Dead rodent at a sushi place. Two golf club restaurants. Restaurant inspection closures
Rodents dead and alive and flies abound on this week’s BOGO edition of the Sick and Shut Down List.
This week’s listing of South Florida restaurants closed by failing state inspection includes the restaurants we didn’t tell you about last week because of technical difficulties.
What follows comes from Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation restaurant inspections. If you see a problem and what a place inspected, don’t email us. Click here and file a complaint. We don’t control who gets inspected. We report without passion or prejudice, but with a side order of humor.
In alphabetical order:
Alicena Key Restaurant, 13033 W. Dixie Hwy, North Miami: Most of the over 27 live roaches found hung out around the kitchen water heater, but three were by a front counter reach-in cooler. I guess they can swim.
“Floor area(s) covered with standing water. All over the kitchen.”
The handwash sink didn’t have a drain pipe. So, how is it getting used?
Sheesh, people, get some Tupperware or something. The chicken and pork sat uncovered in the chest freezer, which also had ice build-up.
“Wet wiping cloth not stored in sanitizing solution between uses.”
The cutting board has too many cuts to be properly cleaned. The inside of a reach-in cooler was “soiled with accumulation of food residue.”
When the inspector returned Feb. 11, there were over 22 live roaches hanging out around the water heater and over eight under the three-compartment sink.
Alicena finally found the key to appearing clean enough for Wednesday’s re-re-inspection.
Cake Thai Kitchen Biscayne, 7919 Biscayne Blvd., Miami: Last week’s technical problems prevented us from telling you about the 30 roach droppings on the wall behind the shelves above the three-compartment sink on Feb. 3. And the roach crawling on the kitchen wall. And the roach crawling on the kitchen ceiling.
“Only means for public to access the bathroom is through a food preparation, ware washing or food storage area.” Well, we’re sure everybody is washing their hands properly.
“No soap provided at handwash sink.” “No paper towels or mechanical hand-drying device provided at handwash sink.” “Observed handwash sink used as dump sink.”
Somebody brought soap and paper towels but the fact that the inspector needed to cite Cake Thai kind of tells you where handwashing ranks in priority.
The kitchen floor tiles were “cracked, broken or in disrepair.”
Cake Thai’s been around for long enough to make our Rodent Report in 2018, so it should be doing well enough to afford a food thermometer.
Or, some Raid. When the inspector returned Feb. 4, 16 live roaches were spotted. “Due to observing more live roaches on today’s callback inspection than the initial routine inspection on Feb. 3, 2020, a new inspection will be conducted (Feb. 4) to address today’s public health threat of live roaches.”
Cake Thai passed re-inspection on Feb. 5. The floor tiles and the route from dining area to pee room still needed addressing.
Cek Caterers, 17950 N. Military Tr., Boca Raton: Flies alone made this place an inspection flop, 65 of them to be exact.
Among that insect air force were “eight live flies in narrow hallway next to walk-in cooler on clean utensils and food packages, food contact surfaces” and “three live flies on clean water carafes, food contact surfaces.”
Cek got it together for Friday’s re-inspection.
The Club at The Country Club of Miami, 6801 NW 186th St., Northwest Miami-Dade: OK, we know this public facility is a “country club” only in that it’s a golf club and it’s in this country.
But, as a complaint caused this inspection, somebody clearly believes being a public facility doesn’t mean they should have to accept stuff like eight rodent droppings, including three “on top of a food can located on shelves at the dry storage room.”
Maybe Pixie and Dixie dropped in through the hole in the ceiling. However they got in, do you want two bags of ice on the floor, even if that’s the walk-in freezer floor?
The dishwasher wasn’t sanitizing at all, either.
Three dead roaches under dry storage room shelves.
“Unsealed concrete floor” at the bar area. Ask a flooring expert what kind of malevolent organisms can spawn when you’ve got problems like this in your flooring.
The Club recovered to pass re-inspection on Wednesday.
Giorgio’s, 1499 SW 17th St. Cswy., Fort Lauderdale: Not just a live roach, but a live roach with an egg sac was seen in the oven with three other live roaches and four dead roaches. Another one avec egg sack was seen “crawling on the cutting board of the fliptop cooler.”
