A friend who worked in a restaurant kitchen once told me that if people knew what went on in restaurants they would never eat out again. That can’t be true, as restaurant workers tend to eat at other establishments frequently. Still, it’s a little unsettling to hear the horror stories, but I’ve eaten in a lot of restaurants and I’m still alive so they can’t be that bad, right?

Recently I discovered that the city of Toronto has a program called Dine Safe. It’s a web site that lets you see the results of food safety inspections. You’ve probably seen the placards in the windows, almost always green ones for pass. Now you can look online, and search by establishment name, location, area of the city, or even search by rating. It lists all types of food vendors, so you can look up markets too.

All Toronto restaurants are listed, and most of them don’t have any infractions. For those that have been cited, it lists the type of infraction and the severity. Common infractions I noticed were for things like not maintaining the food at safe temperatures, pest control issues, failure to protect food from contamination, or not having proper hand washing facilities.

For example, one sushi restaurant had been sited for inadequate food temperature control and failure to protect food from contamination, with a severity of ‘crucial’. The action taken was they were given a notice to comply. After receiving two yellow conditional passes, they did comply, and it seems they have kept up their good record. Their two conditional passes were in 2005, and they have passed all their inspections since.

When an establishment is tagged with a conditional pass, the programme is very clear that they still believe it is safe to eat there. If a restaurant is deemed unsafe, it is closed.

A good way to put this in perspective is to ask yourself if your kitchen would pass the same inspection. Have you ever eaten pizza that has sat out overnight? Ever seen a cockroach? Have pets in your house? Ever let your trash get over-full? Then you probably wouldn’t pass inspection. The site lists the infractions they look for, however I can’t link to anything but the front page of the site, as they want you to read the disclaimer before using it.

Still, I would have a hard time eating at a restaurant where with a conditional pass in the window. There are thousands of restaurants in Toronto, I would probably choose one that has fully passed inspection.