Restaurants fix health code violations! More at 10!
By Erin in Food on Mar 1, 2005 3:50PM
Usually Chicagoist is smart enough that at 10 p.m. it's time to focus attention to WFLD and spend our last waking minutes engrossed in The Simpsons.
Chicagoist is especially vigilant of this practice during Sweeps months when local television news programs are using every sensationalist trick in the book to get us to watch their newscast. And we nearly made it out of February unscathed but, alas, we were sucked in by that wily minx, Pam Zekman, over at CBS 2 and her promised investigative report.
The "investigative report," quote marks intentional, was entitled Eat, Drink, and Be Wary: Some of the Finest Restaurants Can Make You Sick. While we were skeptical of what we'd learn, we watched just the same. We cover restaurants here, and we were curious as to what we would learn.
In the grand tradition of Sweeps Pieces everywhere, learn which restaurants were nailed with health code violations AFTER THE JUMP!
After much, we should add, unnecessary fan fare, Chicagoist learned, that gasp! three area restaurants received citations for health code violations following customer complaints of feeling "ill" or an unfortunate roach sighting. All three restaurants -- Francesca's on Taylor, the Weber Grill on State Street and Rhapsody on East Adams -- quickly corrected the violations and all commented on the citations for Zekman's "investigation."
Look, we respect Zekman, she's a Pultizer-Prize winner and all, but Chicagoist isn't sure what about this piece constitutes a huge investigation, when any one of us could visit the Chicago Department of Public Health's handy dandy Web site and learn the exact same thing.
The report even instructs the audience to visit the city's site! Why didn't they say that from the beginning? I mean, Chicagoist missed the first half of The Simpsons and it was the one where Marge sends Homer off to Rock and Roll Camp!
It's not as if people falling ill at an area restaurant is a laughing matter. It's gross, we know. But on the other hand, it's not exactly news and it certainly isn't as uncommmon as people would like to think -- even at in some of "Chicago's finest restaurants" as was the hook of the report. And, come on, no one died here.
So the lesson here? If it's a concern of yours, check out a restaurant's health code record over the Web before heading out the door. Also, ignore newscast teasers during Sweeps at all possible costs.
Image of Mr. Yuck: Riley's Children's Hospital