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As I have discussed here many times, most of us have a love/hate relationship with technology. Many people fight it with every fiber of their being, refusing to utilize anything that comes along. That is until it becomes so popular or commonplace that they run out of excuses not to use it. Let’s face it, most people don’t like change.
I must admit as I get older I don’t like it much myself. It seems like it has been taking me longer nowadays to warm up to new technology, but in the end I always get there. Sure many of them can be a pain in the ass to learn to use, but with most once mastered, or at least understood, they tend to make your life and the lives of those you deal with easier.
It’s not all technology that is hard to deal with as the years progress, it’s information and the incredible amount that is thrust our way everyday. Most just goes in one ear and out the other. I don’t know about you but my tiny little mind can’t store everything that is thrown at me. I guess that’s why God invented computers.
But one of the most useful combinations of the two is perhaps the easiest to use. That is the Restaurant Rating System provided by the California Department of Health Services. Anybody with half a brain can use it and if you are concerned about your health and can’t wait for the next special report on the news about dirty restaurants it is a most valuable tool. All you have to do is look at the front of the establishment and their grade is right there for all to see.
I’m sure that the restaurant owners that don’t get an A rating view the posting of any other grade the same as an adulterer having to wear a scarlet letter, but that is the point. With as many restaurants as there are popping up everyday if there wasn’t somebody watching them diners would be dropping like flies.
Detractors here locally may say if you go to Mexico there are no ratings and have you ever eaten there? Yes, I have seen plenty of kitchens down there. I have seen them in restaurants, hotels, and on the streets and I have eaten in all of those venues. There have been times when I have gone unscathed and there have been times when Montezuma has had his revenge. But while I may live close, I don’t live in Mexico. So while here in the good old US of A I want to know what’s going on behind the scenes in a place that I am spending a ton of money in.
There are a lot of people who don’t care what the rating says on the door. They like playing that culinary Russian Roulette. And then there are those, like my wife and me, who won’t walk past the door if the rating is anything less than an A. As soon as we see a place slip below an A we know immediately that there’s a problem and it will take some time after they regain that A before we go back.
If you go to the CDHS web site www.lapublichealth.org
and view the criteria for how the ratings are based you may think twice about it too. That is unless you are one of those gastronomic gamblers and hope they are between ratings visits and have fixed their “little” problems.
Since the last time I visited this subject a few years back, things have changed ratings wise. Back then there were a few C’s in the area, and I am pleased to say there are none in our area at this time. But the number of B’s is up to 34, which includes our newest contestant in the dining derby, Applebee’s. The good news here in Temple City is that out of 100 ratable establishments the majority of those (66) are A’s, which is great, at least for the time being. One cockroach and that can all change.
So, as a public service, I thought I should tell you who had the highest grades in Temple City pertaining to restaurants and stores that sell foodstuffs. There was only one business that had a perfect grade 100% and that was General Nutrition Center, congratulations! Right behind them was Sincere Market with 99%. The next closest with 98% were The Little Bohemia Tavern and The Hat, everybody else in the A category was below that. The B category goes from 89 to 80%, C is 79 to 70, below that they are not letter graded they are given a percentage grade.
If you are the curious type, like I am, if you go to the above-mentioned web site you can not only see the rating but also, by clicking on the “more info” button, you can see what they were cited for. In case you have just eaten in some of these places you may want to do this on an empty stomach. Bon Appetit!
The Shrub Speaks: From its birth in the 1630s, the Guard protected the early colonists and helped win the War on Independence. Las Vegas, Nevada, September 14, 2004.
B.D.’s Response: Dubya, after all your rhetoric about our freedom, couldn’t you at least have gotten this one right? Thank goodness there was a War of Independence and not on independence.
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