spit isn't used in one day the remainder should be cooked and shaved to be cooled In the fridge for use the next day. Shaved spit meat should always be grilled. Most kebab shops just take it out of the freezer and start cooking it straight from frozen. This results in the outside being hot, the inside being frozen and the middle nice and like warm ideal for bacterial growth. As above Most kebab shops don't go through a whole spit on one day and just take the hot spit off and put it in the cool room over night and bring it out the next day further allowing for bacterial growth through the cooling process. All of the above can create a perfect storm for bacterial growth to get to a point where it can't be effectively killed through additional cooking.
I have worked in a kebab shop and can confirm that is what we used to usually do, 30-40kg meat straight from the freezer onto the rotisserie when opening up shop and then for closing once the flames are turned off and the meat is comfortable enough to touch it's wrapped in plastic and chucked back in the freezer. I hadn't thought about how there's a nice and cozy zone where it's the ideal temperature for bacteria to grow inside before now. I suspect that this is exactly what happened that one time I was opening up shop and one of the chickens smelled really funky when it came out of the freezer and started to get cooked. That being said now about 3-5 of the 40kg chicken is kept in the coolroom to defrost overnight. Out of curiosity, is there anything mentioned regarding safety when it comes to lifting up those heavy meats? Most warehouse jobs I've seen mention 10-20kg as the heaviest weight a person might have to lift but these meats at the kebab shop are nearly half as heavy as I am and from what I've seen there is very little in the way of guidance for lifting and manoeuvring them about.
Used to work at a supermarket with an in-house butcher. The meat delivery guys would bring in huge sides of beef over their shoulder, walking down the tiny steps on the back of their truck and into our storeroom. Think they must have been maybe 80-100kg. Seems like OH&S has completely skipped some areas lol.
I use to scaffold and picking up 3m stars would be like 20kg each, people were taking up to 6 of them at a time, OH&S misses a lot of areas because people everywhere wanna get stuff done faster, cant blame OH&S for people who don’t care
Yeah, my father is a butcher, has been since he started apprenticing in his teens (he's nearly sixty now), he got a hernia years ago and it was assumed it was from all the heavy lifting of beef sides and the like. It's expected of you in the meat industry, my partner worked for Harvey Beef and they had him pushing beef carcasses on his own even after he twisted his ankle.
One of the regular delivery drivers that delivered to us was a big islander guy, tall and strong as anything. One day some other guy showed up instead of him - because he'd fallen over coming down the tiny steps of the truck (carrying a side or something) and broken his neck. They guy was paralysed and we never saw him again.
My mate worked for cokesworth as a butcher had to go on conpo and got a reasonable pay out because of a shoulder injury he received working for them doing this
Now I want a kebab for lunch
So if I only eat falafel kebabs can I get poisoned because the bacteria is on the hot plate toaster?
Had the falafel one a few weeks back and was sick for 10 days straight (1 day of vomiting, 3 days of barely eating and the rest feeling low-level shithouse). Never again
I had the worst food poisoning of my life from a falafel kebab. I still get nauseated walking past a kebab shop 20 years later. They always seem so grimey.
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This thread has reminded me someone I know who works at Coles said the owner from the Chinese restaurant in their shopping centre’s food court had been caught going through the bins at Coles for thrown out chicken. Did not make me eat at that Chinese place any less though.
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Natural selection right here
And that’s why I never order a kebab in the first few hours of opening.
Because you prefer your bacteria to marinate into the meat longer?
Yes it really brings out the flavour, think of it like a dodgey dry age, altho it’s not dried or aged, just dodgey
Yeah, kekbabs should be like a nice strong and thick blue cheese.
I get it. Here we are on this thread dissing bacteria, when perhaps our attitude is the problem, not the bacteria
Hazardous manual tasks such as heavy lifting are the responsibility of the shop owner to educate employees on. WHS Act being the relevant legislation. This includes demonstrating correct methods to lift or implementing controls that reduce risk to the individual. Though I’m not surprised this may not have occurred.