Roach excrement or droppings lay on a shelf over the prep table. Four more dead roaches lay next to the pizza station.
Girgoio’s passed re-inspection Friday in time to make some of that Valentine’s Day money.
Golden Corral, 389 Winchester Park Blvd., Boynton Beach: They didn’t have to play 52 pickup — the 52 flies picked themselves up and flew pretty darn well on their own.
“Approximately 30 life roaches on the wall and under the clean side of the dishwasher.”
The inspector came back later that same day and saw five flies on a sneeze guard. Golden Corral properly rounded up or killed the flies by Thursday’s re-re-inspection.
Indian Spring Country Club Grille Room, 11501 El Clair Ranch Rd., Boynton Beach: Unlike The Club, above, Indian Spring is an actual country club that sells memberships. So, you don’t expect it to bogey the restaurant inspection hole.
Were there unusual amounts of food or flesh left out in Boynton Beach the last two weeks? Because this place beat Golden Corral for this week’s Amityville Horror Award for fly volume with 75 flitting about the establishment.
But only three in the dishwashing area were on clean food contact surfaces.
The Grille Room’s listing of inspections on the FDBPR site shows two more failed inspections on Feb. 8, but no violations, before a passed inspection on Feb. 8.
La Brasa Hillsboro Lyons, 4201 W. Hillsboro Blvd., Coconut Creek: Stop Sales landed at the rate of flies in this joint.
More than 30 flies were landing on to-go containers and shelves in dry storage. Meanwhile, about 25 pounds of red onions got hit with a Stop Sale after flies were landing on them.
Also hit with Stop Sales, but for not being cooled enough to prevent from being bacteria beds, were 280 pounds of black beans and 35 pounds of cooked potatoes.
The inspector did them a solid with a same-day re-inspection from Wednesday that La Brasa passed after being given extended time to deal with other problems.
Peking Place, 531 S. Main St., Belle Glade: The inspector noted “spider webs throughout the kitchen.” Wonder how many of Charlotte’s Webs caught the rodents leaving 135 pieces of rodent dung.
Well, they wouldn’t have caught the ones leaving the 30 pieces in the employee restroom.
Makes you feel good that the bulk container for sugar “cannot be sealed when not in use,” right? And that the frying oil was stored directly on the kitchen floor.
And that pots and utensils made the front line handwash sink unusable and there were no paper towels in the kitchen handwash sink.
Do you know how many Chinese dishes use cabbage? A Stop Sale got dropped on this cabbage because PP used “plywood boards as a food contact surface for cabbage.”
“Encrusted material on can opener blade.”
How about a Fresca? “Soda gun soiled.”
How good can the dishwasher be when the interior has a “buildup of food debris, dust or dirt...?”
“Buildup of mold-like substance” on one of the walk-ins doors.
The inspector apparently got so worn out being exact about the rodent leavings from the Feb. 11 inspection, the description of regularity during Wednesday’s re-inspection was “approximately 40 to 50 rodent droppings in the kitchen and dining room.”
Thursday’s re-re-inspection got Peking Place back open.
Q’Salsas, 123 S. State Rd. 7, Plantation: If you’re going to have a roach trap, you’ve got to empty it once in a while. Otherwise, the inspection might see four live roaches out and running, but 11 live roaches in traps in the kitchen.
Four other roaches didn’t make it.
How long has the soup, chicken stock, sliced cheese and cooked pork been there? They didn’t have a date on them.
Q’Salsas passed its Feb. 7 re-inspection.
Talay Thai & Japanese, 2233 E. Atlantic Blvd., Pompano Beach: The inspector saw not just five pieces of rodent poop, but perhaps the pooper itself, a dead rodent on the floor of the men’s restroom cabinet.
Of the 81 total pieces of rodent dung found, 30 were on pans stored in a cookline oven used for storage and 12 were on top of the dishwasher.
On top of the dishwasher? Bold little buggers, aren’t they?
They didn’t bother to put any dates on the cooked meats, plat food and noodles in the walk-in cooler.
Talay Thai passed re-inspection on Friday to get back open for Valentine’s Day date crowd.
