A few years ago, a colleague tapau fried rice for me. It was one of the best I tasted. I was suitably impressed with the taste and went to buy for myself one fine day. But what I saw made me swear off the stall forever. To this day I have not bought the fried rice or noodle from this stall but I left it at that and didn't do anything. Then the other day, I was queuing up for noodles at a new stall which was next to them and while waiting, I could not help but look at the stall (the fried rice stall).
Now this fried rice stall is a 1 man show. Just an old man but his fried rice and noodles are good enough to attract a steady stream of customer. The problem with this stall and in particular him is that he is atrociously unhygienic! He does not wear those disposable gloves. He handles his ingredients such as prawn, porks and other stuff with his bare hands. When he receives an order, he will scoop up say a bowl of white rice and pour them onto a plate before pouring them into the wok. If there are any rice stuck to the plate, he will use his hand to push them into the wok. Next, he turns around and pick up the ingredients with his bare hands before throwing them into the wok. Because his hand is now a bit wet from the fresh ingredients, he wipe them on his apron if he is wearing one or on his trouser if not. The rice is fried pretty fast and he hands them over to the customer and collects the cash with his bare hands again. If there are no customer, he wipes the table top with a table cloth. When another customer comes along, he repeat the whole cooking process. Note that I did not mention that he wash his hand in any of the above instances. The only times he goes to the basin is to rinse his wok when he has to cook a different dish. Even then, where does he wipe his hands dry? On his apron or trouser of course! Maybe that why the food he cooks is so nice!
The best thing about his stall? It got a A rating from NEA! For those who don't mind the "non washing of hand", why not give this stall a try? It's really pretty good. Like they say, dirty eat, dirty big.
I think I'll pass .....
ReplyDeleteStrangely i don't see him unhygenic, maybe i'm more forgiving with the elderly. Be appreciative of other people efforts.Observe his worn-out hands from preparing those food. Anyway,if I see a young chap doing the same thing, I would be turn off.
ReplyDeleteHi there Anonymous, your logic defeats me. Unhygienic is unhygienic be it from an old man or a young chap. And all hawkers, whether elderly or not have no excuses.
ReplyDeleteHi there Tekko, Those potential little germs found on the money, which might be transferred to the ingredients would be killed by the heat in the wok, therefore the food is safe for consumption. See,you didn't suffer from food poisoning, or diarea after eating the fried rice he prepare right? so don't be overly hung up with pre-idea of how hygiene should have been. As long as the hawker is not running flu while preparing your food (because virus cannot be destroy by heat),sneezing, picking his nose, hands scratching feets, dripping sweat into the food, or allowing flies contacting the food, these are what i see as true unhygienic. You see the thing is those that appear very hygienic on the surface may not be so. The source of ingredients may be more unclean than you can imagine.
DeleteFurthermore, there are not many hawker who prepare delicious food, so don't hiam lah.