Last time I heard about lifting weight regulations it would vary from person to person because it's "what is ok for you" by Work Health and Safety standards (this was in WA before we adopted the national OHS though) Companies often max out around 15-20kg in their policy to cover themselves. But if you can lift 30kg fine and safely then go for it. If you personally cap out at 35kg then feel free to ask for help. Or even other way, if you cap out at 15kg then ask for help. I do deliveries and quickly discovered there is a wide range of what "too heavy" is for people. Some have said 20kg is too heavy while I can do that on one arm. Office supply warehouse I used to work at I think 30kg was the "get help" limit. A box of 5 reams of paper was 25kg and we all would move those 2 at a time all the time fine Tl;dr figure out your personal safe lifting limit, don't be afraid to ask for help
Not to mention the fact that there is absolutely no way to cool such a chunk of meat in the recommended time without the use of a blast chiller. However, this goes for certain items in most restaurants. There is no way to cool a 20L or even a 10L bucket of sauce/soup/stock. However, the risk does seem low for these, and the food safety guidelines are on the extreme end. Worked in mining with tablets and Bluetooth probe thermometers. Everything had to be done to temp start to finish or thrown away. We had to break food down to shallow trays on trollies wheeled into a freezer. Eye opening experience!
That's the stuff of my dreams!
I can tell you it wasn't for us when they rolled out. When you're actively monitoring food properly, you could give yourself some grace period with paperwork but not with the tablet system. It became almost a full-time job for an entire shift, but we shared the job around with 3 tablets used by the whole team. Some of it was just a waste of time also. Eg: Rice starting temp and finish temp. Rice is either cooked or not. It only makes sense when moving to hot holding start temp and onwards. But there is no way lamb shanks I've served in many restaurants or pie mixes were cooled properly. But again, it was low risk, and nobody ever got sick.
I can imagine minesites more so than anywhere else, if there was a major food poisoning outbreak among staff it could drastically affect the bottom line. I consider myself to be a pragmatic health inspector, I do concede some of it is a bit overboard.
I think most health inspectors are pretty good unless you have complaints or serious issues. It's also your job to find at least a few things. You are right about the bottom line, also the fact they take the cooled down food for lunch, keep it in thier rooms bar fridge, transport it to work, store it in whatever they have there, heat it in whatever they have there. There is a lot of room for bacterial growth after the food leaves the dining room. We had to throw out anything that was prepped 3 days prior if not used for this reason.
Yes. There was a kebab chain in Sydney a few years ago that gave a huge number of customers food poisoning. Still around though although not sure if their practices have improved
Not going to eat a kebab again now.
If it helps, 8/10 cases of "food poisoning" from a kebab store are actually alcohol related
I’m with you
Just order shish kabab -The one where they cook the chunks of meat over hot coals..
Omg ew that's so disgusting! Yucks! Brb gonna grab a mixed kebab for lunch
Well that’s just about put me off HSP for life. I should definitely by a lotto ticket for all the ones I’ve devoured from my uni days.
No, the secret is just to eat it regularly so you build up the tolerance.
This is the way
I’ve never had food poisoning and I’ve eaten all sorts of questionable things including regular HSPs so this must be the answer
Champion, thanks. 🙏🏼
On god I’ve never felt right eating kebabs
Now I was under the impression if it’s frozen and the put it on the spit, as long as it cooks quickly enough(meaning they have enough customers to pump out ALL the meat on a whole frozen spit within a 2-4 hrs), and once done they throw the left over or as you said cook it all down, then that would be fine? When defrosting and cooking mince you have a certain amount of time you need to actually cook it before you hit the sweet ass spot for bacteria to grow like crazy.
This highlights a general issue with corporatization in general. Coles & Woolies do heaps of shit wrong too. You're given the guidelines and are instructed (but staffers don't actually follow the guidelines because they're understaffed and overworked). Then you get health & safety or JASOL come in once a year, and we're given fair notice because the sister stores call in advance and forewarn us that the inspectors are *''in the area''* so be vigilant. Generally, when neighboring stores give you that warning you know you're likely to be inspected within the day if not then the week. So for that entire one week of the year your store is on its best behavior, appropriately staffing, and following the guidelines until they inspector shows up. Then they go back to not following the rules and being understaffed for the next 51 weeks of the year.
I have always felt like at the dodgier places the meat looks boiled, and now I know why. Thanks!
I find that the extra salmonella adds to the authentic flavour that I’ve come to expect from meatonastick.
