A visitor from the U.S. got more than they asked for at a Toronto hotel restaurant when they ordered a cheeseburger on Monday night that was served with a waiver on the side.
Title feels a bit click-baity, but truly I think the waiver is reasonable. If you want food prepared outside our food safety standards and laws, you should have to waive the right to sue if you get yourself sick and die. Whether it will actually hold in court is contestable.
Or the restaurant could say “no we dont do this”
Absolutely. One could argue that the restaurant went out of its way to provide a customer food request, but many restaurants refuse to cook ground beef at anything below well-done.
Personally, as a Canadian, I would never eat anything less than that for a hamburger, but I cook my steaks near blue at home.
I cook my steaks near blue at home.
What’s “blue”? Just well-done?
Extra rare.
Oh no, no no. It’s seared on the outside and barely warm on the inside. Super raw. Basically you cook the outside just enough to kill pathogens and then get all the inside raw bloody and delicious.
So I am a proponent of delicious barely cooked meat, but only in steaks and other “whole meats”. Ground meat has a HUGE surface area that contacts machinery so it gets cooked all the way through, always.
A well done steak only belongs one place, and that’s the trash
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I’m an American living in Canada and I think the law and mentality around it are silly.
That said, you’re right. Those are the codified rules, and because they are codified, the hotel has taken the necessary steps to protect themselves, while going out of their way to provide this to their customer. They could have just told them no, just like every other establishment does.
Yeah so we’ve got this thing in Canada called public healthcare and we ended up paying for people getting e.coli and mad cow disease because they decided they knew better, so no these regulations aren’t silly.
This attitude is a very slippery slope, unfortunately.
He’s full of shit too, as the person who gets sick also pays his share for the insurance.
Well you can move across the border if you want to live in a country where governments don’t care about their citizens and where you can just sue the restaurant for not letting you eat the way you want and then sue them for feeding you unsafe for that brought you to the hospital.
Telling everyone you’re a fascist in a burger cooking thread is extra special.
After reading the article, I’m on the hotel’s side.
If someone asks for meat to be prepared in a way that Health Canada says is below the optimal temperature to kill pathogens, then the customer is putting themselves at risk and should bare any liability.
If someone asked for unpasteurized milk, raw eggs, or live seafood, I’d expect them to get the same waiver.
Seems quite sensible.
I would be as well were it not for one small detail, and it’s that the waiver was presented after they started eating.
No, still on the restaurants side. Like yes, it was a mistake and they should have presented it earlier, but asking for a burger to be done medium isn’t a common thing here in Canada. They might not have thought about the waiver until then.
Edit: my point here is that this article is presenting the waiver itself as some kind of wrongdoing or indictment about the restaurant’s quality/safety. To me, this seems wrongheaded and the timing of the waiver being brought out seems more like “whoops we forgor” thing than a “desperately covering our ass” thing – since again, medium burgers aren’t really a thing here.
I’m not going to fault the hotel for trying their best to please customer requests and the customer being Pikachu shock faced when he’s asked to not sue the restaurant for accommodating his McDeath Burger extra value meal.
There’s a literal west coast burger chain that serves medium as standard. Just cause you don’t ask for something doesn’t make it uncommon.
Don’t care it’s still very uncommon here. Order a burger at a restaurant in the states they ask you how you want it like ordering a steak. Order a burger in Canada they do not.
You don’t know shit about Canada.
That was a mistake, I’m sure. Puts the hotel at a greater liability (i.e. the customer refuses to sign), but someone eating undercooked meat would already know the risks, so this wouldn’t stop them from eating it.
Who eats that fast. Like something doesn’t add up. They brought the food but came back afterwards.
Are you trying to blame him for eating too quickly?
I feel bad for y’all food standards
He ordered the burger MEDIUM. In no world should that require a waiver.
Not all ground beef is freshly ground by the restaurant.
Now I’m confused.
Rare has pink in the middle, and so at risk.
Medium is cooked through, no pink, and safe.
Well is just a hockey puck.
Where in the world is “medium” undercooked?
Medium is a temp of 145 and 160 is recommended for food safety, apparently. I’m surprised too, I thought medium was considered safe.
TIL
I don’t know man, I’ve always been thought ground beef always needs to be cooked well.
