MONTEREY PARK - Friday, Feb. 3, 2012 -- State Senator Leland Yee and more than numerous restaurant owners met to hear about the issue of rice noodles and conflicts with state health regulations.

Also attending was Sen.Kevin De Leon, Assemblyman Ted Liu. and Monterey Park Mayor David Lau, Councilman Mitchell Ing and Assemblyman Mike Eng.
The legislators commented on the impact of restaurants on the state economy and employment.

Monterey Park has scores of Chinese restaurants that serve rice noodles as part of their regular menu.

Eng said Asian rice noodles are becoming as a American as spaghetti and cited statistics on future growth in Chinese food and the economic impact.

Current interpretation of state regulations require food such as rice noodles to be maintained at or below 41 degrees under refrigeration or kept above 140 degrees at all times after cooking. However, refrigeration changes the consistency of the rice noodle and ruins it.

Sen. Yee's proposed Senate Bill 888 would permit the sale of Asian rice-based noodles that have been at room temperature for no more than 4 hours and would prohiit the sale of Asian rice-based noodles unless labled with date and time of manufacure and including a warning to consumers that the Asian rice-based noodles must be consumed within four hours of production at the factory.

The proposed bill also requires Asian rice-based noodles that have been at room temperature for more than 4 hours to be destroyed at the end of the operating day in a manner approved by local health authorities.

Following the presentations of the current and proposed regulations, several Chinese food manufacturers and health officials waded into the proposed new law.

Among the scheduled speakers were Eric Wong, of Lucky KT Noodle; Betty Tsang, president of the Asian Food Trade Association, Joseph Lee, president of the Chinese Restaurants Association and Chester Chong, president, Chinese Chamber of Commerce. Also testifying were Monterey Park Councilman Mitchell Ing, Cerritos Mayor Carol Chen and Rosemead Mayor Steven Ly.

Thomas Rays, L.A. County Department of Public Health, explained the current process for evaluating the safety of food. He said they found that many of the manufacturers are delivering without date-stamping the product so it is difficult to know the age of the food.

He said that in Southern California it is difficult to manufacture, deliver to restaurants and then consumers within a four-hour time period.

Rays said some people are date time stamping upon delivery instead of when the rice noodles are manufacture. He said they went on a campaign to inform manufacturers. He said one of the problems is that some restaurants are hiding the noodles so that they won't be found by inspectors..

He clarified that inspectors are checking on all food products and their temperatures at restaurants and gave a brief list of the foods that they inspect.

He said that in all his years, he could not recall one time that rice noodles were implicated as the source for a food-borne illness.
The proposed food law will proceed through the California legislative process.