Friday, September 14, 2007

"Excuse Me Waiter, There's a Shoe in My Garlic Chicken"

I've heard the food at the Great China Buffet in Nanuet, N.Y had a lot of soul. What I didn’t realize was they didn’t mean "soul," they meant "sole," as in the prep cook's shoe! Ladies and gentlemen, introducing the human garlic press.

An employee at a store next door to the Great China Buffet, saw this cook crushing garlic outside the restaurant with his shoes. He snapped some photos and sent them to the Rockland County Health Department. In the understatement of the year, John Stoughton, from that public health department was quoted as saying, "We would not consider a person's shoe a proper instrument to use in food preparation."

The restaurant was cited and the employee is no longer employed there. He was not available for comment, but friends said he really feels like a heel.

Photo credit: Dan Barreto and the The Journal News

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Could this be the real filet of sole?

I seriously wonder what goes on behind the kichen door, where no one can see them prepping for their menu? Can the health department really believe the owner of the place didn't know what this guy was up to? You had to smell that shoe from a block away!

Anonymous said...

I'm glad the restaurant owner put his foot down and fired him.

hkfreak said...

Shoe Shoe Gai Pan!

Anonymous said...

I was stationed at Stewart ANGB in Newburgh and I have eaten there a few times. I am one unhappy camper, thanks Chef John.

Chef John said...

Lol, sorry.

Aristolochia said...

thats actually funny! haha sorry :P

Anonymous said...

And here all this time I've always thought the expression, "You really put your foot in it," was just a complimentary figure of speech for the chef.

Anonymous said...

Ah, but when this guy's girlfriend tells him that his feet stink, he's got a great excuse : He was working.

The next time my girlfriend says it to me, I'll tell her that she can do the cooking from now on!

Scott - Boston

Chef John said...

I knew it was just a matter of time before Scott from Beantown put in his two "scents."

You're a shoe-in for a post like this!

Anonymous said...

Damn the health department.. the dish was just not the same with out a little shoe flavour.. that was the secret ingredient.

Grams Pam said...

This was one of the 'you might also like' suggestions at the bottom of your 5/8/10 "Hello from Las Vegas" blog entry.

Strangely enough, I'm not that bothered by the idea of crushing massive amounts of garlic with shoes on... pretty inventive, actually.

However, as a Nurse, my stomach did all kinds of flips just thinking about the pathogens that were on the bottom of routinely worn street shoes. GACK!!

Pondering the idea of a inventing a food-grade type of dedicated footwear for crushing inordinate amounts of garlic. Oh, wait... someone did that already. They're called Crocs. LOL!