Questions: Food & Beverage

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In the UK, the Food Standards Agency inspects cafés and restaurants and ranks them 0 to 5 with 5 being the best. Anything less than 3 is pretty filthy, and a 1 star is likely to get you in the local press.

By law, the rating must be clearly displayed in Northern Ireland and Wales, but not so in England. However, it's generally accepted that if a place doesn't display, then you should expect rat droppings in your food.

I'm going to assume a lot of other countries have something similar. So when you see the hygiene rating on the door, how low of a score do you tolerate?

"She's no stranger to the chip shop," is a well-known British saying when referring to ladies who don't look good in lycra. But although chip shops are everywhere in Britain they haven't always been called chip shops.

They were once called fish bars in England or potato taverns (tafarn tatws) in Wales. Many chips shops still go under the name fish bar.

But how do you refer to a chip shop in casual speech. The options reflect the common terms.

Help me, science nerds. I suck at science. I've been wondering this for a long time. Inquiring minds need to know.

I don't want to keep a spoon in my coffee while I'm drinking it, but I'm interested in when I'm making it up (and using a hand frother to make up some foam for a pseudo cappuccino), if in that interim, after stirring in the sugar, should I keep the spoon in or take the spoon out? Which will keep the coffee hotter longer?

I think the layer of milk foam does help to retain the heat a bit, making a somewhat protective 'cloud pocket' I'm calling it. But would a spoon sitting in it while I'm doing this pull heat or retain heat?

Would you change your answer depending on the mug material? Ex: ceramic, bone china, glass, metal, plastic, paper cup. Obviously metal is far more conductive than paper and plastic, and ceramic and bone china are... what... in the middle of efficiency? I always use ceramic mugs at home.

I've tried various things to keep my one cup of coffee as hot as possible for as long as possible. I have a hotplate. It tends to burn the coffee, even on low temperatures. 176F seems to be the best temp to drink the coffee, but it burns. Lower temperatures will burn the coffee when the quantity is lower in the mug (about halfway empty; or halfway full, lol).

I also have a ceramic top/lid. I'm back to using that a lot now. I find it works the best. But, of course, you have to keep taking it on and off for every sip.

I don't use coffee makers, so there is no pot to pull from. It's too much volume of coffee. I"m sensitive to caffeine.

Anyway, any science-y thoughts or advice, I'm interested. Use all the jargon. Talk over my head,, lol. The more science, the better...