Around one in three of the fast food outlets trading under the names of Dixy Chicken and Chicken Cottage failed to meet satisfactory levels for food hygiene when they were last inspected.This is revealed in a BBC analysis of recent inspection data collated by the Food Standards Agency.I have compared the hygiene records of some of the UK's most popular restaurant chains. Other brands which also do badly include Pizza Gogo and Little Chef, where about one in five of the restaurants inspected were unsatisfactory.On the other hand brands such as Nando's and Pret a Manger have hundreds of outlets, all of which reach an acceptable level. The ratings reflect how food is prepared, cooked and stored, as well as the cleanliness and condition of buildings and how the business is managed. The Food Standards Agency collects these hygiene inspection ratings from nearly all councils in the UK and lets you search for individual scores for nearly half a million shops or restaurants on its website.

You can also look at the food outlets in a particular area. We scraped all this data from the FSA site to compile a national table comparing some leading restaurant brands. This shows what proportion of each chain's inspected outlets were found to be unsatisfactory - and the figures vary widely.Many chains have no or very few establishments which are unsatisfactory, but there are some brands where a higher proportion of outlets failed to meet acceptable standards of food hygiene.food delivery binondo manilaAn FSA spokesperson said: "Food safety officers from local authorities will follow up with low-rated outlets and will work with them to improve hygiene standards."sushi washington dc 19th street Hygiene ratings for restaurant chainssushi in oxford ms

A restaurant is considered unsatisfactory if it scores 0, 1 or 2 (out of 5) in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, or as "improvement required" in Scotland. Many chains are franchise operations in which separately owned establishments trade under the same name and serve the same menu in line with the brand's requirements. sushi grade tuna njAll the chains were given the chance to check the data, but most did not comment.jiro dreams of sushi movie youtubeHowever, Little Chef says that it recognises it has to make progress and the company is initiating an investment programme to drive its hygiene standards up. how to eat sushi with bracesPatisserie Valerie says that it acts immediately to remedy unsatisfactory ratings and that "we await our next inspections with confidence". sushi ris online

Wimpy also states it takes corrective action when any of its restaurants is found to be below par.TGI Friday's, which scores well, says it is investing a seven-figure sum to achieve maximum five-star ratings in all its establishments. Zizzi, another chain with a good record, says it is pleased that the ratings reflect its operating standards. The ability to compare different restaurants in this way illustrates the opening up of official information over the past few years, as well as some of the continuing obstacles. It might seem hard to believe now, but before the Freedom of Information Act came into force in 2005, this sort of public health information was often kept secret by some local authorities. One early case which helped to establish the principle that the public should have access to such data involved a hotel in Bridgend, in south Wales, which had numerous breaches of good hygiene. Bridgend Council refused to release its inspection report, arguing that this would make it harder to work with local businesses to improve their practices.

But the council was overruled in 2005 by the Information Commissioner, whose decision facilitated the open publication of food hygiene data. The full data now used by the FSA is downloadable, but only on a council-by-council basis, which makes it harder for most users of the site to attempt any kind of national comparison between different brands or areas. The FSA says it receives and then re-publishes the data council-by-council and so does not hold all the information in the form of one dataset which it could make available in its entirety. It regards the aim of its service as enabling people to look up individual establishments where they might buy food or eat, rather than facilitating overall analysis. Some caveats are needed about the figures. They are based on information uploaded to the FSA by individual local authorities by the middle of June, plus updates supplied to us by some chains. However some inspections will have taken place quite some time ago, and some authorities will be quicker at reporting the details, so there is no guarantee that it is all strictly up to date.

As well as this, the FSA doesn't have ratings for all outlets, because some are currently awaiting inspection or are exempt, some local authorities have not supplied information for all the establishments in their area, and a few councils (such as Greenwich) do not participate in the FSA scheme. Nevertheless the large majority of food outlets in the UK are covered. For these reasons it is better to take the data as a rough evaluation for how different chains are doing rather than a set of exact measurements.Imagine you’re a British expat, an academic, say, or botanist, living in Sendai, a smallish Japanese city a couple of hours north-west of Tokyo. It’s been a long, irritating day and all you crave is a taste of home, shepherd’s pie, or roast beef, or bubble and squeak – something, anything, to break the monotony of pickles, rice and noodles. And griddled cow’s tongue. The salmon, so often muddy and grim, has an honest, exciting clarity at Ebi Sushi Restaurant in Derby

