Would my kitchen pass Scores on Doors?

So we have just cracked down on restaurants, but let’s be honest, would my kitchen pass Scores on Doors?

I will do two levels of tests – the day to day test and the guest test. Hopefully we have higher standards for guests, and face it, restaurants are serving guests.

The first 3 criteria, no problems, though I am ignoring ones that don’t apply (like registration).

Criteria 4 – no food past its use by date. Personal use – fail. Guests – pass. Yes I am happy to eat food past its use by date but with a careful check. Face it, we all know that the food is 100% acceptable up to the use by date. It is impossible for it to go from 100% good to %100 bad in an instant.

I feel a bit ripped off. That’s 4 points for personal consumption just because my yoghurt is 2 days over the use by date.

Food storage and heating no problems. But then the crunch – items thawed correctly. How often do I leave the frozen meat out all day to thaw? Actually I’ve improved quite a bit since being in the industry so since today there is nothing sitting around thawing, I pass. Yes.

Hand washing is a breeze. We have the facilities and we remind everyone to wash their hands before preparing food, coming to the table etc etc etc.

Since my wife cleaned the kitchen this morning, it is spotless. So we pass the clean surfaces test. And when guests are over, it is immaculate. But that’s a bit hit and miss. If it had been the teenagers cleaning the kitchen, I could have been clocking up some points.

Temperature measuring. For most domestic kitchens they would be failing but I sell the devices, so I pass. That’s one point for the rest of you.

No animals in food handling area. That depends on where the inspector would draw the line. The dogs sit on their mats at night in the dining room, but it’s a kitchen/dining room. So probably a point.

The maintenance of the place is reasonably good, but there are some broken doors so that’s a point.

And some of the plates have chips, but not for guests. They have “the good stuff”.

So for the domestic kitchen I scored 7 points (and 4 of them for old yoghurt!) and for the guest days 3 points.

So for guests I have a 5-star kitchen and for day to day existence I’m down to a 4-star.

 

By this it is obvious that we can easily survive with a less than 5-star restaurant but my wife likes to point out that there is a big difference between your own dirt and someone else’s dirt. And there’s a big difference between giving yourself food poisoning and giving your guests food poisoning.

And there’s a big difference between giving your 4 guests food poisoning and giving 177 customers food poisoning.

 

Now if I went back and did the test “Would my teenage sons pass Scores on Doors?” it would be another answer. But we won’t go there.

Next I look specifically at Scores on Doors and hand washing.

For the start of the series go to Scores On Doors Overview.