After taking a week off, the list of failed restaurant inspections returns, light on the rodents but heavy on the standing water.
So let’s take a look at who failed the test in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties.
We do not choose who is inspected and we do not conduct the inspection. This is done by the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation. Direct all complaints about restaurants in that direction.
We do this without passion or prejudice, but with a touch of humor and a touch of judgment.
In alphabetical order:
Benihana, 3261 SW 160th Ave., Miramar: Complaint inspection, two total violations, one high priority violation.
“Floor surfaces covered with standing water.” Where? “The dining room, under the tables and chairs of the customers; the bar; the front counter opposite the sushi station; the kitchen area.”
And calling it “still water” doesn’t fully describe the composition.
“Wastewater/wastewater flowed upward through floor drains” in the bar, sushi station, outside the rear entrance, the four drains in the kitchen and two drains in the dishwasher and bar.
“Observed employee stepping on sewer. One employee was peeling raw shrimp while standing in the sewer.
Benihana chopped the problem into pieces and passed inspection the next day.
El Mariachi, 1937 N. Military Trail, Unincorporated Palm Beach County: Routine inspection, 13 violations total, 10 high priority violations.
About 10 live cockroaches crawled inside an unused walk-in cooler/freezer. Two more cockroaches were playing on an electrical outlet in the kitchen. Two other roaches in the kitchen were on the three-compartment sink and the back of a chest freezer.
One employee “stopped handling the dirty dishes, washed his hands at the three-compartment sink without soap, and then grabbed clean plates to serve food.”
Proper handwashing doesn’t need lava, but you do need some real soap – which the kitchen handwashing sink was missing, along with paper towels.
“Employee washed the food storage container with soap, rinsed with water and reused it for food storage without sanitizing.” That works at home, but not in a restaurant.
The inspector dropped a stop sale on cooked beans, 55 degrees despite spending a night in a walk-in cooler, which was clearly about as cool as your great uncle’s beige Chrysler Polara.
The inspection was carried out the next day.
Fritanga Monimbo Kendall, 7173 SW 117th Ave., Kendall: Routine inspection, 21 violations total, five high priority violations.
Problems flowed from above and below.
Seven flies “flying around the preparation areas in the kitchen.”
Four ceiling tiles in the dining room with water damage.
“Food stored below the dripping water line…in a walk-in cooler in the kitchen, near the main entrance.”
Downstairs, the inspector saw “standing water throughout the kitchen slowly draining into the floor drain” and “standing water under the three-compartment sink in the kitchen.”
Cockroaches crawled on a mixer on a kitchen table, on a wall near the stove and on a bathroom wall.
During the callback inspection the next day, the inspector noticed two cockroaches crawling along a wall near the three-compartment sink. But the inspector also saw evidence of the previous day’s pest control visit: five dead cockroaches on the mop sink and another two cockroach bodies under the three-compartment sink.
That is still a reinspection violation. Fritanga did not reopen until it had passed the re-inspection.
READ MORE: Miami company is recalling Los Andes Foods’ Cachapa de Maiz sweet corn pancakes
Lemon Peppers, 2701 NW 54th St., Miami: Routine inspection, 18 total violations, three high priority violations.
“Severe odors in the walk-in cooler.”
In dry storage, five cockroaches “crawled on a bag of cornmeal” and two others did the same on a bag of flour.
“The ceiling fan and the tiles of the dishwasher room were heavily contaminated with dust.” The ceiling opening above the built-in freezer of the cooking line was ‘soiled with a black substance’.
The cutting board on the cook line prep cooler was stained.
You couldn’t dry your hands at the hand sink.
Lemon was back pushing fish and shrimp the next day after receiving a “Follow-up Inspection Required.”
Mi Fondita Cafeteria Restaurant, 6059 Johnson St., Hollywood: Complaint inspection, 10 violations in total, two high priority violations.
Two roaches were seen on the back of the kitchen hand sink, but the “manager was unable to kill them as the roaches entered the wall behind the sink seal.”
Two dead cockroaches, one on the floor “at the far end of the bar in the dining room.”
On the kitchen floor “there are areas of standing water that have not been properly dried after mopping.”
The ceiling times in the kitchen at the front of the cooking line showed “heavy dust accumulation.”
The re-inspection the next day went much better.
Osman Restaurant, 514 NE 167th St., North Miami Beach: Routine inspection, 14 violations in total, one high priority violation.
This week’s Amityville Award winner for its flies is another entry on Wretched Restaurant Row in North Miami Beach, 167th Street/163rd Street, from the Golden Glades spaghetti bowl to Biscayne Boulevard.
The zapper in the dry storage room dropped more than 15 dead flies, which remained in the zapper holder. To avoid the zapper’s fate, more than 35 flies filled the dry storage area, 10 on the wall near the handwash sink in the kitchen; more than eight countries on dirty dishes; three in the dining room; and one that cuts into the reach cooler.
There was “a strange smell coming from the dry storage room.”
There was no soap in the hand wash basin in the kitchen.
“There is a build up of black substance/grease/food residue in the oven/microwave.”
Osman passed the re-examination the next day.
