time. today we're not equiped to do that. the reason i'm looking at other structures, roaches like to stay under in the crevices, they like to lay their eggs. sometimes you look at high water areas because we're looking for cockroaches. duck is being cooled down, you don't have to put it in the refrigerator right away. if you put it in the refrigerator right away, it will lose (inaudible) you have to allow time for it to cool down correctly. you allow that to cool down, it's still fairly hot. it's a big thing for us in our special reports. you have to have hand washing facilities adjacent to your food handling area. it's important to have warm

water, soap and towels to help to flush away the particulates on your ands. like alcohol wash. we don't allow that because it doesn't wash away the stuff on your hands. warm water, soap and towels as part of the operation of your kitchen. we don't want them washing their hands in the area where they are washing dishes at. we don't want them washing their hands over in the area they are preparing the kitchen at, they need to have a separate sink. although it might be grandfathered in, in some of the new facilities, but new facilities you have to have separate hand washing facilities.

if they didn't have soap or towels or warm water we would take 12 points off. we know that's one of the highest transmission routes is, is not washing the hands or using the restroom and not washing the hands. can you imagine what it is out there in the basement where they actually had the food preparation during world war ii? that's a hard job, the restaurant business. i said before, talking about that's probably one of the toughest jobs to have in a restaurant, own a strauplt, all the things you have to worry about besides the food skills, your overhead, your worker's comp and just traipsing in and asking questions is a hard thing to do. this is a state department and this is support for multi use -- we are required by law if

you do not have a dish washer that you have alternate methods to clean your dishes. soap with -- detergent with hot water, this is going to be a sanitizer with hot water, a 30-second bath in the sanitizer then you dry it up. this is an example of the process. nothing here is ready to eat. there is nothing here that we have to carry away. separate area. this preparation is what we're looking for. >> we are upstairs here at town hall restaurant in the kitchen for what preparation? production. >> party. >> there's pastry, you do desserts and stuff here as well, right?

we are here, one of the interesting things about commercial kitchens, they have a lot of special requirements for removing the waste products of cooking. so we have steam, we have heat, we have grease-laden vapor and all those things result in materials that have to be evacuated through the hood and duct system. here we have a type 1, all welded, and it has inside it these things heading down, these are heads for the system called an ancill system. tom, what is an ancill system? . >> it's a brand name, actually. this is a fire extinguishing system. the nozzle is here and there's also co2 which would expel the liquid out to cover and extinguish any type of fire

that may happen that might be created by fuel on the stove. this is the way if the cook or someone sees the problem they can manually activate it, but there's a fusible link also, it could release the co2 cartridge and put the extinguishing material out over the entire stove area. if it activates they are going to be out of business for a little while. >> you see a feasible link. typically there's a cable or chain with a little tiny link in it which melts at a certain temperature. >> that's exactly right. this would be a higher temperature. sprinkler heads are generally 125 to 135 degrees. or by design it could be even higher. >> a couple things we see at

this cook station that are fire concerns, there's a frier here and if you look at this frier, you will see it's separated from the flame so that the oil which is combustible is not next to the open flame. >> that's a guard for it because the one head is only for that particular device, cooking device. >> great. it's very effective. you can feel the make up air sweeping across and sweeping the vapor into the hood and outside. >> another thing, we always look that this needs to be serviced because it is such a critical system, every 6 months and it has a state fire marshal tag that this is a licensed company to the state. just two months ago it's been serviced so it's right on. >> excellent. let's find out what this lady is making over here. hi, what are you making for? . >> this is for the lamb stew. >> what kind of biscuits are

they? . >> butter milk. restaurant, it's all about food but we inspect a restaurant, we never get into the food, unfortunately. >> we are just moving through. generally we try to do it before or after the main rush hour but this is such a popular restaurant it looks like it extends quite a long time. >> we need some of that lamb stew, ought to be working on that. >> you need one requirement for kitchen work. >> we like you to not wear too much jewelry. those are guidelines to consider. people go, oh, we can wear gloves. the health department standards on gloves in terms of the uniform is not that good. gloves will protect your hands but it will not protect the food. if i went to the bathroom with my gloves on, boy, my hands are clean but i go back to the food

area with the same gloves. we want you to feel that dirt on your hand. if you have dirt on your glove, you don't feel it. my god, it's going to get on the food. uniforms, we like them to wear an apron or something so they can take it off and, you know, when they are dirty and if they are going out, out side to do other things, just wear street clothes, come back and put an apron on. hair, you asked a question about hair. how come we don't require hair nets in san francisco. there is a law that allows us to ask for those things but if your hair is behind your head or if you are able to keep it so you don't keep brushing your hair back, it will allow you to not wear a hair net.