There used to be a chippy in Glebe that gave you diarrhoea 90% of the time. Me and my housemates just accepted it and if anyone got constipated from our diet of booze and meat we’d go there like going to a doctor for a prescription 😂
🤭🤮🤣🤣
not op but there is meant to be a kill step, where they take the cut meat and chuck it on a hot grill and flip it for a bit to guarantee bacteria is killed (either because it was sliced from a not cooked enough portion of the meat roll, or it was cut earlier and has been sitting). Then there would be handling issues while wrapping the kebab (eg clean hands).
heat kills bacteria but it wont remove the toxins that the bacteria has created. endotoxins need 250c to kill them so i doubt that last step will do much. contamination from being low to the ground and dirty hands is a factor but the main factor is having high risk foods in the "danger zone"
Is it difficult to switch off when you go out for a meal?
Sometimes, my friends tell me to fuck off with my work stories when we're eating out. Food law in Australia is very conservative and so even a business doesn't comply to the letter of the law it's likely going to be okay. As an anecdote one of my favourite restaurants in Perth has a semi open kitchen. I saw them preparing/chopping veges on plastic bags in the floor. On principal I should continue to eat there.... But they are so fucking tasty and I'm a sucker for punishment. Another funny story is my friend took me to a chicken and rice place in the city touting it as some of the best chicken rice he's ever had. I told him straight up that my spidey senses were tingling just off seeing the dining room decor alone (drab cool room panneling which had yellowed) and I didn't trust it. A few weeks later, he ordered takeout, got home cockroach in the food. I felt so vindicated.
My son is a chef, he is so fussy about where he eats out or gets take away. sometimes we walk in places and he’s only in for a few minutes and he’s like, nope, not here.
Yeah I flat out refuse to eat at your suberban Asian/indian restaurants. They are more often than not sub par. I'll always happily eat at a chain fast food restaurant though. They are so tightly controlled. People who claim they got food poisoning from a McDonald's/HJs/KFC etc are usually wrong.
I want more stories, can you share more? Or can we be friends? Where can I find food inspectors!
Hmm where to start.... Shortly after a new story broke about a deli owner putting their semen in a bottle of water, we received a complaint about a person who asserted that a Chinese restaurant had put cum in their rice. Our first question was how do you know... the guy dead pan "said i know what cum tastes like" (it was a false allegation) Ive seen more cockroaches than you can imagine crawling in/out of/around cooking equipment mid service and the workers just go on their merry way as if there is no problem. Went into someones house and there was human faeces on every surface of the kitchen. With the sink full of empty cat food tins I investigated an odour complaint where an entire residential block could smell sewage (think like a 250 m radius. Turns out an appartment complex which was completed but then possessed by the bank had been unoccupied for 6 months straight and all the toilets and P-traps had evaporated out venting sewer direct into 30 apartments. I wish i i never experienced that smell. A bit more mundane but, a lunch bar was just defrosting chicken in a bucket out side in the rain. And last one to top it off a cook in a wok-in-a-box knock off accidentally chopped his thumb off. In the painic all the staff covered the ready to go take away food... The thumb couldnt be located and you can guess where it ended up and how it was discovered (just like in the movies ;) ) That's just a few that stand out from my near 7 year career
>And last one to top it off a cook in a wok-in-a-box knock off accidentally chopped his thumb off. In the painic all the staff covered the ready to go take away food... The thumb couldnt be located and you can guess where it ended up and how it was discovered (just like in the movies ;) ) Well for the lucky customer who found it, at least it would stand out like a sore thumb
There was an Indian restaurant in Melbourne that was hugely popular. They had photos all over the walls with the owner and local & international cricketers. The guy got busted for multiple food safety violations. It was so bad he was banned for years from running a restaurant, then when the ban was over he reapplied and was refused a licence. During the ban his wife left him and he ended up living upstairs in the closed restaurant.
That Indian restaurateur was not “on a jolly good wicket!” 😂
Don’t chop your finger off, …this is the rule of thumb.
