A Reason to Avoid Chinese Buffets

Wow. Puts some things in perspective. Thank you for sharing this because I've been a bit nervous about heading to Vegas this weekend with my parents and sister. My parents like to over-indulge at buffets, and I've been trying to figure out how I'm going to tackle them. Anyway...I'm now going to stick with items that don't have to be prepared.

Eewwww this is gross! However, unfortunately whenever we eat out we are trusting the person preparing the food to be doing it to the standard we expect. In reality, we never really know what is happening behind the scenes, and it wouldn't surprise me to learn that these incidents are a lot more common than we are led to believe.

The only time we really know the level of hygiene to which food has been prepared is when it's made at home. And even then, we do not know what conditions the raw ingredients have been exposed to.

A lot of Chinese buffets these days have the Mongolian BBQ option, where you can create your own dish. This is actually very good for dieters, as you can create a meal of only meat and vegetables with a light sauce.

My late MIL was extremely fussy about eating out. Unless she'd gone in to see the kitchen or new the owner was a neatnik, she wouldn't eat there. (She worked in the retaurant industry, and she knew which places to avoid.) She was not above asking to see a kitchen in a new place and going back there to see if it was clean and well-organized.

I suspect a lot of places are not so healthful in the back, and we just would prefer NOT to know.

Makes me love foul-mouthed, bossy Gordon Ramsay for emphasizing cleanliness and proper food handling on his tv shows. He'd screech a blue streak at that pic, for sure.

Ew.

The Princess

I don't mean to sound like a bigot (I'm black) but I don't trust chinese people. They will feed their customers anything with no regard for their well being. And all the toy recalls have only strengthened my belief that they are shady business people.

Just wanna say I only said I'm black to say that I understand unfair stereotypes, not to imply that black people cannot be prejudiced.

Hi L,

Prejudice is a human quality :) I heard, though, that the guy doing the stomping was hispanic, and the owner fired him. One can spin this many different ways...

wowsers, good thing i stopped eating out so much. it reminds me of a time when i lived in nyc and the big thing people would say about chinese restaurants was that they used cats for meat.

Princess Dieter said:
I suspect a lot of places are not so healthful in the back, and we just would prefer NOT to know.

Where I work is definitely not as bad as above, but I would recommend anyone I know from eating where I work. Period.

In my younger days, I worked in a number of very upscale restaurants in New York. You would not believe how atrocious the kitchen conditions were! Worse than anything I've seen since while going "backstage" as a restaurant reviewer. In fact, I've been in the kitchen areas of some real divey joints, and none of them was as nasty as the really expensive places tended to be. Weird, right?

Sometimes, I'd just rather not know what goes on behind the scenes at restaurants. I know a LOT of places don't enforce hand washing rules and there is a lot of not-so-great cross contamination happening. This is why I don't eat out a lot.

Anyone seen that movie "Waiting"? That shows a little bit of what probably goes on behind the scenes in a lot of restaurants.

i dont worry about my local take out place. from the counter where the orders are placed customers can see the entire kitchen. the actual cooking takes place just a few feet from the register. i can order and watch them chop and cook my meal right there. many items in chinese take out are purchased frozen from the distributor which is why many eggrolls and wings are exactly alike. my favorite is the green beens in hot garlic sauce which i order extra spicy lightly sauced.

I was told by a friend....that once you walk through their kitchens...you'll never want to eat the food again. Great site. It makes me NOT want to eat Chinese food while on WW points...it would be too hard to count- and you just turned me in the other direction.
Your site is great, glad that I stumbled on it. I'm blogging my way to losing 100 pounds. Every read helps!

It's too expensive to eat out anyway. Always glad to have another reason to stay home and eat. If it's cheaper, healthier, and less fattening... against convenient? I'll stay home.

You know, I've always had a thing against Chinese restaurants... A hunch, if you feel, that made me avoid them like a plague. Looks like I was proven right at the end.

Personally, I prefer to eat at home, since, at a restaurant, I really can't control how much I order (the wallet is the limit, and if there's a credit card in it, then it's just a binge waiting to happen). For me, eating at home has the advantage of being able to control what food gets into my house, and, therefore, what food I get to eat.

I am not surprised!

OMG!! I was craving Chinese and now my craving has left the building. Thanks for the informative information! I will definitely check back for more.

heck if you check most places kitchens you will probably find something nasty. i cant see picking on one group of food. how about thai or mexican or indian? we will never eat out again if we look too closely. for that matter some american places are really bad too. google the rats in the taco bell video.

It's no longer surprising that some businesses would risk their customer's health for the sake of money.

Wow, really makes you not want to eat out! When I was in college, I waitressed at two different restaurants - and surprisingly both were extremely clean! Although before I got one of those jobs, I got hired at a different restaurant that was absolutely disgusting - disgusting enough I couldn't tolerate to work there.

Preparing meals at home is always the best way to go. It's easier not to overeat, and you control the quality of ingredients which is important. Once I quit eating out regularly, I saw a boost in my weight-loss. Now my eating out limit is almost once a week - and I always leave with a box full of leftovers.

I'm not sure if fancy restaurants are doing it, but we can expect something like that in other restaurants.

I used to work the graveyard shift (12 midnight -8AM) and a few of us ordered chinese food at 3AM. The minute we took a bite of the "beef" in the food, we all said the same thing. "This is not beef". A fellow worker said we were crazy, and ate his and our "beef". He had a really good case of the "runs" and swore never to eat takeout from ethnic places afterhours again. The food inspectors go home at 5 PM. Ever wonder where the stray cats and dogs are going?

Is stray cat considered free-range?

And if they're feral, you still have to catch them (wild harvested).

Seems more humane than keeping a chicken in a tiny cage.

Meat of the future!

Kailash, that was SO wrong...but so funny.

AND if you ever read the calorie counts of common Chinese dishes, you wouldn't eat it again, anyway.

A person that I know has a bad reaction to MSG, which is usually in Chinese food, and it screws up their brain so they can't remember how to read.

I have food paranoia eating out too. Other than the places where I see the food preparation, I avoid it. Most times you can buy something at the grocery store that passes for lunch/dinner for less anyway, like a drinkable yogurt, some grapes, and some a whole-grain roll or crackers with a bit of cheese.

I avoided them currently. That pic made it a life commitment :)

wtf??? could you be a little more respectful of Chinese people? just because you see one picture of an unsanitary Chinese restaurant does not mean all of them are like that. what right do you have to judge an entire race?

some folks make a big deal and expect perfection for low money at chinese buffets.after reading about the beef thing eew thats gross.but ive gotyten beef there and knew it was just that.they get caught serving anything else they get fined ,sued,closed down.next time if you get beef that isnt beef you think then save it and have it tested asap.that will tell you either way.with alot of spices out there it was beef im thinking but tastede off as they put this,that,the other thing in it.all kitchens are nasty at some time no matter who you are but ten again some never get atrocious once even.but how much is the food there,$70/plate?my suggestions go to a buffet and eat only,repeat only the seafood as its obvious what youre getting there.crab legs are crab legs,mussels are mussels,scallops are scallops,wings are wings,egg rolls are i think egg rolls and ice creams ice cream.see my point.