A Miami restaurant’s cutting boards had rodent poop and other sanitary violations
Rodent droppings and other things that shouldn’t be on cutting boards marred the state inspection of a local chain’s location near the University of Miami.
Delights of Beirut dishes out Lebanese cuisine in the South Miami business district across U.S. 1 from UM’s Coral Gables campus. After the Nov. 13 inspection, the Delights staff had to spend a day bearing down on cleaning and either calling an exterminator, building a better mouse trap or just putting the ones they had someplace more appropriate.
Last week at Delights, the inspector found 22 violations, including three High Priority ones. Here are some of the most notable:
▪ There was a “Buildup of food debris/soil residue” on the reach-in cooler door handles.
▪ “Observed hot water faucet missing at bathroom.” That makes it hard for employees to wash their hands with soap and hot water, as proper restaurant food safety dictates.
▪ “Observed a bag of vegetables stored on the floor.” A food-on-the-floor violation often shares an inspection with...
▪ “Rodent activity present as evidenced by rodent droppings found.” Five pieces of rodent regularity were found on trays on a rack next to a preparation area handwash sink. Another 13 were “on a new red cutting board under the microwave” near a prep area.
▪ Speaking of rodents, there were “rodent control devices installed over food preparation areas.” The inspector saw “two rodent traps on two shelves at a preparation area, one over the reach-in freezer and another one at the shelf over the three-compartment sink next to food equipment.”
▪ Among other things no one wants to see on a cutting board is a sanitizer bucket or, more pointedly, the bottom of the sanitizer bucket because it’s likely that bucket bottom went straight from floor to food contact surface (the cutting board).
▪ In other cutting board problems, a soiled cutting board earned a violation for “food-contact surface soiled with food debris, mold-like substance or slime.”
▪ Other “soiled” things in the kitchen included condiment containers on a prep area shelf: “Food placed in soiled container/equipment.”
▪ The mop sink outside had standing water.
▪ When the inspector returned on Tuesday for the first re-inspection, there were “four white cutting boards no longer cleanable at preparation area.”
▪ Also, there was “no chlorine chemical test kit provided when using sanitizer at three-compartment sink/warewashing machine or wiping cloths,” so whether or not the cloths or cookware were properly sanitized was a hypothetis, at best.
Delights fully passed the same-day re-re-inspection.
