For the past cou­ple of years, we keep hear­ing peo­ple tell us not to go to a cer­tain eth­nic restau­rant because “they were filmed by Tar­get scrap­ing left­over food back into the food to sell” and var­i­ous oth­er sto­ries along the same lines. We got an email recent­ly say­ing that some­one else had heard the rumours, but had also heard that Tar­get nev­er actu­al­ly filmed there. So we put on our Seri­ous Inves­tiga­tive Jour­nal­ist Hats, and sent out two very easy emails set out on a quest to dis­cov­er the truth. Tar­get wrote us back:

Yes we’ve been get­ting that for years too prob­a­bly because tar­get was filmed just around the cor­ner at top shelf’s office down there for the first two or three years. Its nev­er been on Tar­get and I have con­firmed this with the own­er. We think that for a cam­era to be in the kitchen it must have been anoth­er staff mem­ber film­ing. I have no idea if its true or false but again it wasn’t filmed by us and no one in our office ever recalls see­ing it. Urban myth?

And just to dou­blecheck, we emailed an Envi­ron­men­tal Health Offi­cer at the Welling­ton City Coun­cil, in the Build­ing Con­sents and Licens­ing Ser­vices, who told us that this par­tic­u­lar restau­rant has a Cer­tifi­cate of Reg­is­tra­tion valid until July 2011. So can peo­ple please stop spread­ing this rumour? It’s ridicu­lous and untrue. If you don’t like the food, don’t eat there, but find anoth­er tar­get for your defama­tion.

And no, we’re not going to name the restau­rant in ques­tion if you haven’t heard the rumours, because mud clear­ly sticks regard­less of whether it’s deserved or not.