So you climb onto your bicycle and pedal the short distance to John Bull’s Chophouse, where you can sink a pint of warm London Pride, munch on a packet of Scampi Fries and scoff a full English breakfast at seven in the evening. As you wipe the last smudge of yolk with the last scrap of cheap white toast, you relax for the first time in days. Because, for one brief moment, you actually feel at Of course, the idea of a decent British restaurant abroad is little more than wishful thinking. China or France, our grub just doesn’t travel. That, or the rest of the world wants it kept safe and contained on our sceptered isle. how many British restaurants have you stumbled across outside the UK? No more than a scattering. While the natives may revel in the glories of great British food, the rest of the world ain’t so sure. But if you’re a Japanese expat, working at the huge Toyota factory in Derby, things areBecause you have Ebi, a small and unassuming

Japanese restaurant wedged between a furniture warehouse and a Ebi is a small and unassuming Japanese restaurant wedged between a furniture warehouse and a shuttered-up snack bar I arrive just after seven, on the sort of dank, damp January day that England does so well. And the place isNow this most certainly ain’t a guarantee ofBut at Ebi, all those Japanese certainly mean good sushi. Cut and constructed by a middle-aged man at the sushi counter towards the rear. The ever-running tap is a good sign, as his hands dart between flowing water and wooden rice pail.The nigiri rice is soft, but not soggy, blood-warm, with every grain discernable on the tongue. Yes, the fish is important, weBut so is the rice. What is flopped on top, though, is every bit as pure – gleaming salmon eggs that burst on the tongue, tiny explosions of clean, bracing joy. Get these babies even a few minutes past their prime and they have all the charm of stale breath.

rancid breath of a fishmonger’s cat. No such worries here. Eel is magnificently rich and sensuously sweet, just like the plump discs of scallop, and the great slice of yellowtail that lounges across the rice like some geisha-pampered doji. Sea bream sashimi is wrapped into the shape of a rose, the flesh startlingly clean and demure. Even the salmon, so often muddy and grim, has an honest, exciting clarity. More from Tom Parker Bowles Event for The Mail on Sunday... Taco of the town: A blast of Mexico City chilli in the chilly heart of London. Where brisket MEANS brisket: Another bog-standard barbecue joint? No, this place is smokin' The Prawn Supremacy: Dish after dish of fantastic fish – and even my team of experts were in awe Margot's slice of the good life: This grand new Covent Garden Italian flirts with greatness... and nearly achieves itTOM PARKER BOWLES rounds up the essential tomes for any true foodie's bookshelf

Britain’s best value... bar naan! Three great curries with rice at a Big Mac price – Manchester's mad for it I'll never be off my Roka ...so long as it serves not one, but two, of the finest dishes I've ever devoured The taste of Thai fidelity: Authentic roadside cuisine roars into London (without the smell of diesel)After an epic lunch at the TV chef Antony Worrall Thompson's pub, guess who emerges from the kitchen... In the world of sushi and sashimi, there’s only really good or bad. This is undoubtedly good. natto too, that great sticky, stinking glorious mess of fermentedYakitori is charred and suitably fatty, and a tangle of Zara Soba, cold, chewy noodles with a salty dipping sauce that I end up slurping from the cup. And Tamago Zosui, rice porridge, predictably bland, yet winningly so. I want to order more, like the Motsu Nikomi, stewed pork intestines. But the waitress warns me off. Too much already, she says with a smile. Plus I am really only ordering that to show off, to prove I’m not your average gaijin.

I nod agreement, secretly relieved. I drink a small bottle of intensely peppery sake and listen to the Japanese love songs that croon and plead over the speakers, and watch the various bows and nods and gestures that make up the intricate, utterly alien social dance of Japanese corporate culture.Only the tempura disappoints, the batter thick and unwieldy. But everything else is very good indeed. So much so that I feel a tourist in my own land. Bliss.Real Japanese in the heart of Derby. Your cars might be boring. But your staff have immaculate taste.Dinner for two, minus drinks: £80Wonderful value, excellent ingredients, this much-loved Japanese not only serves up proper sushi and sashimi but a whole range of noodles, tempura and bento boxes too. It might not look much from outside, but this Marylebone institution serves up some of the freshest sushi and sashimi in Europe. Noodles and tempura are also good. But beware... this exceptional quality comes at a price. A proper Japanese restaurant, set up to feed the high ranks at the nearby Honda Factory.