Category Archives: Restaurant Inspection

Pretty safe: How safe are food courts in Montreal?

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With a team of microbiologists from McGill University, CBC Montreal Investigates/Radio-Canada conducted tests for bacteria on tables, trays and garbage bins at four different shopping centres in the Montreal area: Fairview Pointe-Claire, the Eaton Centre, Complexe Desjardins and Champlain Mall.  

eaton.center.montrealThe team found no evidence of bacteria which could cause serious food-borne illnesses such as E.coli, salmonella or listeria.

Nevertheless, lead microbiologist Lawrence Goodridge said he was surprised at the sheer variety of bacteria present.

His team noted some instances of the same bacteria present on both the flaps of garbage bins and trays.

“[It] suggests to me that when the consumers touch the flaps with the trays, this material’s getting on there,” Goodridge said, adding that malls should get rid of bins with flaps on them.

He also said consumers could also help themselves by using disinfectant wipes to clean the tables and trays prior to use. 

CBC shared the test results with an independent expert who took no part in the study — Montreal Children’s Hospital epidemiologist Caroline Quach.

Quach said she could find no risk to public safety.

Georgia Waffle House fails second inspection

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There was this one time, it was Sorenne’s birthday and we were driving to Florida, so she got to pick where we ate.

waffle.houseIt was a Waffle house.

It was awful.

A Waffle House in Henry County, Georgia, temporarily closed to take care of health code violations after failing a second routine inspection.

Food contact surfaces, as well as floors and walls throughout the facility, needed cleaning, the inspector said. And the dishwasher needed to be repaired.

Among other repeat violations, raw eggs had been out at room temperature for more than four hours, but were placed back into a cooler. The food handler told the inspector she didn’t know they needed to be discarded.

Some food items were stored inappropriately. Raw meat was stored over milk and ready-to-eat foods in one of the coolers.

An employee was using a hand-sink to rinse off cleaning cloths. The sanitizing solution used to wipe down surfaces was too toxic. Too much chlorine could lead to a chemical hazard, the inspector said.

The foodborne illness parade

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I have a few signature dishes that I cook regularly: corn/basil salad, beef bourguignon, butternut squash soup and steak salad. They are in a weekly rotation. People (Dani) tells me that the meals are good.

But I wouldn’t sell them.

Cooking for my family and cooking for the public, and selling it are two totally different things.IMG_4513.JPG

Most regulatory bodies in North America treat them differently (stuff for sale is regulated and food that’s prepared and eaten at home isn’t) except, in Surrey, British Columbia (that’s in Canada), according to The Leader.

In Surrey, food that’s made in homes, and sold by homeowners along a parade route, as long as it’s sold on the homeowners property, goes is exempt from food safety regs.

What?

If you plan to make food for the Vaisakhi parade this year, you better get cooking early.

Private citizens and businesses wishing to serve home-made food to the public on commercial roadways along the parade route are required to fill out a temporary food premises permit application.

Erin Labbé, a spokeswoman for Fraser Health, said officials will be following the health authority’s enforcement protocols for the April 18 event.

“Sometimes at festivals, depending on the types of foods served and the duration of the event, enforcement can lead to immediate closures, based on risk,” Labbé said.

However, the food safety regulations don’t apply to people serving home-cooked meals on their own property along the parade route. This means if people are standing on their own front lawns erving their meals they are not at risk of being shut down.

£6,700 fine: Pictures show filth at UK Indian takeaway

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Disgusting conditions were discovered in a takeaway when a horrified customer shopped the owner after seeing a mouse run into the kitchen.

3772162548Indian Ocean has been ordered to pay out more than £6,700 after its co-director Matab Uddin was banned from running any food business over its filthy kitchen.

An inspector visited the Fratton Road takeaway and found no hot running water for washing up and cooking pots on the floor near rat poison, magistrates were told.

Most fast-food places do well with food safety in Philadelphia

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Friend of the barfblog and beard aficionado Don Schaffner told Philly.com that, “In terms of fast food, there’s not much they can do to screw it up.”

Don-Schaffner-214x300Schaffner, a professor of microbiology at Rutgers University who also sits on McDonald’s Food Safety Advisory Council said the complex processes that can trip up exotic places that make everything from scratch, for example, are missing from these eateries, which is part of how they produce food fast, adding, “Those restaurants do a pretty good job of engineering out the risk factors. I’d be more leery going to a fancy white-tablecloth place than a fast-food restaurant.”

Partly, food-safety experts say, that is because big, publicly traded corporations – from McDonald’s to ConAgra – are well aware of the damage a food-poisoning scandal can do to their brands, and they put a priority on preventing it.

Inspectors from the Philadelphia Department of Public Health attempt to visit every restaurant once a year. Inspections are a snapshot in time, with limited ability to prevent foodborne illness. Much of the job involves educating food workers, which health officials say is more effective than policing or stiff fines.

schaffner.facebook.apr.14Establishments with problem histories also are visited more often, however; the city says a single violation for a food-borne illness risk factor usually calls for a repeat inspection.

