Mr. Suleman often feels frustrated by the perception that inspectors are out to punish restaurants. “I’m not all-powerful,” he said. “The power is in the hands of the restaurants” to improve their food safety.

So when he shuts a restaurant down, he said, “how do you expect me to feel bad? You have a set of rules, and if you are not following those rules, you deserve what you get.”

For him, the most memorable depiction of a health inspector in pop culture is in the 2003 movie “Deliver Us From Eva,” a modern adaptation of “The Taming of the Shrew,” starring Gabrielle Union as a ruthless health inspector. “She’s screaming at people, and taunting people,” he said.

This, he insisted, is not what his job is like: He tries to be as friendly as possible (but not too friendly, “or they think you will pass them”) and communicate openly throughout the inspection.

“I don’t think there is any inspector who takes pride in closing down a restaurant,” he added. “But imagine food not being cooked to the right temperature, and someone getting very sick. That would make me feel even more guilty.”

No matter how many customers are protected by shutting down a restaurant, though, the nit-picking, fine-levying bureaucrat will never be the protagonist of the story.

“You want to know why there are only 100 inspectors for 25,000 restaurants?” Ms. Testa asked. “It is a tough job. You have to go into restaurants knowing they are going to hate you. You have to have a tough skin. It’s not warm and fuzzy.”

“That’s why I left the health department, to be honest.”

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