I am fascinated. I have an ultra sensitive nose for mouse piss as my parents ran a bakery for a while during my teens. Sometimes I’d turn a bread roll over and couldn’t be entirely sure if what I was seeing was a mouse turd or a chocolate sprinkle. My mother’s solution was to get 2 bakery cats. What’s your take on bakery cats? One of them met their unfortunate demise in the external fan of the walk-in freezer. Twas a warm place to go in winter :( Anyhoo, if I walk into a place and smell mouse piss - I walk out.
Thanks for sharing!!!
Oh god. the thumb. oh no
you should also make friends with a nurse, preferably an ER nurse, they have amazing stories Also army guys have some funny fucked up stories, navy guys can be hit and miss, most stories are about "their friend" in SE asia etc Cops can have some good stories, problem is finding one that isnt up his own ass on a power trip, detectives are usually a little more grounded then uniformed cops. Forget AFP, everything is "I cant talk about it" or anything, honestly it just feels like the most boring govt job in the country
The cop in the ACT I chatted with at a work party, he was husband to someone I briefly worked with, all, ALL he went on about, was how much pot he smoked.
If you're curious and nosy like me, you can pore through the 900-something food penalty notices website for a lark :-) very interesting to see what places have received penalties, and oh boy - some of the fines are eye watering! https://www.foodauthority.nsw.gov.au/offences/penalty-notices
Here's the victorian one: https://www.health.vic.gov.au/food-safety/food-safety-register-of-convictions First on the list is an $6,500 fine with such jolly violations as: > Standard 3.2.2, clause 24(1)(c) – did fail to take all practicable measures to eradicate and prevent the harbourage of pests on the food premises and those parts of vehicles that are used to transport food
Cockroach alert.
My brother worked at maccas in his younger days. A story he told me always stuck in my mind. He was making a cheesburger and dropped the patty on the floor and picked it up. His manager yelled 'good catch'. Did it stop me from going maccas? Hell no. When you eat out just expect shit to not be as sanitary as you would have it at home.
I generally agree with the chains, except I once got sick from opportos north parramatta, really sick for about a week I didnt eat anything until I ate it for lunch and was sick by afternoon. It had a sour hint to it, but if you get a bondi burger it has lemon grass in the chilli and I always get extra chilli used to love it, didnt eat there for 10 years and it also fucked up my NYE as the doc said no drinking, so here is me probably the only one sober in the city. I dont know how people can take their kids in, having to deal with the drunks, the crowds and then trying to catch a train home.
Try the Colac Macca's, every burger is stale. I don't think country towns get the same rate of deliveries. Same goes for the local subway, thought the bread was at least fresh, but last I tried was so dried out it was crumbling like a stale biscuit. No issues in the suburbs and city though.
My daughter worked at a maccas. They only cleaned the ice cream bins out when they were warned it was necessary. There’s a hungry jacks near me that I’ve walked in, seen the kitchen and walked out. A few years later I worked with someone who was given weekend manager at 15 and said the place was gross. And a ton more bad stuff.
Been a xouple of reports of raw chicken coming out of maccas in NZ recently. One a burger and another nuggets. Different people, different stores.
Aren't the nuggets precooked?
> ...one of my favourite restaurants in Perth has a semi open kitchen On that note, one of my all time fave Chinese places is this place called Wok'd in Pakenham, Melb. They're kitchen is fully viewable, with perspex or whatever all round and you can see *exactly* what they're all doing! The food is top notch.
But lets be honest, its a processed meat. Very few kebab shops do real kebab meat from stacked meat slices. These are gigantic sausages that come from a factory that has plenty of preservatives, sulphur dioxide and other things to make the meat safe. It is a requirement in law that any processed meat must have these preservatives added to them to prevent botulism. Its only whole raw meat that cant have these preservatives added to them which is committing crime despite numerous butchers using this technique to extend shelf life and freshen up their meat with that nice red glow! They love doing it to the rump steaks that are always on special! You could probably leave that kebab sausage out for a couple of days or more before it would even begin to go off. No different to any processed deli meat or sausages.
Exactly.... if it was this easy to have bacterial buildup in kebabs half of Australia would constantly be sick from food poisoning.
>kebab meat is risky AF because no kebab shop handle it in accordance with the guidelines. That's part of the thrill...
There are many restaurants in Brisbane CBD, you pay $100 meal and the kitchen looks worse
Second this, I worked in commercial refrigeration for quiet some time. The amount of seemingly nice restaurants with a very unhygienic back end would shock people.
