Tag Archives: The Hills

UK deli once owned by Towie star Charlie Sims slammed in food hygiene inspection

Posted on by
Reply

I’m told by wiki that Towie – short for The Only Way is Essex – is the UK equivalent of The Hills and Jersey Shore.

towie.charlie.simsI actually watched The Hills with one of my teenage daughters and a pregnant Amy when we were unexpectedly stranded in Florida as a hurricane approached.

The show was horrible.

But in the name of food safety, a Brentwood high street food outlet – once owned by former Towie star Charlie Sims – has been criticized in a food standards hygiene report.

Charlie’s Deli – which still holds the name of Charlie Sims who opened the eatery in 2014 but sold it at around Christmas – was given a score of just 1 during an inspection on January 18.

Among the work the inspector said was required was that food must be prepared properly.

A list of requirements was then handed to the eatery which read:

“Keep the rear door closed or fit pest-proof screens to the doorway.

“Do not cool food for longer than 90 minutes at room temperature.

DSCN0155.JPG“Provide suitable ventilation to the kitchen.

“Redecorate areas of worn paintwork to kitchen wall surfaces.

“Provide lids to kitchen bins or consider provision of waste bins.

“Provide soap and towels at kitchen wash basin.

“Provide soap at server wash basin.

“Gloss paint or varnish the unsealed wooden shelf above the kitchen wash hand basin.

“Thoroughly clean the work top fridge door handles and door handles.

“Gloss paint or varnish the wooden surface below the two microwave ovens.

“Replace the missing cover to the kitchen work top fridge motor.”

It’s all scripted for you, Charlie’s Deli, just like the reality shows.

Letter grades for Abu Dhabi restaurants?

Posted on by
Reply

If the UAE takes letter grades for restaurant inspection disclosure, will they also take American pop culture crap like The Hills (right).

The National reports that more than half of all restaurants monitored by Sharjah Municipality have failed basic food hygiene inspections on such grounds as out-of-date food and mouldy kitchens.

Over the past 12 months, inspectors checked 1,588 restaurants and cafeterias, of which only 223 met the minimum requirements, according to Jassim Mohammed al Ali, head of the municipality’s internal inspection department.

Of the remaining establishments, 891 were issued with warnings and 474 were closed temporarily until they improved.

Restaurants and grocery shops in the capital will face similar inspections over the coming weeks.

The news comes a week after a four-year-old girl died from food poisoning in Sharjah. Marwa Faisal died in Al Qassimi Hospital early last Sunday, just 55 minutes after she, her parents and her brother had been admitted with symptoms that included violent vomiting. …

The Abu Dhabi Food Control Authority has warned grocery shop operators and restaurant managers in the emirate a concerted food inspection campaign is on the way in the lead-up to the summer.

Last month in Al Ain, spot checks by ADFCA inspectors and city police found 143 lorries hauling produce to markets and restaurants without proper permits. …

The ADFCA is also considering implementing a restaurants grading system similar to that implemented in 2006 for fish markets and butcher shops.

Under the proposed programme, all the emirate’s food outlets would be required clearly to display a certificate disclosing health inspection results –“A” for exceptional health and safety practices, “B” for very good, or a passing “C” grade.

New South Wales, Australia – this is your public health inspector

Posted on by
2

Every restaurant and cafe in NSW will receive a random health inspection in the next 12 months after Government health bosses were left reeling by the results of their latest food safety crackdown.

Health and safety inspectors have issued 160 fines in four weeks. The NSW Food Authority launched a "name and shame" website in July to try to improve hygiene standards. Department officials expected to uncover kitchen nightmares but did not envisage dishing out 1000 fines to 600 businesses in 10 months.

The name-and-shame list is updated on Tuesdays and has had more than 1.5million hits since it was put on the Internet.

Handwashing and sanitation: try to make the message meaningful

Posted on by
1

While Amy, Sorenne and I observed some sort of cross between The Hills and Real Housewives of Somewhere at a poolside party in Scottsdale, Arizona, some 2,300 Kansas State students were graduating this afternoon.

Hand sanitizers were apparently on the agenda as those who convocated were offered hand sanitizer before receiving their degree. The optional offering was apparently designed to ease flu fears. Seems reasonable enough, but do such offerings actually amplify rather than assuage concerns about swine flu, er, H1N1, or any other communicable disease?

If any of the thousands of family and friends who visited Kansas State today had wandered into the student union to use the washroom, they would have seen the sign pictured below. Megan discovered this about a week ago, and three of us read the sign and thought the disinfectant referred to some special kind of handwashing soap. Maybe we’re just handwashing geeks.

So Megan went on an investigative trek that finally led to AFFLAB Antimicrobial Lotion Soap. The company website does not list factual information about their soaps and the germ killing power it may have. In general, antimicrobial and antibacterial soaps do aid in the “eradication of germs” and washing hands properly helps as well. However, if no such soaps are available, non-antimicrobial or non-antibiotic soaps will also clean your hands. During handwashing, the act of rubbing hands vigorously together with soap, creating lather, then rinsing them, is what removes germs (or, for the science nerds, transient flora).

Then Amy looked over my shoulder and said, “the disinfectant is the stuff used to wash the bathroom floors.”

Oops.

I do not know the purpose of the signs, and what message the signs were intended to convey, but they failed. And as Megan said, “ugly, unattractive signs aren’t going to increase hand hygiene.”

The Hills and restaurant inspection disclosure

Posted on by
Reply

The Hills is probably the worst thing on TV. My 14-year-old daughter watched the Hills marathons while in Florida with us last August. Now we watch it on DVR, Katie’s totally hooked, and daughter Courtlynn doesn’t even watch it.

With a baby, there’s a lot of bad TV on in the background.

On tonight’s episode LC and Stephanie go into some restaurant and there’s an A in the window. So yeah for restaurant inspection disclosure.

And someone tried to speak French during the episode. Amy said it was horrible.