http://jobs.aol.com/articles/2014/12/30/chinese-food-distributor-health-violations/?cps=gravity_1807_-6868345858401633873

FDA: Chinese Food Distributor's Warehouse Is Rodent-Infested Hellscape New York-based supplier cited for birds, rat excrement

Mack Gelber Dec 30th 2014 9:48AM

Ordering Chinese food on Christmas is nearly as hallowed a tradition as watching It's a Wonderful Life and bickering with your extended family. But if a recent FDA citation of one New York-based food supplier is any indication, you're going to want to stay away from your local takeout joint well into the new year.

What are we talking about, exactly? Let's just say that the list of health code violations perpetrated by Brooklyn's New Yung Wah Trading Co. is long enough that, at first glance, it resembles some kind of free-verse poem. A poem studded with frequent, colorful references to rat poop. Here's a sample from the report:

Among the findings in the inspection of the company's McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania, warehouse:

• A rodent's nest with multiple rodents in a plastic-lined box in a cooler that had thawing rib meat on top of melons.
• Four dead rodents.
• Birds flying throughout the warehouse.
• A pallet of pineapples in boxes gnawed on by rodents, an apparent nest they made and rodent feces.
• Rodent feces in a cooler.
• A path of rodent feces leading to a hole in a bag of flour.
• Rodent feces, urine and nests in and around bags of monosodium glutamate.
• Workers smoking while handling food being prepared for distribution.

The full report also mentions drainage issues in the warehouse, with areas of standing water (yum!), as well as "marshy soil and large rocks." The whole thing goes on for a good 2,000 words, and the full effect is something like staring at one of those panoramic Hieronymus Bosch paintings of hell.

So what's the worst part? Because New Yung Wah's website consists solely of an "under construction" message, any Chinese restaurant within their distribution area (they serve the East Coast and Midwest with centers in New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia) is potentially under suspicion when it comes to selling rodent-infested, excrement-laden, standing-water-and-marshy-soil-soaked meat. That's an unfair situation for restaurant owners to be in, especially those who source their food from another supplier.

Still, do you really want to play Russian roulette with products that may have served as actual rat nests? Did you know rats even had nests before reading this? Happy nightmares.

Still like eating ramen noodles while you code instead of a good home cooked meal? I'll never forget the time when my brother told me about the time someone found a dead rat in a cup of ramen noodles, and that was back in '93. 20+ years lager, I guess not much has changed.

I enjoy cooking, and I think I do a good job of it. Although sometimes we don't have time to do it (or just can't), I think cooking ahead of time sounds like a better idea even more so.

Shogun.

Sounds like we're not talking about ramen - the packaged kind, anyway - but restaurant supply.

Good thing I do the cooking at home, and personally I always like to make time to do so, even when immersed in coding sessions. It's one of those activities that lets me to kind of let go and think about things before jumping back in.

Sounds like we're not talking about ramen - the packaged kind, anyway - but restaurant supply.

I assumed that this manufacturer produced both, but I could be wrong. Either way, the stories my big brother told be back in the day kinda intertwine with this one, so my skepticism and pessimism has risen for both. Sad, because I like Asian food, especially when it's anime time.

Good thing I do the cooking at home, and personally I always like to make time to do so, even when immersed in coding sessions. It's one of those activities that lets me to kind of let go and think about things before jumping back in.

That's good. Sometimes the hatred of doing all the dishes by hand makes me not want to cook. I miss having an automatic dishwasher...

Shogun

For a moment, I thought we were discussing Japanese cuisine.

If you've never had real ramen (not cup-o-ramen), then you're seriously missing out shogun. There are a few restaurants in your area that serve it... might want to check them out.

Hot water kills everything thought right?

it's 2015 and everyones like living in BC...

try a restaurants in Adelaide current afairs program found a restaurant that was scrapping of people left overs to serve up to others lol. the Pigs.

I've been working in the hospitality industry for nearly 20 years and I could tell you horror stories about restaurants that serve all sorts of cuisine, and not just Asian. The most meticulously clean kitchen I've come across in all the places I've worked was actually at a Chinese restaurant.

I was seriously trying to imagine a dead rat somehow not being discovered in a packet of brick ramen before it was cooked.

I think there's probably a disconnect here -- most people think of "ramen" as those bricks of instant noodles, or cup noodles. There's plenty of reasons not to eat that stuff (namely that it's absolutely terrible for you), but warehouse hygenics aren't high on that list.

Honestly, eating food is always a gamble for every layer of handling that you didn't oversee. Restaurant/Fast food is the worst, because every single stage of the process from gathering, processing, transport, and cooking is opaque. If you want to eat out, that's just a risk you have to live with. There are plenty of situations in your life where you are implicitly saying "I know this could be dangerous, but I'm willing to trust the establishment".