Tag Archives: restaurant

Praise the lord and pass the (potatoes, ammunition) hepatitis A

Posted on by
Reply

The Fargo, North Dakota, Catholic Diocese’s new bishop may have exposed hundreds of church members here and in Jamestown to the hepatitis A virus in late September and early October.

“The risk of people getting hepatitis A in this situation is low, but the Department of Health felt it was important for people to know about 10-dogmathe possible exposure,” said Molly Howell, immunization program manager.

The diocese announced Monday that Bishop John Folda is taking some time off after being diagnosed with hepatitis A. The diocese said he contracted the infection through contaminated food while attending a conference for newly ordained bishops in Italy last month.

In New York City, a Hepatitis A  outbreak at a Westchester Square pizzeria, has its neighboring eateries dealing with the side effects.

The New York Daily News reported that several eateries near the still-shuttered New Hawaii Sea restaurant which closed last month after five patrons caught Hepatitis A, say they’re stuck dealing with the stigma of the virus.

Ljubo Kocovic, who opened his own pizzeria 28 years ago in 1985, said because of the Hepatitis scare, business has suffered.

“This is the slowest it has ever been. I’ve never seen an October like this,” Kocovic said. “One guy has a problem, and we all suffer. It’s very stressful.”

Restaurant owner, Nilesh Patel of M&R Coffee Shop agreed.

“People are afraid to come,” he said. “It’s not fair. They made a mistake, they should have to pay the price.”

Roadkill at restaurants; man sold deer, raccoons and other Indiana wildlife to Chicago restaurants

Posted on by
Reply

A Chicago man was arrested Monday after police made the unsavory discovery he was illegally selling Indiana wildlife to food markets in the Windy City.

Alexander Moy, 47, is being held in the Starke County Jail in Knox, Ind., roughly 90 minutes east of Chicago and is charged with two counts of up-roadkill_lgbuying and selling wildlife. Both offenses are Class D felonies, according to NBC Chicago.

Lt. Thomas Torsell of the DNR said Moy illegally bought the wildlife from hunters and fishermen and in turn sold the products to marketplaces in Chicago, particularly to eateries in Chinatown and possibly other parts of the city.

“We’re talking about some fish, turtles, raccoons and white-tailed deer,” Torsell said according to CBS Chicago.

The Northwest Indiana Times reports Moy told officials with the DNR the raccoons and turtles were mostly used for soup while the deer was “mixed in with other meat.”

Restaurants in China spike meals with opiates to keep diners coming back?

Posted on by
1

Two south Chinese restaurants were found to be serving their food with poppy seed powder–which contains addictive substances like codeine and morphine–to ensure diners would come back for more.

Officials with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in Guangzhou Province checked 70 restaurants last year, and found that two were using poppy-seedsmarinade sachets containing poppy powder, Yangcheng Evening News reported.

Zhan Ke, who works for the Guangzhou FDA Restaurant Division, told the paper that heavily seasoned or aromatic sauces may contain poppy seeds. In their spot check, the inspectors targeted soup base, home-made chilli sauce, brine, and curry sauce.  Tests revealed several substances, that could damage the digestive and nervous systems, including codeine, morphine, papaverine, noscapine, and thebaine.

In 2012, inspectors in Jiangsu Province sampled over 400 hotpot soup bases, and found 10 percent contained poppy seed ingredients, according to a report by Oriental Daily earlier this year.  Also, many seasoning stores in Beijing sell poppy seeds and many noodle shops and barbeque stands were big buyers.

£9,350 food safety fine for London takeaway

Posted on by
Reply

Mohammed Nazakat, owner of Flavour Chicken in South Street, has to pay out a total of £9,350 after being fined £750 for each offence plus £2600 in costs.

Havering Council officers became concerned about poor hygiene at the restaurant during a routine inspection in January 2012, and when Nazakat became the proprietor the following month he was made aware of these concerns.

The Council were clear that improvements needed to be implemented including adequate staff training in food safety, flavour.chickenwritten food safety procedures and ensuring food is protected from contamination.

When further visits indicated no improvements had been made a number of hygiene improvement notices were served.

