Friday, November 30, 2007

No doggie bag for you



We went to a restaurant and couldn't finished what we had ordered. We asked for a doggie bag but was told that the restaurant was not allowed to do that due to hygiene issue. Since we didn't want to waste the food, we were forced to wrap the leftover with tissue paper.

In Malaysia it is quite easy to ask to bring home the leftover (tapau). In the USA it was very common practice too. Some people just settle a meal by eating the leftover from the restaurant. It is called doggie bag because the original idea was to feed the dog at home with whatever is left.

I thought France was too much in implementing this law, but looking through internet, Australia and England are starting to ban restaurants from giving out doggie bag too.

"March 20-21 -- No more restaurant doggie bags. In Australia, the restaurant doggie bag is in decline because of fears that patrons will store food at improper temperatures, allowing the growth of food-poisoning bacteria. "The Australian Leisure and Hospitality Group, which has 142 hotel restaurants across the country, has banned patrons from taking home leftovers. Victoria has already brought in anti-doggie-bag legislation, with other states tipped to follow before the end of the year, Mr Deakin said. 'If we are the cooker of the food we are liable,' he said." ("Restaurants ban doggie bags", The Advertiser (Adelaide), Mar. 18). Meanwhile, in the U.K.: "Some restaurants in Britain are forcing customers who like their meat rare to sign a disclaimer form before eating due to fears of the risk of E. coli and salmonella poisoning, the Sunday Times newspaper reported." ("British Eaters Who Like Rare Meat Sign Disclaimers", Reuters/Yahoo, Mar. 18). "
Source

4 comments:

  1. Lazy is the world. E. coli and salmonella only thrive on raw vegetable and raw meat not cook meat, what are these people talking about, lazy people talk nonsense.

    Last week I was at Publix (one of the local stores that has the sales slogan, shopping is a pleasure in Publix). I wanted 36 pieces of fried chicken for our Christmas party. The man who spoke with an European accent told me there's not enough chicken but if I want to have black chicken (ie non chicken breast), I could have them right way. I said what do you mean there is no chicken. He said there is not enough black chicken so I need to flied so it would take some time. I said how long, he said 1/2 hr, I said that's alright because I still need to get some stuff in the store. It took him less than 20mins to get those 36 pieces of chicken pieces.

    While checking out, I approached the customer service representative and told me I was very unhappy with the deli staff because I am bring business to the store and if the man thinks it is too difficult to work, he should resign and he should be thankful he has a job. The customer representative said he agreed with me and apologized to me and he assured me that he would let the store manager know about my complaint. After that the packing girl helped me to bring my stuff to my car ( I love shopping at Publix because they always give you the best customer service like bringing your stuffs to your car or bringing you umbrella during raindays etc.).

    While walking to my car, the young girl told me there has been many complaints recently about the deli department. She said she think the mgr will fired the staffs and she said people should be thankful for having a job than complaining.

    In US, customers are treated like king and queen.

    While checking out , the cashier keyed in $1.99 for each of the pack of mushroom. I told her it's buy one get one free. She asked the packing girl to see if that's the case, and I was right. Their policy is such that if the cashier punched in the wrong price that was displaced, customer gets free for the goods. So I ended up having 2 pack of mushroom free.

    That is why lah I love capitalist land so much :):).

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  2. Actually not only doggy bags are not allowed, some restaurants disallow sharing of food. Most of the time, they allow sharing of desserts but not starters or mains. I think this applies a lot to pizza places. The pizzas here are huge and I envisage that I could only finish half, so my mum-in-law and I wanted to share the pizza but they said sharing is not allowed.....sigh....so many rules!

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  3. I used to organise conferences and it was typical Malaysian to request to tapau the leftover food but the hotels usually disallowed it in case anyone got food poisoning from the leftovers.

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  4. Jamy,

    I won't say that this is due to the laziness. It's not much work to just bring a box. France has a lot of regulations and in the restaurant industry they need to pay a lot of attention in not violating them. But in this case I think they are too careful, don't think can really get food poisoning from leftover food.

    liping,
    What a shame they didn't allow you to share. When I was in Switzerland we ordered 8 plates for 11 people and the restaurant didn't complaint, instead just put the food in three big plates so that we can share among ourself. Each of us had our own eating plate.

    mumsgather,
    Ah I didn't know this is not allowed too in Malaysia. Just hotel right bcos most of the restaurants will let you tapau.

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