Menu in restaurants

Dear All:
I am new in this forum.and this my first post i hope to give & take good knowledge from you.
Actually I have an inquiry.I went to one chinese restaurant that as i knew they serve delicious foods.the point is I told the supervisor to give me the Menu after I ate.the menu are two Languages(Chinese & English),my colleague is Chinese person saw the menu and surprised because the restaurant mention that they are serving pork(ham smoked,grill...etc) but they didnt mention that in english menu ,just only in the another.Is that lawfully?what does the food agency or FDA publish about this status?

Also I want to ask another question.
what does the Dinesafe program mean and it can implement in the Arabic counties?

I appreciate your reply...

Khalid

Dear Khalid,

Thank you for yr questions and welcome to the forum !

I think an answer to yr first query will depend on accurate knowledge of the local regulations. Anyone ? (I have heard equivalent questions many times in restaurant around the world and never knew the actual responsibilities for such things, my guess is that it varies widely. )

I presume the DineSafe you refer to are systems of evaluating the food safety of restaurants like this –

http://app.toronto.ca/food2/index.jsp

I guess that most / all developed (?) countries have a requirement for a satisfactory restaurant inspection by Public Health operatives (or the equivalent) in order to be allowed to serve food to the public for direct consumption. The practical difficulty is often concerned with aspects like frequency of inspection, how to standardise the safety requirements, how to effectively enforce the results (particularly negative ones), etc. Additionally, there have been many criticisms from the public sector that the results / details of evaluations, eg excellent, just passed, failed / passed on re-inspection, are mostly unknown.

As a result, the Dinesafe concept has become popular in many countries in recent years, eg USA, Canada, UK, Australia. It is an attempt to boost safety in food eating establishments by defining the requirements and publishing the results of official inspections in a highly visible way. The methods vary although they are usually based on a pass / borderline / fail type system and some use numerical scores. The “visibility” factor also varies eg, coloured icons / cards on the windows, doors or posters giving the specific result. The results are typically summarised in a database on the net which is freely accessible.

(Regarding the referred link above, I liked their including the basic risk assessment procedure for determining inspection frequency plus the detailing of the hygiene procedures which would be particularly focused on during an inspection. Didn’t see anything about microbiological testing though or how they analysed the results. )

Naturally, these projects have been widely sourced / analysed in the media, both officially and otherwise. Many disturbing results have also been published on the net, for example, can see this link (warning ! – I suggest you don’t read this if you are of a sensitive nature or having a meal !) –

http://www.blogto.co...dumpling_house/

Must say that I have not seen any assessments of whether these schemes are believed to have been successful or not although must be some on the net somewhere.?

Regret that I couldn’t find any google refs to such projects being currently in use in Arabic countries. Anyone ?

Rgds / Charles.C

Dear Kaled,



In Muslim countries, I believe the local regulatory bodies specify and make it mandatory for all restaurants serving pork to clearly specify in all the common languages of that country if there is any pork in the menu. Moreover, I have seen these restaurants that serve pork having separate preparation, storage areas and even colour coded equipments including separate kitchen staff for handling pork. It is always better to check with the service staff before dining to ensure. In some menu cards the certain symbols or colours are used to denote the pork containing dishes.

Dear Khalid,

I am understand your concern. As a country with moslem as the majority religion, this is also an important issue for us. I cant find the regulation regarding this spesific matter. But foremost, I think its an obligation for a restaurant to describe the menu as clear as possible to avoid this sensitive issue (the same thing goes for labels). Here is some regulation that I've found:

http://cspinet.org/n...regulations.doc

http://www.restauran...m?ArticleID=219

http://www.foodstand...002/labelregsni

An overview from Wiki is also a nice read:

http://en.wikipedia....ing_regulations


Regards,


Arya

Dear Khalid,

If you are interested in the details of a UK equivalent of Dinesafe, the country-wide implementation is available in this clever interactive map -

http://www.food.gov....oresonthedoors/

(credit to newsgirl http://www.ifsqn.com...showtopic=12488

Rgds / Charles.C

Dear All:
thanks for every one shared me and answer my questions.Really I apprciate all those comments were send to me by Ary,Jean and Charles


Best Regards