Which Deschutes restaurants make clean grade?

Every time you go out for a bite to eat, you might wonder just what’s going on in that kitchen.

Using Deschutes County health scores, I scoped out some of the “cleanest of the clean” in town, to find out how they keep everything in tip-top shape.

A clean kitchen starts simple.

“Wash your hands, wash your hands, wash your hands,” said Carole DeRose, owner of LaRosa – they’re on our “squeaky clean” list.

“We’re a little neurotic about our menus,” DeRose said. “We hand-wash and wipe down all our silverware after it comes out of the dishwasher.”

She never knows when a health inspector will walk through the door.

“It’s kind of like your parents coming for the weekend, or the principal coming in the classroom,” DeRose said. “You want to make sure everything is in order, all the time.”

Health inspectors start with a score of 100, knocking off points for every violation.

“It’s the ‘Kitchen 101,’ I call it – where, you know not to store raw chicken on top of lettuce,” said Bradley Wood, executive chef at 10 Below in downtown Bend, which is also “squeaky clean.”

“You just don’t do certain things, and that should be a given,” Wood said.

Some good, clean bets for fast food include Hardy’s and Arby’s in Bend, and the Subway on Simpson Avenue.

Heading south and want a clean bet? Taco Bell in La Pine is averaging a 99 sscore over three inspections. Heading north, Sassy’s Cafe South on Highway 97 in Redmond also got a 99 grade.

But maybe you don’t care about squeaky clean – what you really want to know is whether your favorite spot falls short in terms of cleanliness. The answer is just a click away.

You can find Deschutes County’s list of restaurant inspection stores at http://foodservice.deschutes.org/.

We looked up only the places that scored a perfect score of 100 on their last inspection – and even then, we couldn’t fit them all in this story.

The dirty digging is up to you.