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We all enjoy dinner out from time to time, but just how safe are the kitchens where you eat?

Each month, Anchorage's Department of Health and Human Services slaps restaurants with critical violations -- things that could lead to you getting sick.

There are 22 restaurants in Anchorage with six or more critical violations. In a list of those restaurants which DHHS gave to Channel 2, three were tied for first place with nine violations each. One of them was Indian eatery Bombay Deluxe, at 555 W Northern Lights Blvd.

When health inspectors visited in May, they found a "fan in the kitchen that had visible and excessive debris in the process of cooling food" -- likely a fan in a refrigeration unit.

That's not all. Investigators also found "excessive debris covering the hot and cold knobs on the only hand sink in the entire kitchen area."

In addition, investigators saw employees washing their hands inside a food prep sink that had previously stored raw chicken and still needed to be cleaned.

Investigators also asked them to clean and maintain the vent hood and filters of excessive debris -- saying it was a repeat violation.

During an unannounced visit by Channel 2, management at the restaurant said they had cleaned up their act, and health inspectors agreed for the most part; in their next inspection just days after our visit, they found only two critical violations.

The second restaurant that had nine critical violations was the Firetap Alehouse, at 10950 O’Malley Centre Dr. in South Anchorage. Inspectors wanted to make sure restaurant owners kept the meat slicer thoroughly cleaned and sanitized.

“Between lunch and dinner it could be six hours, and yes, that could be a problem,” said Tony Barrett with DHHS. “Any time you have food and moisture on a piece of equipment and bacteria, they're going to be able to grow and multiply during that period of time.”

Firetap also had problems dealing with foods in the temperature danger zone, between 40 and 140 degrees.

“It’s an incubation chamber, essentially for bacteria, so food spends time in that danger zone, we run the risk of bacteria able to reproduce and multiply,” Barrett said.

Bratwurst at the restaurant was measured at 57 degrees, causing inspectors to remind employees that the meat had to be immersed in an ice-water bath. And alfredo sauce was measured at 115 degrees after reheating it in the microwave.

Food temperatures were also a big problem at the third restaurant with nine critical violations, Thai Town at 3311 Spenard Rd. Inspectors there found packages of fresh rolls between 76 and 77 degrees -- inside the temperature danger zone. Cooks were asked to throw the fresh rolls out.

General cleanliness was also an issue at Thai Town, with investigators noticing the faucet handles on the kitchen area’s hand-washing sink had dried-on debris.

We wanted to check back in with both restaurants to see if they've cleaned up their act after their inspection -- but employees at Thai Town wouldn't let us see whether the problems had been solved.

Earlier this year, health inspectors found eight critical violations at Fukumaru Teriyaki, at 4505 Spenard Rd. Investigators warned the restaurant owners to ensure that all potentially hazardous ready-to-eat foods had dates on them, so they knew when to throw them out.

Inspectors also found problems with the sink in Fukumaru’s kitchen, where employees are supposed to wash their hands, asking the owners to ensure all hand-washing sinks had soap and paper towels ready to go in a dispenser.

“That's a little bit scary, frankly,” Barrett said. “Because if you're expecting people wash their hands regularly after handling something that isn't clean -- if they're preparing raw chicken, for example -- and then making their salad or sandwich, the expectation is they'd wash their hands. If their hand-wash sink is blocked, or there's no soap or no towels or its dry and no one’s used it, that's not a very good indication of their hand-washing practices.”

As DHHS continues its inspections, the department wants to focus on education rather than punishment for restaurants with violations.

“The idea is to get people to do the right thing because they understand it and want to do it, not because they expect they're going to get caught doing it wrong,” Barrett said.

According to Barrett, that's a tough job when the owner of a restaurant can't understand English very well.

“That is an obstacle quite often, that we have a communication issue trying to help people understand not only what is the right thing to do but why,” Barrett said. “Our enforcement policy is first we try to educate and get change, and where education isn't working then we ratchet it up and we start doing more frequent inspections.”

To help communicate issues more clearly the city developed a booklet called "Let Your Fingers Do The Talking,” which allows inspectors to point to problems in English with translations directly underneath.

“We have common questions or common things we run onto when we do inspections that we have in several different languages,” Barrett said.

When Channel 2 visited Fukumaru Teriyaki, we discovered owners still had not corrected the problem about date-marking ready-to-eat foods.

Just days after Fukumaru's latest inspection on Sept. 21, where inspectors found five critical violations, the restaurant changed ownership. Since that ownership change, the restaurant has not undergone another city health inspection.

The full list of Anchorage restaurants with six or more critical violations, in city inspections conducted from Jan. 1 through Sept. 18 this year, is as follows:

Since we received that list from city officials, on Friday Firetap Alehouse owner Jack Lewis provided Channel 2 with a new city health-inspection report filed Thursday and listing no critical violations at the restaurant. Lewis also says the DHHS inspection system may need some revision, taking issue with its policy of conducting inspections at random times of the day.

When Channel 2 contacted DHHS to ask about other re-inspections of restaurants featured in this story, spokesperson Jennifer Ruggles told us that Thai Town had three critical violations during a Sept. 19 inspection, while two were found at Bombay Deluxe on Sept. 20 and five at Fukumaru Teriyaki on Sept. 21.

In stops at other restaurants on the list, inspectors found no critical violations at Don Jose’s Mexican Restaurant on Nov. 5. Kansha and I Luv Sushi each had two violations found on Sept. 20, while the Dragon Restaurant had two violations during an Oct. 17 inspection.

Ruggles says re-inspections haven't yet been conducted at Korean Garden, Organic Oasis, Pho Jula or Popeye's Chicken and Biscuits. Both Pho King and Leroy's Family Restaurant are under new ownership.

Contact Ashleigh Ebert and Chris Klint