Is it safe to eat?

Have you noticed those health inspection placards in restaurant windows? They tell you if you are likely to survive your meal there or find a rat-tail instead of a noodle in your soup. Since last July the Alameda County Department of Environmental Health has been transitioning to a visible placard system and requiring restaurants to post a placard with the inspection results near a front entrance where it will be visible to the public.

There are three placard colors, analogous to traffic lights. Green: tuck in! Yellow: better check under that lettuce leaf! Red: don't bother, we've been shut down!

I've seen nothing but green placards on Solano. But some restaurants don't have any placard at all, I assume because they haven't undergone inspection yet. And after I crossed the Albany line into Berkeley I didn't see any restaurant or food-handling facility with a visible placard, at least as far as Starbuck's at Colusa. (And I saw a few blue-colored PASS placards, from year 2012.)

I spoke with a couple restaurant managers, and they said that the inspectors just show up unannounced. And that they are strict and demanding. That's a good thing.

Information on the placarding system is at http://www.acgov.org/aceh/documents/NewsRelease-Grading2012-06-28.pdf.

You can view detailed restaurant inspection results on a map here: http://www.acgov.org/MAPS/deh/InspectionResults/?SITE=INSPECTION

Happy to see so many local eateries with "GO" placards. 

Speaking of health, I wait for Gordo's now to post calorie counts for its super burritos.