but even if it's -- your personal habits, the kitchen itself is a fairly long line but mine is fairly cramped so i would suggest maybe you might not want to go down there. but it's kind of interesting in there just to see --. >> yeah, we can just pass on the outside and come back. you want to go look at the line downstairs for a second before we finish up? really a hot -- it's like a boiler room back here, really. one thing i find interesting is the oven, they are on all day. this is not like turn the oven on, they turn it on first thing in the morning and it's on all day. there is no energy efficiency. they don't even have a shield around this. they can heat the whole thing, everything is -- it's up to 500 degrees. it stays that way all day long.

>> there's an interesting thing, it's sucking air out of here. in order to do that, there has to be some make-up air into this area. you can't just pull air away. somehow in the mechanical design of this restaurant, there is a place where fresh air can come in from the outside that equals the volume of this air coming in. and it can't be upstairs because then you have a problem of sort circuiting the hood. what would happen if you had the fresh air make-up in there, it would come down here and just go up there and we wouldn't be running it across the cooking surface. the concept is the air comes across the cooking surface and picks up the vapors. so there would be -- if we look around we can find a fresh air inlet here, it's not allowed to be dampered, it couldn't be closed, fresh air, unluvered intake. they have lighting up here and they are all in this protective

explosion -- fire protective covers. what else can we say about this place? fresh brussels sprouts. this is brussel sprout country we live in, down in south san francisco, san mateo county. >> grease filters are stored at an angle to drain the grease that is collected. >> back here, so the grease drains down into that gutter. there's also a gutter that runs all the way down the hood right here, i can put my hand in it, it's just a little gutter that the grease can run in and collect and down at that end, maybe at each end, there's a little container for that grease where it's just covered. what else are they doing? turning off the little -- little tiny turnips.

yeah, looks like, little tiny turnips. we also have the regular fire extinguishing system, sprinklers up in the ceiling. if there is a fire these sprinklers will go off to put out the fire at a lower temperature. they put out so much water, when they were putting up this ceiling up here, remember i was telling you about the noise control ceiling? when they were almost done, somebody accidentally punched the head with a hammer and it went off and one head flooded the whole restaurant and the whole basement before they could shut down the system in the building. tremendously high pressure. really puts out a lot of water to reduce fire. in the kitchen, and the health inspector, we have washable

surfaces everywhere, right? for example, ceilings and walls. >> ceilings, walls, floors, everything. so there's nothing that can attract vermin. it needs to be well maintained and all the nooks and crannies in the refrigeration doors, those are cleaned every so often and -- but this is a great example. we've got a really clean surface all the way, all the walls all the way up to the ceiling and the countertops, everything. >> what else would you look at? what would you be looking at? . >> well, temperature control is huge and they've got a variety of different things happening here, so, you know, we would check in all the refrigeration units, the hot holding, that

needs to be above 135 degrees. the cold temperatures have to be, food needs to stay below 41 degrees fahrenheit and also the food handling, what are they doing when, you know, if they have an itch on their nose, they go and wash their hands right away. the rags, wiping rags, do they have a sanitizer solution available to dip and clean the rags when they wipe down surfaces and change jobs going from vegetable preparation to some other kind of food, whether it's cooked or not. so it can get very complex, depending on what they are doing. . >> is the floor required to be hosed? . >> yes, we need to have a cleanable surface where the floor is going it meet the wall.

