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Which Chinese restaurant story you want?
The one were I went because their freezer compressor died and when I walked into the freezer, the smell of rotten shrimp made me puke? And the cook who grabbed a handful of it and threw it in the wok and served it, made me gag again?

Or the Chinese restaurant near where I used to live (45 minutes from a supply house) which I stopped by and diagnosed their ice machine, ~9am a big bowl of raw, red meat sitting on floor uncovered in the back of kitchen, and it was already 85 degrees back there, with flies on it. Same bowl of meat, with about half of it gone, still on floor uncovered, except for flies, that evening ~7pm. And yes, they were taking it and cooking then serving it. And by then it was close to 95 degrees back there.

And I got more, which is why I don't eat Chinese food unless I cook it myself.

Had a call at a Greek Restaurant once. Very well known in my city. I'd eaten their also a few times, as a night out treat. Got a no hot water call. Just before lunch I get there. I changed the hsi, no big deal. The owner of the joint asks if I'd like the lunch special on the house. Being the frugal Ba$tard I am, sure, why not. I make my way to the washroom just off of the kitchen, which is the employee washroom, to wash my hands. I find buckets of 1/2 prepared food, meat etc, sitting in the washroom with no lids or anything on them. YUCK.....I turn around to leave and was almost to the truck, and the owner comes running out with my Lunch special. I told him I gotta go and thew it out as soon as I got out of the parking lot.. Never ate their again.

Movie Theater Ice bins, and Popcorn bins are the worst. Ice bins, everything was growing in them, with the teenagers running the concesions. Popcorn bin full of dead bugs that had been zapped by the heat lamps. The Theaters popped the corn in the back, had so much old nasty grease on it, that I'm surprised it didn't burn to the ground. To make matters worse, half had their fire sprinklers valved off. Boss told us to keep our mouths shut, as they would pay very high dollars to fix the AC, when a new unit would cost less.

when I stepped in a hot grease vat at Grandys as a teenager they let me put my flesh-melting foot in the ice bin

Did a pizza chain for a couple years, when the walk in would go bad or the prep table they never moved the product or tried to keep it cool. I love my cheese to be melted twice.

Ive started using small pieces of cardboard for knee pads in chinese joints after throwing away 3 pairs of pants the problem is the cardboard usually is stuck to floor for good went back to 1 place a month later to service other equip. and cardboard was still stuck on floor from when I was there before .No if it wont pick up easy I leave it there they should clean the floor. . . . . . . and everything else

Have one customer that uses the outlet water from the water cooled ice machine to thaw sea food I DON'T EAT THERE!!

I forgot about this one.

Mouse poop in the ice machine (yes, mouse poop. You should have seen in the compressor area).

Health Dept. here is a joke.

Went to one for an ice machine problem. Ice machine had been out since the day before so the ice was kinda low. lady came in and completly crawled INTO the bin to scoop ice out, shoes and all. Ohh She also had a cold and was dripping from the nose.
We work at a few restraunts and there are some that we work at that i will go to and eat but most i won't eat at. Wife says if i go out to eat i've either never worked there or the kitchen is in real good shape.

Originally Posted by Midlyph

Our local newspaper "The Gainesville Times" publishes the health dept. inspection scores in the Sunday paper, complete with comments and details. In this town, if you own or operate a restaurant, you better get it right or business will be "off" the following week.

Sample from their website.

link to reports

Here in NYC you can see it on the city web site,they are also posting the inspection grade at the front door.

A local site of a national chain, not fast food but sit down and have servers bring it to you, had one of the nastiest kitchens I had to work in of the several restaurants my employer had us service.
Had one portable reach-in that was not cooling. First thing I did was look at the condenser coil, slam full of dust, fluff and grease. It was kept near a prep line for easy reach of various products needed for the foods they offered.
I moved all of the kitchen gear away from the area, all of the foodstuffs sitting there and cover the prep area with sheet plastic to keep cleanup to a minimum. I bring in the cleaning gear, setup and commence to cleaning. No sooner than I had started spraying the chemicals through the coil than one of the cooks, this place ain't good enough to have chefs, pulls the plastic off of the table and places foods and finished food preps right into the spray falling down to the table. Even though I stopped quickly and shouted to him, he still put the food into the falling spray zone, the stuff got covered. I told him he needed to toss that stuff out with the trash and why so what does he do, covers it with plastic wrap and puts it back in the walk-in.
Other time on a routine PM I look in the ice makers, I find the most horrendous and nasty wave of snot-slime covering the plate and water curtain system that I have ever seen. I informed the manager and he told me to wait until Monday morning to clean it when they weren't busy and so that they could sell out the ice on Sunday. I also told him that if the health dept. came in for a surprise inspection and found that, the entire restaurant would be thoroughly inspected and they'd be shut down immediately until it was brought back to code, completely. He still said wait until Monday.
Went to a call for a malfunctioning salad cooler there. When I pulled the unit away from the wall, the floor scattered. I found that three of the four evaporator fans had failed. They had been failed since Friday night and I was there Monday afternoon when they called.
I've been in the walk-in freezer for defrost issues, always caused by someone getting enthusiastic with their box packing that they break wires and conduit or snap the thermostat off of the wall. In there I see semi-closed containers of food that has a thick layer of black and white fur all over it. I asked one of the cooks about it and he said they just cook it real thorough and serve it anyway, can't afford to throw out food.
This restaurant is so nasty and the manager and staff don't care one whit about health standards that one, I'm surprised they're still open and two, I warn people away from there any time someone asks me about that particular restaurant.
They do get a visit from DHEC on a fairly regular basis and the requisite rating reduction, usually to a "B" and I've seen a "C" on the door several times but they're still open and they're still serving snot soup in the drinks and fur-burgers from the grill. Which hasn't been clean since they opened many years ago.

