Tag Archives: San Francisco

Remain calm: restaurant as epidemiologist in San Francisco

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Following last week’s report of a supposed outbreak of foodborne illness last month at the fancy Delfina eatery in San Francisco that was not reported to public health types, Inside Scoop SF reports that Delfina has now provided a statement, complete with dick fingers and exclamation marks.

This unfortunate incident is an isolated case and happened to a private party. There is no reason for any alarm or panic from our customers or throughout our city. We are confident that this is not a part of an epidemic or outbreak and are still working with the health department. We would like to assure the public that there is no “tainted lettuce” outbreak in San Francisco as reported by SFist and then spread throughout the Internet. Below is our account of the incident:

A group of fifty rented out the restaurant for a private dinner with a set menu for their holiday party on December 10, approximately one month ago.

A day-and-a-half later we were informed that approximately half the group reported symptoms consistent with those of food poisoning.

We believe we narrowed the culprit down to three of the most likely menu items from the private party menu. We contacted the purveyors of the most suspect ingredients to inform them of what happened

After contacting the Department of Health we decided not to report it since it was a contained isolated incident.

At the end of the day, and as we expressed to the affected group, we take full responsibility and are truly sorry to be the cause of their discomfort. We are in the business of providing pleasure, not misery!

Underground market in San Francisco draws authorities’ notice

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“If you have untrained vendors selling food to 1,200 people, you have a high-risk situation.”

So says Dr. Rajiv Bhatia, the director of environmental health for the San Francisco Department of Public Health.

The New York Times reports for the past two years, the San Francisco Underground Market has served up haute fringe food, but on June 11, the monthly market, which now draws more than a thousand visitors, received an unwelcome serving of its own: a cease and desist order from the San Francisco Department of Public Health.

The market had positioned itself as a members-only club to circumvent the department’s retail food-safety permitting process.

The market started small but has become a kind of foodie phenomenon. The idea has been to provide an incubator for the Bay Area’s fledgling food entrepreneurs, many of them young people who said they could not afford the steep fees of a conventional farmers’ market.

The department has not received complaints of illness, Dr. Bhatia said, but given the popularity of the market — arguably no longer “underground” — it now does not qualify as a club but is a retail food establishment under state law and subject to the standard permit process.

Iso Rabins, 30, the market’s founder, said Friday that he planned to meet with the city attorney to discuss how the market might be “legitimized,” possibly by establishing a communal commercial kitchen.

Ahram Kim, 35, whose culinary pièce de résistance is pork sausage topped with kimchi, has his own theory about the crackdown. “I immediately thought: ‘Of course. The state is broke,’ ” he said.

Nosestretcher alert: The barfing bug may have been in the beer, not raw oysters

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There’s a whole bunch of folks who like to protect the reputation of raw oysters, and we’ve heard from them before.

But it’s raw, and carries risks.

Based on blog reports, the San Francisco Oysterfest last month featured raw oysters, beer and a lot of barf.

"I am calling this event Salmonella-fest" wrote one yelper who, not surprisingly, gave the event just one star. Others wrote of suffering high fevers, shaking and even visiting the emergency room.

The Department of Public Health was on the case — and has determined the culprit was "campylobacter."

Eileen Shields, spokeswoman for the health department, said investigators couldn’t determine whether the bacteria was in the oysters, beer or any number of other food items served at the fest. After all, the food was all gone by the time word of food poisoning had gotten out.

But rest assured, oyster lovers. Shields said there’s no ongoing concern.

Maybe San Fran should follow how close the human shit comes to oyster beds. Or how often food service employees wash their hands.
 

No health scores on window cards, but a better website for San Francisco diners

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Mission Local reports members of the San Francisco Health Commission unanimously approved a resolution yesterday to hire more health inspectors and make the health inspection process itself less mysterious.

Notably absent from the resolution was a recommendation that president James Illig proposed an hour before to the Community and Public Health Committee: to require food establishments to “post the most current inspection scorecard in a window or other locations visible to the public.”