Another visit in June 2012, to check the notices were being complied with, yielding yet more food safety issues which included inadequate hand washing facilities, staff not wearing aprons, and insufficient lighting. This was alongside a filthy storage area, outside bin, walls, floors and kitchen equipment.

Raw chicken was found to be stored too closely to cooked food and a cleaning cloth was tested and found to contain excessive levels of enterobacteriaceae (a bacteria associated with poor hygiene that can cause food poisoning). Following this visit, Havering Council decided court action was the only option.

Councillor Lesley Kelly, cabinet member for public protection, said: “It is absolutely disgusting that despite so many visits and advice given by our officers this restaurant owner failed to clean up his act and continued to break the law, putting the health and wellbeing of every person who ate there at risk. 

“He blatantly flouted the law and I am pleased that magistrates saw fit to impose a hefty fine. 

“We want to work with local food businesses to help them comply with food safety regulations and that’s why for each business we inspect we give a food hygiene rating from zero, where urgent improvement is necessary, to five which is very good. Residents can check these ratings online before they purchase take-away food or eat out in the Borough.”

UK blame game; where is food contaminated? Everywhere, not just home

Posted on by
1

The blame game lives on in the UK.

Haringey Borough Council says “the authority’s food safety teams, part of the Food Standards Agency, investigated 210 complaints of food poisoning michael.douglasbut found no evidence to link them to eating out.”

Where’s Michael Douglas when needed?

The Haringey Independent reports most cases of food poisoning happen when cooking at home, and this suggested that most incidents were a result of poor food hygiene while cooking at home.”

Food safety is a farm-to-fork thing, and lowering loads limits cross-contamination.

Pubic hair in meal means I’m not paying; except it’s mine; caught on video

Posted on by
Reply

Forty-year-old UK man Lee Tyers was recently sentenced to 14 days in jail for trying to get out of paying the check at Jamal’s Indian Restaurant by putting his own pubic hair in his food. 

According to The Mirror and summarized by Eater, Tyers and a friend worked their way through a £39.55 meal of two lamb bhunas, pilau rice, naan, drinks, a chapati and a shish kebab before complaining to a waiter about finding hair lee-tyers-4052147in his lamb bhuna. Unfortunately for Tyers, it’s 2013 and video recording technology is a very real thing. 

The Guardian reports that the restaurant’s cameras caught him “adding the extra ingredient to his meal” before getting up to talk to staff. Since Tyers already owed owner Jamal Chowdhuryfor £110 in previously unpaid meals, the law got involved.

Once at Teesside Magistrates’ Court, Tyers fully denied the incident. According to Chowdury, “[Tyers] showed me his plate and I said: ‘I gave you a clean plate.’ He had eaten everything, but then on the side of the plate there was some brown hair. It was separate and not mixed into the food.” In the end, his point was simple: “I told him all the staff have black hair and this is brown, it’s not our hair.” The court decided in Chowdhury’s favor, finding Tyers guilty of fraud by false representation. He was sentenced to 14 days in prison and ordered to pay for the full amount of the meal. 

10 sick; Texas E. coli outbreak linked to ground beef from local restaurant

Posted on by
Reply

The source of the E. coli outbreak in Brazos County, Texas, has been linked to ground beef from a local restaurant, according to a press release from the Brazos County Health Department.

Health types won’t release the name of the restaurant but say it fully co-rare.hamburgeroperated during the investigation.

Five cases of E. coli were confirmed in Brazos County. Five other cases were investigated due to the criteria of symptoms, but they have not been confirmed.

“Control measures have been implemented to prevent further cases including mandatory glove use by employees and continuous monitoring by BCHD,” said the Health Department in a press release.

EU to ban olive oil jugs from restaurants under guise of hygiene

Posted on by
1

The European Union is to ban olive oil jugs and dipping bowls from restaurant tables in a move described by one of Britain’s top cooks as authoritarian and damaging to artisanal food makers.

The small glass jugs filled with green or gold coloured extra virgin olive oil are familiar and traditional for restaurant goers across Europe but they will be Olive-oil-bottle-smbanned from 1 January 2014 after a decision taken in an obscure Brussels committee earlier this week.

