The Dog Ate My Report Card…
Beijing has been a flurry of change recently with a whole mess of things being brought in - ‘for the Olympics’. Conspicuous examples of this with little use or merit are things like cladding most shopfronts in stick on metal sheeting, spraying insecticide on the trees in the main thoroughfares to rid them of caterpillars (not sure what Beijing’s bird life will be eating for the duration) and ridding the town of a large portion of its foreign inhabitants. Some, long term projects have also been initiated that will be of great benefit to Beijing over the coming decades, notably the extra subway lines and, less noticeably, vast tracts of reforestation aimed at curbing sandstorms.
Somewhere in this activity was the introduction of an A to D grading system for restaurant sanitation. Restaurants and eateries around town must now show a poster displaying the sanitation rating they have achieved. There are two things about this system that are worth mentioning. The first is the great apparent disparity between some of the rankings handed out and the cleanliness of the establishment to which they have been awarded. Many of my favourite restaurants, with unswerving quality and, from what I can see, great levels of cleanliness fail to surpass a B rating while other places, a practically earthen floo
red gill-the-meat-at-your-table place has an A.
The other thing, is evident when you read the description of the various letter grades all is well until you get to D: ‘Unqualified Sanitation’. ‘Unqualified’ here is not used in the sense of ‘unqualified success’. Are we to assume that there are restaurants in Beijing proudly sporting their D rating and continuing to operate…? I must confess I have not seen such a place. But then… why put the rating on the large posters designed for Display - if the D rating will have to be improved on before the restaurant can operate again?
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Nick responds:
Posted: June 27th, 2008 at 11:40 pm →
We have a system like this in New Zealand and at least when I lived there they on occasions would publish the list in the newspapers.. usually the headliners (D’s) were some of my favourite Chinese restaurants. I’d hate to think what a D in China would be.
Jeremiah responds:
Posted: June 28th, 2008 at 7:12 am →
It’s hard to fight the feeling that these grades may be awarded, to reach for a word, on a formula that’s 50% inspection and 50% how much the restaurant owners are able to grease the inspectors. Sorry to be so cynical, but that’s just the way Beijing works.
chriswaugh_bj responds:
Posted: June 29th, 2008 at 11:09 am →
What I have yet to figure out about these posters is the line: “Customers are advised to dine in restaurants of higher sanitation ratings.” Should I interpret that as “B may say “good”, but our inspectors wouldn’t eat here”? But then again, everywhere has a B- at least, everywhere I’ve seen displaying such a poster. I have never seen any other grade.
Meg responds:
Posted: June 30th, 2008 at 12:44 pm →
The 7-11 by Wudaokou has a D rating! I think my boyfriend took a photo of it.
For some places with an A rating, I’m pretty sure an envelope of pinkies changed hands!
Jeremiah responds:
Posted: June 30th, 2008 at 5:01 pm →
I generally see Bs, but I did notice that the Jianguomen Starbucks (across from the St. Regis) is an “A” and my little Xinjiang place across the street just got downgraded to a “C.”
That’s scary about the Wudaokou 7-11, considering it feeds half the neighborhood.