Coral Gables restaurant filth: Flies swarming out of a drain. Roaches. Rodents
A restaurant a few blocks off Coral Gables’ Miracle Mile gets a lot of foot traffic from humans — but apparently also from roaches, rodents and flies.
Unfortunately for Canton Chinese Restaurant, aka Canton Too Restaurant, a state inspector found filth as ubiquitous as vermin on Monday.
An inspection prompted by a customer complaint to the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation uncovered 26 violations, eight of which were High Priority, at 2614 Ponce de Leon.
Here are some of the violations that shut down Canton Too before it passed re-inspection on Tuesday.
“Accumulation of black/green mold-like substance in the interior of the ice machine/bin.”
In the food storage area, “approximately 30-plus flies coming out and around the drain...”
One live roach scurried around “the floor by the dessert unit at the main seating area.” Three roaches went up to the second floor to hang out by the three-compartment sink. There were three live roaches by the front counter reach-in cooler by the sushi station.”
Inside that cooler were five once-alive-now-dead roaches.
Clearly, the little buggers weren’t deterred by “reach-in cooler at sushi station with the interior soiled.”
“Roach excrement and/or droppings” were spotted above a kitchen handwash sink.
Near the second floor prep sink, the inspector “observed approximately 10 rodent droppings.”
A cookline reach-in cooler that needed to keep food at or preferably well under 41 degrees was “not maintained,” which explains why there was 54-degree lettuce and some 63-degree chicken threatening to be a salmonella ship. Stop sales hit each, putting them in the garbage.
READ MORE: Cucumbers from Florida and two salmonella outbreaks
“Employee manipulates coleslaw without gloves.”
A kitchen sink didn’t have soap and another handwash sink didn‘t have paper towels.
Food trays in the walk-in cooler were “soiled,” which would have been a normal violation but they were trays used for food prep. That’s a High Priority violation.
“Cutting board has cut marks and is no longer cleanable.”
Utensils were wrapped with duct tape.
The cookline floor was “covered with standing water.”
The kitchen microwave had an “accumulation of black substance/grease/food debris.”
Soiled sauce containers counted as “food-contact surfaces soiled with food debris, mold-like substance or slime.”
