Bad pico de gallo and a toilet with black water: South Florida restaurant filth
This week’s Sick and Shut Down List isn’t long on restaurants, but is on originality with a couple of new violations we haven’t seen before or maybe we have and just blocked them out. So, let’s get to it.
HOW THE LIST IS DONE: What follows comes from Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation restaurant inspections in Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach and Monroe counties. A restaurant that fails inspection remains closed until passing an inspection.
If you see a problem and want a place inspected, contact the DBPR. Do not call us. Do not email us. We don’t control who gets inspected nor how strictly the inspector inspects. Let us say that again — we do not control who gets inspected.
We don’t include all violations, just the most moving, whether internally or literally moving (because it’s alive or once was alive). Some violations get corrected after the inspector points them out. But, you have to ask, why do the violations exist in the first place? And how long would they have remained if not for the inspection?
We report without passion or prejudice but with a full wine glass of humor.
In alphabetical order...
Asahi Zheng, 8152 W. McNab Rd., North Lauderdale: Routine inspection, 19 total violations, five High Priority violations.
With apologies to the Doobies, “Oh, black water, keep on flushing...”
The front counter unisex restroom had “five dead roaches inside a toilet with black water.”
Surely, that’s connected to the “objectionable odors” in that restroom and in the main kitchen’s three-compartment sink, the latter described elsewhere as a “sewage-like smell.”
Bad smell, but no hot running water at that sink or the main kitchen hand washing sink. As a matter of fact there were “No dishwashing facilities of any kind provided....the only means of ware washing is the three-compartment sink, which is clogged with waste water coming from drain.”
Maybe that’s also why the inspector could count 30 flies around the three-compartment sink, 25 flies landing on “various canned food in the dry storage area” and another fly dropping down on a container of sugar.
In the walk-in cooler, the inspector saw “ready to eat foods being stored inside empty cases that raw chicken was shipped in by vendor.” That’s 40 pounds of cooked rips, 10 pounds of beef strips and 15 pounds of cooked pork tenderloin that needs the salmonella burned off of it.
“Food debris and slime” decorated a counter top cooler cutting board.
Somehow, Asahi passed a same-day re-inspection.
El Paso Taco, 108 N. Military Tr., West Palm Beach: Complaint inspection, six total violations, five High Priority violations.
When two roaches came a-strollin’ out from under a reach-in cooler, the cook killed them and cleaned the area. Inspectors don’t like to see the hunt.
This inspector dropped a Stop Sale on 10 pounds of pico de gallo still five to seven degrees above a safe temperature despite living in the reach-in cooler since being cooked the previous day.
El Paso passed a same day re-inspection.
Angelo’s Too Restaurant & Pizzeria, 10136 W. Indiantown Rd., Jupiter: Routine inspection, eight total violations, two High Priority violations.
Of the 75 flies the inspector counted, five were on “open containers of food on the dry storage rack in the kitchen” and another five were on the pizza station prefolded pizza boxes (flies love those. It’s like they know what’s coming.) Another 10 were on “clean sauté pans hanging over the cookline.” And 25 were on shelving over the dishwasher machine while another 10 were on the doors of the dishmachine in the kitchen.
The server station soda dispenser heads qualified as a “nonfood-contact surface soiled with grease, food debris, dirt, slime or dust.”
Ah, there’s one every week. “Accumulation of black/green mold-like substance in the interior of the ice machine/bin.”
Angelo’s was back open after re-inspection the next day.
