sriegert

Sitting in LAX *G lounge. Are you kidding me? Displaying a "B" health & safety rating? Pathetic & sad...

trooper

I cannot be concerned about that without knowing what a "B" rating MEANS.

For all I know its perfectly acceptable..... possibly even routine for the open buffet style service lounges tend to have...

Do you have information that shows that a B rating IS somehow problematic???

malmostoso

In the LA county food inspection database (just search for star alliance, there is no easy way of linking to a specific location or inspection) there are 9 inspections for the *A lounge, 7 of which carry a score of 90+ (therefore A), and two of them that carry an 85 and an 88 (B grades, the latest from January 11th 2017).

In particular, the latest inspection has 5 "violations" (every remark, whether positive or negative, is classed as violation, which is a bit confusing).

Out of these 5 violations, 3 are "Good retail practices" and relate to cleanliness of the facility and removal of unsanitary equipment or food; while the two negative violations (classed as major) relate to temperature of the food and cooling methods, which for what is basically a buffet are probably very common, but of course troubling nonetheless. This is a problem that appears to be recurring, as this type of violation is listed in many inspections.

So you could write to NZ (which IIRC manages the lounge) and ask them to make sure that they keep an eye on these issues.

thejaredhuang

My #1 and only complaint of the lounge is that their hot items (soup, main protein, Pho broth) aren't very hot. I've mentioned it every time I've taken the survey.

drvannostren

As a Canadian I'm not super familiar with the grades, I do kinda like seeing them in the windows of restaurants tho. Anyways, to our American readers, in your experience are buffets ever at A? I've seen mostly A's whenever I've noticed to be fair, but I've never really been to a buffet in the US. These are probably the hardest places to keep clean simply because of the traffic and untrained people serving themselves.

mingw

I would rather take their B-grade food than having no food in other lounges

thejaredhuang

I've seen buffet's that have $8 lunches with A ratings. IME as long as the restaurant is an A or B it doesn't matter to people in Los Angeles.

To beat a dead horse, I really hope this makes the food hotter.

JVPhoto

Your location says "NY" which surprises me that you'd care.

thejaredhuang

To beat another dead horse, I was there this past weekend. Meatball was actually slightly cold in the center, Pho broth was lukewarm. It seemed like the heater for the Pho broth was off.

kiwitakingflight

My understanding is that recently due to a change in local scoring criteria effective 01JAN17, ALL outlets that serve food at TBIT have received a "downgrade" until they can implement the necessary changes to "regain" their A ratings.

sfvoyage

Anyone knows what food items are available between 8-9:30am? Typical cold breakfast items? Any hot food?

thejaredhuang

I would direct you to the lounge thread:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/star-...ge-access.html

I was there 3 weeks ago at 7:15 am, They had carbs and pho. The hot food (fritatta, sausage, potatoes, and some tomato veggie thing) came out around 7:45 or 8.

bookeew

Still B, with the lowest rating so far in fact (82 from 04/11/2017).

seat38a

I was there couple weeks ago and everything seemed to be iced or on a hot plate. Filmed a video of the food area as well. You can clearly see the the ice for the noodle station and the frost on the salad station of the main buffet. So unless the heat or the cold from the buffet station is not sufficiently chilling or heating the food items, not sure what problem it could be. I don't think I saw a single item that lingered on the buffet long enough to cause any problems.

bookeew

The problems might be with the food preparation area, not the presentation area.