From next year olive oil “presented at a restaurant table” must be in pre-packaged, factory bottles with a tamper-proof dispensing nozzle and labeling in line with EU industrial standards.

The use of classic, refillable glass jugs or glazed terracotta dipping bowls and the choice of a restaurateur to buy olive oil from a small artisan producer or family business will be outlawed.

Sam Clark, the food writer, chef and proprietor of the award winning Moro restaurant in London, told The Daily Telegraph that the ban would stop him serving his customers specially selected Spanish olive oil in dipping bowls with bread when they are seated at their table.

“This will affect us. It is about choice and freedom of choice. We buy our oil, which we have selected from a farm in Spain, to serve our customers,” he said

“Yet more packaging is not going to be eco-friendly and will limit choice to more mass produced products.”

The European Commissions justification for the ban, under special Common Agriculture Policy regulations, is “hygiene” and to protect the “image of olive oil” with a measure that will benefit struggling industrial producers in Spain, Italy, Greece and Portugal.

From the beginning of next year, Britain, which abstained during a vote of national food experts on the issues on Tuesday, must enforce the ban via local authority food inspections of restaurants.

Officials defended the ban as a protection for consumers who would know that they were getting a safe, guaranteed product with proper labeling of its olive.oil.dippingorigin and with tamper-proof, hygienic dispensers.

“This is to guarantee the quality and authenticity of the olive oil put at the disposal of consumers. The aim is to better inform and protect consumer. We also expect hygiene to be improved too,” said an official.

Then I want space-aged smartphone food verification labels on every item ordered at a restaurant.

Have there been any microbial outbreaks to support such a ban?

Over 100 Salmonella cases now linked to restaurant; 60 additional illnesses from unrelated outbreak at separate Canberra restaurant

Posted on by
Reply

ACT Chief Health Officer Dr Paul Kelly today said that ACT Health is currently investigating an outbreak of Salmonella gastroenteritis linked to a local restaurant. Over 100 suspected cases of gastrointestinal illness have been reported among persons who ate at the restaurant. Twenty of these have had Salmonella vomit.salmconfirmed by laboratory testing Fifteen people have been hospitalised.

“ACT Health is working closely with the restaurant to determine the cause of the outbreak,” Dr Kelly said.

The restaurant has been identified in Australian media as The Copa Brazilian Churrasco.

However, Dr. Kelly said the number of new cases appears to have peaked,  and emergency response protocols at Canberra Hospital and Calvary Hospital have been deactivated.

“Additional cases may continue to be identified, however the acute response phase of current operations is considered over.

Dr. Kelly also said today that ACT Health is investigating an outbreak of gastroenteritis linked to another food premises. Over 60 suspected cases of gastrointestinal illness have been reported among persons who ate at the premises on Sunday 12 May.

“No organism has been identified for the second outbreak. None of the cases associated with the second outbreak have been hospitalised.

 “Today the restaurant is closed and ACT Health is currently working closely with the restaurant’s management to establish the cause of the outbreak. The restaurant has provided names of bookings and ACT Health are contacting patrons of the restaurant.

“This outbreak is routine in nature and to date no one interviewed have sought medical attention at general practice or hospital as a result of this outbreak. People affected appear to be recovering quickly,” Dr Kelly said

“Symptoms have been including diarrhea, abdominal pain, nausea and vomiting.

Video reveals rodents at Brisbane restaurant

Posted on by
Reply

This video stuff is everywhere, and people and proprietors can’t hide.

The Courier Mail reports rodents have been caught on CCTV in a Brisbane CBD shopping center, according to owners of an Indian restaurant which has been fighting to keep its food licence.

The firm behind Indian Odyssey told Queensland Administrative and Review Tribunal it had installed ultra-sonic devices to deter rodents.

Brisbane City Council had cancelled the food licence of Techno Protective Security Services, trading as Indian Odyssey, in October, after problems with cleanliness and pests, the tribunal heard.

But QCAT senior member Kerrie O’Callaghan later ordered a stay of that ratatouille..chefjpgcancellation and has just published reasons for that decision.

The restaurant company told the tribunal it was the shopping centre – not named in the judgment – that had problems with rodents, but the restaurant now had pest inspections every three months.

The restaurant and council had since resolved the matter.