Find inspection reports for all McDonald’s and Burger Kings, and any other city restaurants:

www.philly.com/CleanPlatesEndText

Food safety cleanup

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Fancy food ain’t safe food, Bristol, UK edition: It is one of Bristol’s most popular restaurants – but because of paperwork issues, the Cowshed steakhouse has had its food hygiene rating dropped from a 5 to a 2, but the owners are confident the issues are not food related and have great procedures in place.

butterscotch-waffle A pub in Bedford, UK was fined over £15,000 for poor food hygiene after health types identified unfit food on the premises, poor standards of food hygiene and cleanliness and was failing to implement an effective food safety management system.

 A Leicester, UK food wholesaler was closed down on the spot after six dead mice found during a routine inspection. Prosecutor Tanya Summers told Leicester Magistrates’ Court how the officers had found mouse and pigeon droppings on food.

 A Waffle House in Newton County, Georgia, failed inspection with a 56 for clean utensils stored in a greasy drawer, concerns about contamination as an employee cracked an egg and then touched cheese, soda nozzles with mold like substance buildup and cold held potentially hazardous foods not maintained at 41 degrees Fahrenheit or below. One custumer who eats there regularly said, “I never had anything that was bad,” while HQ said, “We take food safety very seriously in all of our restaurants and have systems in place to keep our customers safe. We are embarrassed that we have let our customers down at this location. We are working diligently to correct all the issues.”

City, state assumed the other was inspecting hospital kitchens in Illinois

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After looking through inspection reports for 12 Chicago hospitals, the 2 Investigators found critical food violations. Even worse, they uncovered a bureaucratic problem that left some hospital kitchens with no oversight at all.

The city thought state government was inspecting the kitchens, while the state thought the city was conducting the inspections.

In 2014, the kitchen at John H. Stroger Jr. Hospital had a critical violation for a broken dishwasher that was not sanitizing dishes and another violation for chicken stored at dangerous temperatures.

“You would think they would be more interested in the well-being of the patients,” said Anthony Teague, a former patient at Stroger Hospital.

In 2014, Resurrection Hospital also had multiple critical food-temperature violations. This forced the hospital to throw out multiple food items, including lettuce, eggs, cheese sauce, Italian sausages and burgers.

Baltimore restaurants soon forced to post health ratings in window

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Critics worry anything less than a perfect health rating will hurt a restaurant’s financial bottom line. But, nonetheless, it appears Baltimore will join a long list of cities already posting health ratings in restaurant windows.

jake.gyllenhaal.rest.inspection.disclosureEat out in New York City and you can’t miss the letter grade posted prominently in restaurant windows. Soon, similar reports will be posted right in the window of every Baltimore restaurant, food truck and grocery store.

But instead of an “A,” “B” or “C” grade, Baltimore’s proposed new regulations would label a restaurant’s health ratings as “Excellent,” “Good” or “Fair.”

Dr. Leana Wen is the head of the city’s health department.

Valcourt: “Why is posting a restaurant’s health rating in a window so important?”

Wen: “It will give an additional incentive to restaurants to try even harder to make sure that they’re doing everything possible to be safe and healthy.”

“To characterize one restaurant as slightly better than another–that seems a bit unfair to me,” said Gino Cardinale, City Cafe owner.

Cardinale runs Mount Vernon’s popular City Cafe. He says most restaurants like his have nothing to fear from the ratings, but echoes concerns expressed by the Maryland Restaurant Association, which says the new ratings system may unfairly portray well-run restaurants as less than perfect.

Uh-huh.

Hockey, restaurant inspection and Boca

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There was this one time, Amy and I went to a Phoenix Coyotes hockey game, to see Wayne coach, and the guy behind us wouldn’t stop talking about this cougar he had in Boca, and he kept leaning into Amy, and I had to tell him to sit the f*** down.

Wayne_GretzkyHe also bragged that he got 50 e-mails a day, probably some form of compensation.

A few years earlier, Chapman and I went to a Phoenix Coyotes hockey game, and sat behind the general manager’s wife, who said, as the team was losing, it’s going to be a long ride home, another drink please.

But if you have a friend with benefits in Boca, you may want to stay clear of Odyssey Diner on Jog Road in Delray Beach, which registered 58 violations. Seven of the violations were “high priority” and included a stop-sale on bean soup that was not kept at the proper temperature for over 24 hours.

Raw animal food stored over ready-to-eat food. Raw unwrapped beef on top of box of ready to eat lasagna in Walk in freezer.

New Zealand closes online fish market

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Bored suburbanites like to dabble in risk, and I never understood the term black market, other than it was offensive.

UnknownMinistry for Primary Industries (MPI) compliance officers today terminated an operation against four groups in Auckland who were selling seafood.

MPI compliance officers supported, by the NZ Police, executed search warrants on five South Auckland properties that were identified, from a Facebook page, selling seafood to the public.

MPI compliance officers are talking to ten people in relation to the operation. Investigations are continuing with a view to laying charges under the Fisheries Act.

MPI Compliance Director Dean Baigent says compliance officers learned that a Facebook page was being used for one-off sales of seafood in Auckland and that the page had more than 400 followers.

MPI has been monitoring these groups and has received numerous reports from the public of this illegal activity.