Cleanliness in a Restaurant

The Chinese have a custom born out of a need for sanitary eating utensils.  First you pour boiling tea into the cup that you will drink out of.  Next you wash your chop sticks in it and then pour the tea into the rice bowl you will eat out of.  Then you turn your cup over and wash the rim of the cup.  Of course you can’t forget to clean the spoon.  Finally you pour the dirty tea into a pan that will be poured down the drain.

But of course I have questions.  What about the plate that everything sets on?  Why don’t they clean that?  Sometimes in a restaurant the people bring out the tea and it isn’t hot.  No one checks it; I do.  When I ask Xin Jiao about it she says, “it is OK.“  What makes it OK?  Is there some special seal or method to making it OK?  American people want to know!!!  Am I about to contract some malicious disease buy not following protocol?

Xin Jiao will sometimes order me a second bowl of rice in the middle of the meal if she thinks I need it.  Did the staff at the restaurant clean the bowl properly?  I ask Xin Jiao and she says, “It is OK don’t worry!”  But I worry.

1.       Another thing that concerns me is their tables. When a Chinese person chews something they do not want to swallow, they will spit it out on the table. Yes I know it’s kind of gross but is acceptable in China.  The funny thing to me, is the poor of a job they do in cleaning the tables.  The restaurant staff will wipe off a table but little effort is made to actually clean it.  The tables are almost always slightly sticky or greasy.  Why would anyone who is so anal about cleaning utensils tolerated such a filth table?

    You can find restaurants where everything is clean but in general you pay a lot more money there.  I would still advise you to look at everything because I have found filth at the most expensive restaurants too.

    Xin Jiao and I ate at a very nice restaurant in Shaoguan.  The table cloth was not only threadbare and filthy but there were large wet areas too.  Xin Jiao knew this would be an issue with me so she told the person right away to change it.  They came back with the newer cloth or at least I thought it was newer.  They took up the old one and put the new or clean or what ever you would like to call it out and it was just as filthy but it was dry.

    The words flew out of Xin Jiao's mouth and the woman quickly picked that one up and brought a much more acceptable one back and the meal went forward.

    Note: they will clean things if you ask and you may have to ask 2 or 3 times.  They want your business.

    One restaurant we frequent in Shaoguan always take us to the cleanest table they have with out us saying a word.  Xin Jiao says we go there because I think the waitresses are cute, they are, and they pay too much attention to me, and they do.  But the effort they make to keep things clean is what keeps me going back.