Here in BC, anything but well done burgers are illegal in restaurants. We have steak tartar, but you need to cut the exterior layer of meat away and grind it right before serving. You might get away with doing the same for burgers, but no one does it that I know of.
I’ve heard of a restaurant in North van that does it, I can’t recall its name though.
At one point Vera’s burgers would because they sourced their own beef, but im not sure if that survived them expanding 10+years ago. They did start north shore so maybe it was Vera’s
It absolutely was Vera’s that’s why I liked to go there. They used to have a sign that warned you you had to ask for well done.
Thanks for confirming for me friend!
I’m a guy who likes a medium-rare burger and loves mett and I know the risks involved since it’s ground meat with tons of surface area and I don’t blame the hotel one bit and would have signed the waiver unlike this prima Donna.
Why has this been making some of the “news” recently?
Some corporation wanted to cover it’s ass in the same my my work cafeteria warns about raw eggs when they serve Tiramisu.
I had to sign a waiver to try some hot sauce that was 2.5M+ on the Scoville scale.
None of these waivers hold up in court here in Canada, like, at all.
The hot sauce ones are generally just trying to make things feel “more extreme”, trying to add theatrics to the experience.
It wouldn’t even hold up in this case: the waiver holds Hilton not liable when the guest eats food not prepared by the restaurant, when the guest is clearly eating food prepared by the restaurant.
I was wondering about that! I thought I didn’t understand legalese.
The meat wasn’t ground by the restaurant, I would think that’s what they’re talking about.
Did they let him cook it himself?
It probably does make some people restrain themselves from hurting themselves. It has a use.
Oh fuck off, your stupid and unsafe eating habits are your own fucked up problems, the hotel has nothing to do with this. Of course it’s a Redditor too, fucking weirdos, holy hell
Waiver should have been brought up when he requested the burger undercooked, but otherwise I see no issue.
Dumb American disgusted by his own stupidity
What makes him stupid? Cooking a burger to medium is extremely common.
Reit007 said the server explained that because the kitchen at the Hilton Toronto Airport Hotel & Suites always cooks their burgers well-done, they should sign the waiver first.
The disgusting part of this story is a corporate mandate on well-done burgers.
You can have ground beef below well done, but it has to be fresh ground in clean equipment. Most restaurants that don’t specialize in burgers/beef aren’t fresh grinding mean on order. If you eat medium at a place that doesn’t offer it you’re responsible for your own decisions.
I think cleanliness standards for kitchens should be governement ordained to be clean enough but to have to serve a waiver.
If you’re running a kitchen and are to dense to follow health and safety laws you shouldn’t be able to operate.
In his circumstance should the onus be placed on the customer.
The restaurant was literally following health and safety rules in place in Canada, by not offering undercooked burgers from pre-ground beef. The customer wants it anyway, so in comes the waiver. Tbh my perspective is they shouldn’t have accepted if it goes against health code, waiver or not.
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You’re thick as pudding.
A clean kitchen isn’t enough. If your burger was made of preground beef you can’t eat it medium. If ONE of the pieces of meat that was processed that day in the factory was contaminated all the resulting ground meat is also contaminated. That’s why you cook ground meat to well done.
If a restaurant wants to offer medium burgers, or steak tartare or some other form of undercooked ground beef, they have to grind it themselves, in small batches, and use practices that reduce contamination. They’ll usually still warn you on the menu because there is still a risk. There are restaurants in Japan that serve raw chicken sushi, same concept. If you ask for undercooked chicken at a restaurant, you’re an idiot, unless you’ve gone somewhere that can do it right, which usually starts from raising their own specially vaccinated chickens.
Restaurants that don’t offer undercooked ground beef are just trying to warn you that you’re being an idiot ordering undercooked ground beef. If you make burgers at home from store bought ground beef and cook them to medium, same thing.
Or don’t allow beef with contamination risks at all … Industry standards can be enforced.
That’s sooooo dumb holy crap. You’re so combative on things you clearly don’t understand at all!
Industry standard are never “all beef must be sterile” that’s insane. Industry standards are “you’re allowed max one rodent hair per 100g of food” or “you’re allowed 3 insect larvae per pound of canned elderberries” (real FDA regulations). Industry standards ARE being enforced, they include minimum cooking temperatures for meats.