Instead, the resolution included a request for bi-annual reports outlining the progress of the city’s goal to routinely inspect restaurants twice per year, another request for more comprehensive cost reports (there’s some uncertainty as to whether the fees gathered by health inspections cover the cost of running the department), an urging to fill health inspector positions that have been vacant for months and an overhaul of the Department of Public Health’s web site to allow the public easy access to current and past restaurant inspection reports.

Restaurants are already required to post their health inspection reports, said Richard Lee, the Department of Public Health’s Director of Environmental Health and Regulatory Programs. But the report is often posted in hard to find places, if at all. And there is no requirement that they post the green card accompanying the report that shows the restaurant’s most recent inspection score.
 

Getting more ‘granularity’ into San Francisco’s restaurant grades

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San Francisco is playing catch up with its California brethren and has finally decided to post closure notices on restaurants considered to be health hazards.

Mission Local reports the president of the Health Commission also promised to propose further policy changes to boost restaurant inspections and help diners more easily find a restaurant’s health score.

That don’t mean much.

Dr. Rajiv Bhatia, San Francisco’s director of occupational and environmental health, said,

“We serve the entire population of the city,” underscoring the need for information regarding health code compliance to be made publicly available.

After the meeting, Bhatia said he would advocate for more transparency within the food safety inspection program, including posting inspection scores within five feet of a restaurant’s entrance — which is the policy in cities such as Los Angeles and New York.

In 2004, Supervisor Chris Daly advocated a letter-grade system for restaurant inspections, which Los Angeles and now New York use. The system would have ranked restaurants by a series of letter grades from A to D, based on health code compliance, and would have required them to post that grade in plain view. The executive director of the Golden Gate Restaurant Association at the time called the grades “scarlet letters.”

The ordinance faced stiff opposition and was ultimately defeated. The present scoring system was a compromise resulting from that effort, Bhatia said. The system offers more granularity into a restaurant’s health code practices, he said, but conceded that “scores are imperfect.”
 

San Francisco: Consumers want food safety information in reviews and at the door

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“If you’re going to San Francisco…” don’t expect to find restaurant inspection results easily. SF Gate Online acknowledges a reader’s frustration with restaurant reviews published in the San Francisco Chronicle.

The reader writes about a recent food critic review,

I am concerned about food safety. Often before I go to a restaurant I check its health department inspection results. The recent health department inspection reports for this [reviewed] restaurant indicated many unsafe food practices. I decided not to go to the restaurant after reading the inspection reports.

What due diligence does a restaurant reviewer perform before finalizing his or her review of a restaurant? I do not believe it’s in the best interest of the reader for a newspaper to write a review without including information as to whether it is safe to eat at that particular restaurant.

As intriguing are the comments following this story, with a few examples below:

whatnext         7/13/2009 6:06:39 AM
Correct me if I’m wrong, but, I seem to remember a time when the Chronicle actually posted the results of health inspections for restaurants. We should have a grading system like the one they have in L.A..

ringu    7/13/2009 6:18:41 AM
I agree I always liked the grading system that is used down south and wondered why we don’t use it here. Around here you have to ask the establishment owner for the inspection results since they aren’t posted for public viewing. I like seeing that grade when I go south it means alot for piece of mind and makes it easier to avoid places that are suspect.

signed_a_b     7/13/2009 7:18:03 AM
…The system we have in SF, where a yellow piece of paper (which may or may not be posted visibly) has health notes scribbled on it, is useless and absurd.

citizenkarma   7/13/2009 8:01:18 AM
Whatnext is right. I would add that health inspection information is much more valuable and actionable for cnsumers than the biased opinions of a food critic, usually recognized by owner and staff the minute they walk in, and who are treated royally accordingly. Think this does not influence the review? Think again.

Consumers in San Francisco, CA desire inspection information, and as the story and comments suggest, they want it easily accessible. The neighbouring cities of San Diego and Los Angeles have public disclosure systems in place — letter grades in the windows and reports online – why not San Francisco?