Problems with pastelitos, flan and ham caused a Miami bakery to fail inspection
Proper food storage caused most of the inspection problems at a Miami bakery last week.
Fortunately for El Brazo Fuerte Bakery, failing a Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services inspection doesn’t shut down an establishment as state restaurant inspections do. Still, Jan. 27 wasn’t a terrific Tuesday at El Brazo when inspector Lourdes Chantez dropped into 1697 SW 32nd Ave.
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Chantez noted that there was “no probe thermometer available at food establishment to be able to measure cold and hot food temperatures to ensure safe foods. A probe thermometer must be available in food establishment by next inspection.”
Customers are lucky the inspector was there when “the establishment received ground ham that measured out of temperature,” which is at or under 41 degrees. Otherwise, El Brazo, without a probe thermometer to know otherwise, would have taken in unsafely warm ground pork. Instead, El Brazo refused the delivery.
Flan, tres leches, rice pudding and custard made more than two days before the inspection not only didn’t have a date mark, they also needed to be at or under 41 degrees for safekeeping. They weren’t, earning a quartet of Stop Sales and trips to the garbage.
A nine-pack of cheese pastelitos in hot storage made more than two hours before the inspection measured between 98 and 108 degrees. State code says they need to be at or above 135 degrees. Management ditched them as Inspector Chantez put a Stop Sale on the pastelitos.
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An employee used bare hands to make orange juice in the juicer. That flies at home, but not in a food service establishment. Eight ounces of orange juice got hit with a Stop Sale and tossed. The juicer got washed, rinsed and sanitized.
Well, presumably it got properly sanitized. There were “no sanitizer test strips available at food establishment to accurately measure the concentration of the sanitizing solution being used. Sanitizer test strips must be available by next inspection.”
Two violations cited fit almost every gas station cafe area and the vast majority of bakeries in Miami-Dade.
To get rid of the used coffee grounds, “coffee metal portafilter was knocked on a wooden board stored in the trash can and then filled with new coffee grounds.”
Also, the wooden knock board standing in an in-use trash container counts as a no-no.
