I think your example of house cured meats is really obscure …. 30 years food service, owned my own restaurant in Brooklyn 10 years, EC multiple places and Sous, etc. The DOH info is public record so you can look that up whenever you want. The health department is literally REQUIRED to find something wrong. There is always something. But they never write citations for everything. If they did, the NYC industry would just shut down. Look, I love Chinatown. But it’s pretty gross dude. I don’t think that these fines are based on traditional techniques, I think they’re based on regular fines mostly cleanliness. I mean look, we work 12/14 hour days. Those guys work 18 hours every single day 7 days a week 365. Without mats, often in sandals, sleep in cramped bunks. They are not scrubbing the hood down or cleaning the fryer regularly. And there is ALWAYS food, not just dry goods and produce, like meat and fish- out on the sidewalk. I think that in comparison to the rest of the restaurant culture in NYC they are really substandard.