GREENSBORO, NC -- Buffet restaurants always have stacks and stacks of clean plates and bowls so we can pick up clean ones when we make a second and (cough, cough) third trip through the line.
But the restaurant also has to have a person there to make sure we take a clean plate. It might seem obvious but read how chef and GTCC culinary instructor Keith Gardiner spells out the dangers of dirty plates in the buffet line in this Restaurant Report Card lesson.
"I think people actually think they're doing you a favor, 'Well I'll just use this plate again'. But you're if you really stop and think about what's happening, the food that they're serving is coming in contact with what they just ate. So you end up eating after the other people that went through the buffet in front of you."
Keith says, "They have been eating so their saliva and everything is all over that plate. So when they put a portion of something on the plate, if that spoon touches the plate then it goes back into the food - that food is contaminated. So it's cross contamination from one person to the food to another person, so it's very dangerous."
Not having that sign up can cost a restaurant up two points if they don't have someone protecting the buffet from dirty dishes.