I know you won’t understand why “don’t allow contamination risks” is absolutely brain-dead. I don’t have the crayons to explain it to you. Do a couple hours of research, figure out where contamination in beef comes from and what rules and regulations are in place to reduce the exposure risk. Then look up the way typical slaughterhouses and meat processors work, including the health and safety regulations that reduce contamination risk. Then look up why steaks can be cooked medium but not ground beef. Then look up what you need to do to make raw ground beef safe like steak tartare and med burgers. Then look up the cost associated with any single test for bacterial contamination on surfaces.
Once you’ve got a good understanding of the situation, in general you’ll realize the regulations that are in place make sense and that more stringent regulation wouldn’t solve anything in a cost effective way, nor meaningfully reduce human contamination and disease.
That or you won’t understand enough and you’ll still have a crazy opinion.
Or, just maybe, in the rare case where you’re a brilliant, reasonable person, you’ll support some small budding initiative already in regulatory circles that makes a small incremental improvement to safety at a reasonable cost.
You willing to pay $100 per burger? How about $1000? A cow isn’t sterile. You’re starting with contaminated source, so you have to decontaminate it, test it to make sure it really is decontaminated, and seal it medical-grade sterile to ensure no contaminants are reintroduced. And it all goes out the window the moment someone screws up, which happens even with food that absolutely must be sterile, as proven by the shenanigans with baby formula over the past few years. It simply isn’t worth it when cooking ground beef thoroughly is so much easier and cheaper, and most of the population is okay with it.
The only person that’s too dense here is you buddy.
you can have undercooked beef because bacteria can’t penetrate that far below the surface (opposed to chicken), if it is ground then that safety net isn’t there
Its 160°F in center mandate, or you would lose your food service license. Why would a hotel risk that for one customer that wants it cooked below standards
It’s not a corporate mandate, it’s a provincial government mandate that exists in the whole of Canada as far as I know (food safety for restaurants being under provincial jurisdiction) and for good reasons, the risks associated with undercooked ground beef aren’t worth it to please the small % of clients who would want it.
You want your patties medium? Buy a whole piece of meat, remove the outer layer, ground it and cook it, don’t expect restaurants to do that for you.
What constitutes a small % to you?
Eating burgers cooked medium is very common. Well done beef is no different than eating leather.
Ground beef isn’t a steak and restaurants have health guidelines to follow because they don’t want to make you sick, what you do at home is your problem (until it becomes ours because you get e.coli from undercooking ground beef that you didn’t prepare yourself).
I cook store bought ground beef burgers to medium rare multiple times a year and not once has there been an issue
Yeah and some people smoke their whole life and never get lung cancer, it doesn’t make it safe to smoke.
There’s e.coli recalls every year, but hey, don’t let that stop you, not as if it could kill you or handicap you long term to catch it (need an /s on that or you’re good?)
Do yourself a favor, get a meat grinder and make your own ground beef if you want to eat it medium. It’s cheaper and much more delicious.
Nah, the disgusting part is the consequences of factory farming and humanity’s domination of the planet and desire for meat.
Well-done burgers are the band-aid for the deeper problems.
In Germany they sell ground beef that is save to eat raw. So either get save meat or, if your ground beef is not safe, bring this up directly when someone orders a medium or rare burger and not after the person already started eating.
Also raw ground pork that it safe for raw consumption. I love me some thüringer mett.
How the hell do they manage that? Freezing like sushi or irradiation like fruit?
It’s fresh enough that bacterial contamination isn’t a concern and they don’t have the trichinella worm in country. All meat is carefully inspected as well.
Eww, we eat raw pork, not beef.
Ohh so much better and different.
Technically you can cook a hamburger to medium and have it be safe to eat, but I really don’t see most restaurants doing sous vide for hamburgers.
The only thing is why not get the waiver with the appetizer, before it’s served or together? That’s the negligence on the Hilton Restaurant’s part and really doesn’t have meaning if this user did happen to get E.Coli. Ordering medium ground beef at a non-specialty venue is kind of stupid to begin with.
The waiver should have been produced after ordering and well before any food arrives.
That’s probably the intention but it’s so rare (haha) to order undercooked patties in Canada that they might not even have known a waiver was necessary.
