Reading this MSN piece about the realities of the restaurant industry brought back memories of Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential – updated for the 21st Century. I had several “Oh yeah!” moments as I recalled my most recent restaurant meal. Scare-mongering really isn’t my thing when it comes to food – I figure that the body needs a pretty steady dose of a variety of bacteria to make sure the immune system is always ready to handle the bigger nasties. But the issues brought up in the MSN article really point to the way restaurants all have to cut corners just to stay in business…..and a lot of those corners have to do with hygiene. BTW, Bourdain wrote about it in the year 2000 and the MSN article reiterates it……the washroom is the definitive place to check first if you want to know about the level of pride and attention a restaurant takes in everything it does. To paraphrase Bourdain, “If they don’t care about the one place visible to the customer, how much attention are they paying to the places that aren’t”.