I remember starting in kitchens as a dishy and to this day I will never eat in a restaurant 🤣 I've seen health inspectors walk into places I know should be shut down and pass them with flying colours 🤢
I worked at a busy tourist place with a cafe and the owners I worked for kept that cafe so freaking spotless, it was impressive. It also had a huge window so anyone ordering could see right in. The health inspector used to come there for coffee and scones, despite us being slightly out of town. My friend who trained there and ended.uo running the cafe couldn't stand working in most other cafes she went to after she moved on from that job. She just got out of hospitality altogether.
I think the inspector eating there is one the highest complements you can get in hospo
Maybe that's the actual reason they kept it so clean. "Oh no he's back again! God dammit make sure everything's spotless!"
Haha. My boss was just very proud of keeping things nice and of her scones.
I’ve just gotten into the pest control industry and I come across so many restaurants where I have no idea how they are still running. And not just from a pest perspective, but from general hygiene.
Hundred percent! If I can't see what the Kitchen looks like from the front counter I get bad vibes and don't wanna order
My brother in law is a fridgy and he is constantly telling us about all the revolting kitchens he sees. It has definitely cut down on our options for places to eat out.
Omg I wish there was a list!
Worked at Maccas and have seen kitchens of some proper restaurants that charge you upwards of $50 per meal. Can confirm that Maccas standards are wayyyy higher and maintained than most independant shops
Absolutely. They appear to be able to borrow a mop and bucket to clean up drunk kebab puke which puts them well ahead of the rest of the pack.
Just when I thought it couldn't get worse in my head, I then read your comment.
Whatever aforementioned spew and floor scum you've cleaned up in the bucket – tip 'er into the master stock pot and cook it off. Use as stock base for gravy for chippies. Serve.
Get a bucket and a mop for this wheat ass tabouli
When it's 3am and I'm slaughered...you betcha I would.
Yeah, the real question is how much have you had to drink before deciding if you'd eat it or not.
I've worked in some restaurants, this doesn't faze me. I don't see any pests and it's not rolling around, so...
These guys mop the floor? That's goin the extra mile.
Drano or White King splash is part of the secret herbs and spices flavour.
If this turns you off from eating there, boy oh boy you should see the state of some kitchens in Melbourne. Have done service work in close to a hundred kitchens from top end to average kitchens, these joints sure look clean on the surface but are far from it. Mouse shit, roaches, old grease under every bench or counter you name it, most kitchens will just wipe the bench and leave
Agreed! I worked next to a fast food ‘cafe’ for a loooooong time and the rats were the healthiest thing about it.
I did a hospo course in Melbourne. After doing stuff on food safety they sent us to observe the food handling in the local food court for a few hours. No one ate at the food court for weeks afterwards due to the multiple violations we witnessed
I was helping my friend clean up a kitchen they work at after close and it was tragic. Nothing like months of build up or anything like that but just the simple shit wasn't done. Definitely would have been furious if I was the next day starter.
I hate leaving my kitchen dirty. I worked 0500 to 1900 yesterday, with the last hour spent cleaning and putting shit away. Makes me feel like I'm starting behind to come into a messy work area. Clean before cooking? Fuck off 🤦👿 But yeah. I looked up today at the wall above the deep fryer, and thought, when am I gonna have time to clean that? 😞
Where do you think the flavour comes from?
Just go later and chances are you won't get the outside part
Is this any dirtier than you already thought it was?
It appears to be sitting in a bowl, so it’s already beating my expectations.
I actually had an experience going to a kebab shop where the woman dipped her hand, in a glove, into a bucket of cleaning product with a sponge, then take my order and pick up the felafels in that same glove covered in cleaning product. She then started to heat them up. I said no, absolutely not and walked out.
Reminds me of take away sushi roll shops where they handle the sushi with gloves but then handle cash and work the till with the same gloves.
No… not gonna get much flavour sitting in the bucket.. gotta let it roll free to get the taste right.
How many beers have I had?
As soon as it's getting cooked, you are getting shaved stuff from the inside anyway. Nothing to worry about
If you're worried about hygiene, the fuck you doing in a kebab shop?
yes
looks pretty clean. Then they cook it.
