A hotel restaurant in Liverpool made a customer sign a disclaimer after she ordered a rare burger, getting her to agree that she would take the risk if she got sick.
The reasoning is that with minced meat there is a higher risk of the meat being contaminated.
Is this normal for restaurants? Should restaurants not doing this start to be on the safe side in case diners get ill?
Would love to hear your thoughts.
Check out some more related comments in the "Foodservice in a Litigious World" thread.
What about steak tartare? Never had it anything but raw!
CSI for all of your international hospitality and catering requirements
Pretty sure the restaurant held a worthless piece of paper in their hands signed or not.
questions that need to be asked:
is the butcher trusted
is the meat best quality
is it fresh (very)
many more questions may ensue, (chill chain etc)
if any of the questions return a no, then you should simply cook the meat through, regardless of the request, as there is an increased risk of surface contamination being minced through the whole, however the answers should all return a yes unless you are cooking under golden arches
Steak tartare is usually knife minced to order, burger meat more often than not minced by the resaurants butcher.
Disclaimers are not worth the paper they are written on. The Courts will argue that the chef is the expert and should be setting the safety rules.Bit like a policemen asking for a disclaimer from a motorist to speed on the motorway. If you want to eat beef rare eat a rare steak that has been seared instead. Very tasty.
In the days of Edwina Curry and her eggs statement, I was asked to sign a disclaimer so that the Hotel could serve me a runny egg. How daft can you get.
Steak Tartare contains lemon juice and oils. Pathogens don't like acid and most are areobic so are suffocated by the oils. Therefore Steak is safe to eat raw.
A burger raw is steak tartare in a bun - no? Does anyone have a burger raw?
I usually go for medium rare. Rare is not raw though.
Food can often be like fashion. It really does depend on the trend. Thanks for sharing!