A closer look at the New South Wales Food Authority name and shame register (that’s in Australia) reveals restaurants serving Chinese cuisine are by far the most frequent food safety offenders.

Inspectors have handed out 198 penalty notices, for everything from filthy kitchens to cockroach infestations, to Chinese restaurants since November 2009 – twice as many as for any other nationality. Indian restaurants received 99 fines, Thai 87, Italian/pizzerias 83, Japanese 66 and Vietnamese, 24. Modern Australian, Korean, Lebanese, American, Turkish and Pakistani restaurants rounded out the state’s 12 most culpable cuisines.

Some restaurants are listed more than once on the register, either for repeat offences or because an inspection found multiple breaches. Food safety coach and industry consultant Rachelle Williams said yesterday Chinese and other exotic cuisine restaurants were sometimes less equipped to comply with food safety laws.

Poor personal hygiene of staff and cleanliness of food preparation areas were among the biggest problems.