This reminded me of an experience my wife had in February off '87. I had been working at a job site in Mississippi since October of '86 doing construction support on a chemical plant unit my company had engineered. There was a Chinese restaurant we went to every week in the rotation of restaurants we ate in, as it was convenient and located at the entrance to the development we were renting condominiums in. The strip center had a grocery store, pharmacy, washateria and this Chinese place. The food was decent and after 10 hours of work and a couple of hours drinking beer after work, it was something to fill you up.cypress-ag said:
I spent 18 years working for a large family restaurant group in Texas and learned from the hand of the brothers. I never worked in the restraurants but helped build and maintain and handled logistics for them. They always told me if you're out of town and looking for a place to eat, circle the back of the building and look how they handle that area and it will tell you all you need to know about the kitchen. That said..certain places that I do love, I don't want to look at the back because it would break my heart and I choose to remain in the dark.
Come February, construction was finished, most of the staff came back to Houston, and two of us stayed behind to help check the logic in the control system. The company allowed my wife and our three daughters to come over to stay with me in lieu of me coming home every week and paying for travel and overtime. One day shortly after arriving, she was doing laundry at the washateria and went to the small plaza that divided the strip center. There was a raised bed with a seating area around it at the back of the shops. She was reading while the kids ran around and played. Some motion to her left caught her eye, so she looked up and saw the lady that ran the Chinese place grabbing chicken quarters out of boxes and laying them across her arms, using the joint between the leg and thigh to hold them in place.
Yes, the chicken was stored outside, without refrigeration, and the lady was using her bare arms to move the food into the kitchen. She looked up, saw my wife, smiled at her and went back inside. For some reason, I was never able to convince my wife to eat in that restaurant.