As a consumer, I would see the presence of such a waiver as a prompt to think about what necessitated this in the first place. Perhaps this kitchen isn’t as clean as it could be, and something happened to prompt this level of (legal) caution. Yeah, it could have been an overzealous patron looking for a payday, but maybe someone had a legit case?
Nah it’s a cultural thing. Burgers done to not well done is common in the US. It definitely isn’t in Canada. They’re almost always well done.
First time in the U.S. being asked how I like my burger was actually confusing to me.
It’s a regulations thing and it changed in the last 30 years (after a bunch of e.coli or mad cow disease cases happened I think)
You will typically find a disclaimer on the menus about undercooked food.
Yep, you’ll see asterisks by eggs, too, since they need to be cooked to 165 °C to be safe from salmonella, but over easy and sunny side up are obviously quite common.
look up a Pittsburgh style burger fuckin nasty
That’s not a Pittsburgh style burger.
If you come to a place and ask for a burger done Pittsburger style they will hard hard hard sear the outside, for a single second and then leave the inside as raw as possible.
@deft Okay, that’s an “ew” from me, then. 🤷♂️😅
They asked for meat to be cooked at a lower temp than Health Canada recommends. It makes sense that you need to sign stuff if you tell the kitchen to do something that isn’t recommended.
what necessitated this in the first placeLaws.
Would be nice if they did this for all meat purchased. Except the waiver should indicate the damage being caused to the climate
you want people to be able to sue over everything, this is the result.
id have signed, cuz i both enjoy meat and not suin’ people for nonsense i caused.
e: i have in the past ordered ‘as rare as you can legally make it’. most of the time i get stupid looks and they bring it rare, but sometimes they just nod and bring me a brick
you want people to be able to sue over everything, this is the result.
Two words : fusioned labias. That’s what the too hot coffee from Mc Donald caused to the victim who sued them.
If you actually read about the hot coffee lawsuit you would know there is a lot more to it than just hot coffee.
Like the fact they knew about it and settled for around 800000$ out of court with others victims ? Or the victim just asked for pay her medical bills and cover her daughter’s pay, as she left her job for be her mother carer ?
If I remember correctly the issue was with the lids on the cups and not the temperature of the coffee. There was an issue, but it wasn’t as clear as just “hot coffee burns” because duh, hot coffee will do that.
You are misinformed. Maybe there was a thing about coffee lids but it came out that mcdonalds had a policy to heat coffee that was to-go to unsafe levels so it would be warm by the time it got home. Like hot enough to cause third-degree burns. The lady who had her labia’s fused wasn’t the only person suing McDonalds for this.
From the wiki
Liebeck’s attorneys argued that, at 180–190 °F (82–88 °C), McDonald’s coffee was defective, and more likely to cause serious injury than coffee served at any other establishment.
RTFA
they had already started eating when the server handed them a waiver.
Not to mention, the eater is dumb if they get a hamburger that’s less than well done. Ground beef has much more surface area for pathogens to creep into. So unless you watched them cut up and grind the meat, after watching them properly sterilize their equipment, order that burger well done.
I suggest you do too.
The whiny guy ordered the burger to be medium done. He got it the way he wanted.
He is literally eating what he ordered, and was shocked when the restaurant tried to cover their ass for letting him order an undercooked burger.
So the restaurant should have had the waiver signed by him BEFORE they made the burger. Not after he started eating.
Or maybe they shouldn’t have made the burger to order.
The company is the issue.
You just don’t care, though.
Yeah the restaurant should have refused, or made him sign first. Where I am, that order is illegal for the restaurant to do. It’s not an option.
As such, I absolutely place the blame on him.
i absolutely read the article.
i read an article about a crybaby who ordered a burger rare, which everyone knows is outside the scope of safety fucking everywhere, and then whined when presented with having to take responsibility for the choice he was already eating.
or are we to believe this is his first experience ordering rare??
He ordered it medium, which is not that uncommon in the US.
duude i thought it said rare, totally on me
Based acknowledging of fault
And you ignored everything.
Unless proven otherwise, we should believe that this is the first time they received a waiver
and you ignored everything
the waiver is irrelevant here
Irrelevant to whom?
it should be irrelevant to any moron who orders a rare burger, like me.
good for you. your input here is totally irrelevant though, as usual for you.
not that you read it before commenting, but the article specifies that the burger was ordered ‘medium.’
And?