Our local newspaper "The Gainesville Times" publishes the health dept. inspection scores in the Sunday paper, complete with comments and details. In this town, if you own or operate a restaurant, you better get it right or business will be "off" the following week.

Sample from their website.

link to reports

I get a call from a resturant,he says I need a new stat.I ask do you know what you got,the round one.No problem got a T87 on the truck.So I get there,and start walking over to the stat.I see one of those 3M post it notes over the stat,what the f##k! I pick the paper up and see a live roach walking around the word Honeywell.Took the stat down,could not see how it got in there.

Brother in law is a parole agent. Once a month they do late night raids in various bars looking for parole violators. One bar/resturant they went to, the kitchen was so bad, they called the health department.

A customer who has a catering business is a complete and total pig. Rotten, moldy food in the walk in's (on the shelves-I don't want to look under the shelves), garbage everywhere, always dirty dishes just sitting in the sink.

I guess the first thing they teach you in cullinary school is that cleaning is optional.

Here's another. This smaller concept chain didn't have hot water for about two weeks and stayed open. At first glance a normal person would say " ok not that bad". WRONG!!!!

All of this dishes that other people slobbered all over and didn't have the 180 degree water to clean their snot off of. Drinking out of glasses that maybe a nasty hooker just got done drinking out of after she got off work. You can see where I am going with this.

I am a bit germaphobic but you have to admit that is pretty bad. Always drink out of a straw at ANY restaurant!!!

Was working in a large chain joint real early in the morning and this Hispanic lady brought in a catfish and tossed it in the fryer. And no it had not been cleaned or gutted. Head and all. Now I am used to seeing nasty stuff in all different restaurants but this one made me throw up in my mouth a little bit

One more...

Went to a Asian Style Restaurant to work on a range eye that wouldn't burn. When I got there I noticed a 5 gal metal pot on the range. They point and say... this one.

Well, the pot was sitting on the range spider and it looked like a 5 gallon candle. Had solidified grease down the side of the pot to the spider like a candle would melt.

Asked them to move the pot. They couldn't.

Grabbed a wonder bar and broke it loose. Inside the pot was chicken soup... bones and all. While cleaning the pot I saw them pull the old chicken bones out. They were GREEN and falling apart, almost dissolving in the soup.

The only thing I could find wrong with the range eye was it couldn't get any secondary air due to the 5 gal volcano candle pot. Gave them the burner to put in the dishwasher and left.... I'll never, never, never... did I say NEVER?... eat Asian Style again.

I put on a training class for a local Health Dept on the proper cleaning and inspection of Ice Makers. Went to their cafeteria to give them hands on experience. You guessed it, they shut down the ice maker and told the Manager to call building maintenance.

Local Chinese restaurant. Years (and years) ago, we installed a walk in freezer for them, with a typical air cooled condenser. They later requested we convert it to a water cooled condenser, so they could use the warm water from the outlet to wash their dishes with. Whatever. You want to pipe it to the sink, ok.

Last year we were called out to fix the ice machine we had installed circa 2003, and while I was changing the water level probe I noticed the fella washing the dishes was blowing his snot into the side of the sink with the clean dishes.

Everybody in there was sick, blowing their snot into the trashcans and whatnot, and not one of them washed their hands-ever.

That's one of many.

Zed

Found baby cockroaches in an ice machine in a mall food court. Health department shut them down. Also saw dead pigeons stuck in the goo of an overflowing exhaust fan grease trap at a Chinese joint.