Unsafe food at Buffalo Wild Wings. 170 rodent droppings. Restaurants failing inspection
Rodents, roaches, flies, bad food and moldy ice highlight this edition of the Sick and Shut Down List.
Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach are represented among the six restaurants that failed inspection last week.
A dead bug in eggs, ‘washing’ hands without soap among this week’s Gross Grocers
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. Click here and file a complaint. We don’t control who gets inspected or how strictly. We report without passion or prejudice, but with humor sauce.
In alphabetical order:
Buffalo Wild Wings, 4576 Okeechobee Blvd., West Palm Beach: Wings. Beer. Sports. Flies.
Just call the kitchen “Area 51” because 51 flies swarmed the kitchen, including 12 “landing on clean utensils hanging on the wall in the dishwasher room located in the kitchen.”
For a sports bar, getting the salsa, tomatoes, lettuce and American cheese hit with Stop Sales for being unsafely warm counts as a choke.
Family Restaurant, 1784 N. Congress Ave., West Palm Beach: Not often you get something as pedestrian as butter or as esoteric as cow’s feet ragout hit with Stop Sales for temperature abuse, but that happened here. Both got tossed.
Five roaches didn’t make it out of the inspection, either. Two on a wall behind a cookline reach-in freezer, two on a wall behind the three-compartment sink and one under a cookline prep table all “operator killed, cleaned and sanitized the area.”
Inspectors hate seeing the kill, though, almost as much as they hate seeing a fly landing on dining room tables.
Food safety tip: don’t try to cool large amounts of food in deep containers. Find smaller containers. This place tried to cool its pikliz, legume and black beans in “covered, deep containers” only to find they couldn’t get any cooler than 20 to 28 degrees too warm.
Family failed a same-day re-inspection Friday with more on-the-spot roach killing, then got back in business after passing Saturday.
Mexico 1810, 1778 NW 36th St., Miami: We’ve been opening with hand washing violations the last two weeks. So, with Friday’s inspection of Mexico 1810, we’ll start with no soap or way to dry hands at the handwash sink, then slide to this violation that’s handwash related.
“Sewage/wastewater backing up through floor drains. Observed when handwash sinks are turned on, water begins to flow back up from kitchen floor drain.”
Of course, that led to “Floor area(s) covered with standing water due to sewage backing up from floor drains.”
“Shredded cheese, bacon, fries and shrimp thawing at 86°F /room temperature” is a Basic violation, but what bacon thawed at room temperature can do to your insides definitely feels High Priority.
As for other food held at dangerous temperatures, but not hit with Stop Sales, we had cooked beef, shredded lettuce, sour cream, corn, beef tripe and cooked green peppers.
Passing Saturday’s re-inspection saved part of the weekend for Mexico 1810.
Nori Tori Sushi Buffet, 14838 Pines Blvd., Pembroke Pines: By the scale of this place’s apocalyptic 2014 inspection fail (21 High Priority violations, 88 total violations), this four-High Priority, 16-total violation inspection is a sneezing fit.
Then again, this joint’s ice got hit with a Stop Sale. The ice.
“Accumulation of black/green mold-like substance in the interior of the ice machine. Observed mold-like substance in ice machine dripping on ice.”
Then, there was the rodent poop placement. Over 170 pieces of poop got spread on a shelf with sesame seeds (over 20), under the same shelf (over 10), on the floor where the rice is directly stored (over 20 and another violation), on the floor around rice wine (another 20), around the water heater (and another 20) and under the buffet line in front of the kitchen, in and out of empty hotel pans (over 100).
All that stuff on the floor and food, too. “Cooked pastas, cases of sauces and prepped chicken stored on floor in kitchen.”
The handwash sink was blocked by containers stored in it.
”Employee in sushi bar handled cellphone, then went on to preparing food.” We’re sure he wipes down his phone regularly.
“Standing water throughout kitchen.”
“Cutting board has cut marks and is no longer cleanable, throughout kitchen.”
Nori Tori passed re-inspection on Friday.
Palador Okeechobee Ribs, 445 East Okeechobee Rd., Hialeah: More than 20 flies on the bar station counter and more than 10 flies on the barbecue station.
Roasted pork cooked the day before cooled only to 58 degrees, 17 degrees too warm for safety, just the right temperature for a Stop Sale. Basura, baby.
“Interior of reach-in cooler soiled with accumulation of food residue.”
“Walk-in cooler/walk-in freezer floor soiled.”
“Hot water faucet on disrepair located on hand washing sink next to dishwasher machine.” So, how do they turn on the hot water for that handwashing machine?
Palador got those and the rest of their violations in order by the Tuesday re-inspection.
Tejas de Honduras, 19200 SW 106th Ave., Cutler Bay: This is why three-compartment sinks aren’t supposed to have direct plumbing.
“Wastewater backing up through the three compartment sink and hand wash sink in kitchen.”
At least everything was sanitized. Or not. “Food-contact surfaces not sanitized after cleaning, before use...Observed operator washed containers and utensils and did not sanitize.”
What’s the point of sanitizing if you’re going to store them like this? “Cleaned and sanitized equipment or utensils not properly stored...utensils stored touching garbage.”
“Nonfood-grade basting brush used in food.” The inspector didn’t specify what kind of brush it was. Toothbrush? Paint brush? Hairbrush (sorry, no hyperlink)?
Floor area(s) covered with standing water.
“Interior of refrigerator soiled with accumulation of food residue.”
“Accumulation of food debris/grease on food-contact surface” in the stove, fryer baskets and grill station.
Tejas got it together in time for Wednesday’s re-inspection.