Everybody knows the dirtier and sketchier the place is, the better the kebab is gonna be. You might get salmonella but by god it's gonna be worth it.
Free extra flavour *drool
Now that's a Haram snack pack.
Is this how you become fully sick?
You’ll need a sub woofer for that
how embarrashment!
Does the guy at the counter call me Boss? If so, yes
First of all, am from Turkey and I refuse to eat any doner in Australia because doner needs to be made from marinated lamb chunks not this shit mince beef. Hygiene side just makes things worse.
Is the kebab in contact with the floor? No? Well then, I don’t see the problem.
just means it's well seasoned
I've eaten at far worse places.
They dont call it a dirty kebab for nothing. Also, it'll prob be the best around
There are plenty of good looking businesses that have covkroaches all through their machines
I’m a tradie that does a lot of works in buildings with food courts… if you would see what’s going on in the back rooms and kitchens, storage area you would never eat from any food court again. Everything is dirty af, theres roaches, flys, rats, mouses, birds…
Makes sense why I can't get that same flavour at home
Is the meat cooked properly? Then yes absolutely.
This is why you shouldn't look inside kebab stores.
I've eaten at way dodgier kebab joints than that
Ask me again after 10 beers
I’d be pleased they own a mop!
They clean the floor? Fancy pants kebab joint that is.
Looks clean af, no problem here
Depending on the level of drunk I am I'd 100% eat that dirty mop
Yes
I wouldn't eat there after seeing that
Hell ya brother
Can you explain the issue to me?
Yum, late night dodgy kebab.
Gets sanitised by the fire mate. Fucking close your eyes and eat. It is what it is
Absolutely. The nastier the place looks the better the food.
Yeah probably
Many of you still go to McDonald's. You'll be fine.
Yes
LOL you're concerned about health/hygiene but eat kebab and HSPs, granted its not a good look, practically speaking its fine. Nothing a 600C flame can't sterilize
What’s the issue?
Yes
Yep
No way I’d get a kebab from there, can’t stand Pepsi!
I worked in a kebab shop for 4 weeks when I was 18. This December will be 18 years since I last had a kebab.
WHERE IN NORTH MELB HOLT CRAP
Fat Wraps, Lalor
Mate if their chips are good you could baste that shit in the mop water and I’d still at least give it a go…
This means it is going to taste good
Kin oath
This place would probably be one of the best HSP you'd ever have
Hell yeah / love me some floor meat 😆
Just dry aging it mate.
Naughty kebab, sit in the corner and think about what you've done
I witnessed a delivery guy in Sydney lose his grip on one and it rolled about 30m down the road before it stopped and he had caught up with it. He stood it up and gave it a wipe, put it on his shoulder and strolled into the shop. She’s apples.
[Can't beat this](https://goo.gl/maps/EPE8TJQrvC5zj1qp7)
Bro the owners response to this💀
Ack….. no more floor kebabs.
Absolutely. The dirtiest, oldest, most run down food places regardless of what they're selling are where the best food is. Do you know how hard it is to keep a restaurant profitable long enough for it to get to that stage? If they can get that grotty and people still keep coming back, you KNOW the food is good 👍
Sure would ! They clean, dry the equipment, have a clean floor and don't put the meat on the concrete. Best kabab is one that has dried slightly, crusts up the edges that we so like. I wanna know where I can get one !
Ngl that will be the greatest kebab I've ever tasted, the more rundown a place is the better it'll taste. Don't care if I get the shits tommorow it'll be worth it.
If you've made the conscious decision to eat a kebab to begin with than this should not bother you in the slightest. I'd eat it still
Seems pretty standard to me
No I wouldn’t. Buckets and mops are colour coded to represent where they are to be used. How mops are cleaned and hung to dry is important too. The state of these mops indicate a lack of infection control
Absolutely not. As a chef… everything about this is A HARD NO. WTAF? I thought it was like a concrete table umbrella stand. Send this directly to the health department. PLEASE.
I own a kebab shop and I see nothing wrong here
Nope no nope
If my kebab isn't made from that meat, i'm not eating there 😤
I was about to order a late night bab in the Northern suburbs. Now I will not. Shitty and inaccurate Thomo Maccas will get my money. And that's saying something!