so it needs to be a 3 inch -- and the degrees i'm not exactly sure, i think it's a 45 degree slope. >> it's a gradient. so the floor comes up so you don't have a sharp corner. it has to be bulldozed so you can scrub it all off. >> the importance of sanitizing your working surface and if you are handling raw meat to make a little bleach solution, you can use a teaspoon of bleach per about a gallon of water and you can wipe things down and it won't taint the food. a lot of it evaporates before -- you know, you are not going to get a bad taste in your food, but you are going to kill any salmonella or any bacteria issues that can happen.

because a lot of cutting boards have grooves in them, whether it's plastic or wood, and it can collect bacteria and you can make yourself fairly sick or your family if things aren't sanitized and cleaned really well. making sure to wipe things down, sanitize, run them through the dish washer and take your time with it. . >> that's wrapping it up for today, brown bag lunch. this was fantastic, thanks to town hall, terrific servers, terrific food. thank you to the health department and we'll be back next third thursday at the department of building inspection for building san francisco. thank you.

>> welcome to "culture wire." on this episode, we visit with one of the arts commissions very special teams. >> the asia-pacific island cultural center receives help from the census but our commission. john mean today to talk about in off festival is the executive director.

welcome. i understand this is the 13th annual festival. can you tell me the name? >> the name is a celebratory name. we also celebrate what we call the asian-pacific islanders as well, in terms of culture, experience, and multidisciplinary arts. >> the festival is actually very wide-ranging. you have 16 venues, and how many different performing arts centers? >> we have over 85 artists participating, 16 venues, 21 events. there are over 15 groups that are performing.

>> there recently kicked off at the beginning of may and will continue through june 13? correct? >> that is correct. unlike in the past years, we have had to expand the festival because there has been so much activity and so many people want to be part of the celebration. we're very honored and pleased to have the festival going all the way into june. >> we're kind of coming in on one of the groups. >> francis is one of the pioneers of the asian american jazz movement and is also one of san francisco's very own. we're very honored at the cultural center that we can be part of the program. >> an addition to him, what are some of the other highlights of the festival? >> we have three gallery openings in the festival. one is called reclaim, which is

a film art. the others are receptions that are happening at four different the supervisors' offices. the other is called mining the creative source. >> think you for sharing the content with us on "culture wire." >> thank you very much. >> it is in celebration of the 40th anniversary of the strikes at uc-berkeley of the study of ethnic studies. it is a celebration of that history, as well as some of the other items. >> what led to this multidisciplinary collaboration? >> i am from san francisco, and from the 1960's on, that is the aesthetics. the poets, working with the musicians, dancers, the waitresses, the jazz club,

actors, whatever. the idea is we are all a community and we share this common story. >> did you reach out to the dancers? how did it come together? did they come to you? >> the choreographer and dancer actually was a student of mine and residency in cameron house and chinatown. i developed a friendship with her over many years, and also with the spoken word artists. i met him at a benefit at one of the benefits in chinatown. it is part of that ongoing really rich relationship building that happens in our arts community. >> i got a chance to hear a little bit of your performance, and i am a big fan of john coltrane, and you play a phenomenal sax. can you tell me a little about your musical influences. >> a particular piece about john

coltrane was he reached out to asia and his global vision. as an asian american growing up and coming up in this country seeking some recognition, that was a very meaningful, making that kind of contribution. i really owe a debt to john coltrane for recognizing my culture and uplifting it as part of the music as well. >> i know that your family history is really rich and complex in terms of illustrating how the chinese has occurred over the last two centuries. it could talk about that? >> it began in the 1870's, when my great grandfather, instead of coming with everybody else to the united states to build a railroad, he went off the coast of madagascar are.

-- madagascar are. he met a woman there who is creel, african-american, french, and chinese. they married, and they had family, and i am the product of that. growing up here in the bay area, we have some influences because it is the gateway for emigration. from many countries. you walk down the street, you are participating in that mix. in my music, i really want to express and represent that kind of topic that goes on in the streets. it is the most exciting part of being here. >> francis, thank you very much for being part of "culture wire" and thank you for being one of the great artists of san francisco. >> thank you so much. there is really, only one boy...

one girl... one tree... one forest... one deep, dancing ocean... one mountain calling... one handful of sand through our fingers... one endless sky overhead... and one simple way to care for it all. please visit earthshare.org and learn how the world's leading environmental groups are working together under one name. earth share. one environment...