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.