A Boston Market. Live roaches in rice. Bad goat meat. Restaurants failing inspection
When the vermin violations combined with the Stop Sale food violations, you know it’s a very special Sick and Shut Down List.
We’ve got a little of everything in this week’s listing of South Florida restaurants closed after failing inspection, but not much geographic diversity.
What follows comes from Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation restaurant inspections. If you see a problem at a restaurant, don’t email us. Go to the DBPR website and file a complaint. We don’t control who gets inspected or how strictly. We report without passion or prejudice, but with a dash of humor sauce.
In alphabetical order:
Boston Market, 2451 N. Federal Hwy., Pompano Beach: No triple sink sanitizer, which means all that cooking equipment that washed there wasn’t being sanitized. And the wiping cloths also weren’t in a solution with enough sanitizer.
And those are problems when the flies make you the Amityville Restaurant of the Week.
The inspector diligently counted 106, including 20 landing on “open to go paper cups at the front counter at the mobile order pick up station;” five on the ice tea dispenser nozzle; about 25 on the wall over the self-serve soda machine; and about seven lurking on the wall over the hot food holding equipment.
BM got it together to pass Friday’s re-inspection.
Island Palace, 4171 N. State Road 7, Lauderdale Lakes: Reading the inspection, this place had rodents that were very regular.
“...more than 20 rodent droppings observed in chemical storage room on top of containers, next to kitchen area.”
Then, you had 13 dead roaches and 10 live roaches, including six “under prep table next to steam table with ready to eat food” and one on the steam table.
There’s rodents. There’s roaches. Regular readers know what you don’t want to see next, but inevitably see next: food on the floor, in this place a “case of plantains on kitchen floor.”
Stop Sales dropped on cooked goat meat, rice and beans and pork fixed the previous day, but not cooled enough to prevent a bacteria party. All of it, tossed.
“Ceiling tile missing throughout kitchen. Water dripping from ceiling vents in dining room. Water stains throughout kitchen ceiling and dining room ceiling.”
This was July 20. When the inspector returned on Wednesday, two live roaches, one crawling next to the dishwasher, one on a wall, kept caused a re-inspection failure.
The Palace cleaned up to pass a second re-inspection Wednesday.
Thai Thai & Sushi Bar, 1861 N. Pine Island Rd., Plantation: A whole lot of food didn’t get dished out, but got dumpster-ed out after Thursday’s inspection.
The walk-in cooler was too walk-in warm, which led to Stop Sales coming down like July rain on minced garlic; cut cabbage; raw tuna steaks; volcano sauce; butter; raw squid; brown rice; cream of coconut; spicy mayo; and seaweed salad.
Also, in the Contaminated Food Division, there were “six live roaches inside rice bin No. 1 and approximately 15 live roaches in rice bin No. 2, roaches in contact with rice....one dead roach in container of tofu at curry station flip top.”
One dead roach there, 258 dead roaches everywhere else. There were “40 dead roaches on the kitchen counter below the microwave” (did they think they were crumbs?), “50 dead roaches under cook line and sauté station beneath equipment” and “100 dead roaches behind and under chest freezers in kitchen and dry storage area.”
Funny, but another violation was “Observed a can of Raid insect fogger under cook line, a container of insect boric acid and a container of ant and roach insect killer on top of shelving unit above sink.”
“Encrusted material on can opener blade.” No soap at the handwashing sink.
On Friday’s first re-inspection, a live roach on a dish in the dishwashing area and a couple of dead roaches elsewhere kept Thai Thai closed closed.
A second re-inspection got this sushi joint back open for the Friday dinner rush.
This story was originally published July 27, 2020 at 12:10 PM.
