inspections – Page 20 – West Boca News

Cabo Fail – Restaurant Inspections Near Boca

Four restaurants near West Boca had over 20 restaurant inspection violations in the last four weeks. Cabo Flats in Delray Marketplace had the worst in number with 25 violations including a stop sale on salsa for temperature abuse, dozens of small flying insects in the kitchen, and a total of 10 violations marked high priority:

Employee failed to wash hands before changing gloves to handle clean utensils. **Corrected On-Site** **Warning**
Employee washed hands with no soap. **Warning**
Live, small flying insects in kitchen, food preparation area, or food storage area. Approximately between 50-75 flies observed in food prep area/dishwashing area / servers station and bar**Warning** **Repeat Violation** **Warning**
Potentially hazardous (time/temperature control for safety) food cold held at greater than 41 degrees Fahrenheit. Guacamole 48° F at servers station cooler. Discarded. Corrected on site. Butter 54° F overstocked at cookline cooler. Removed over stock. Corrective action taken. Salsa at 52° F in bar area. **Warning**
Potentially hazardous (time/temperature control for safety) food cooked/heated yesterday/on a previous day not cooled from 135 degrees Fahrenheit to 41 degrees Fahrenheit within a total of 6 hours. Food has been cooling overnight. See stop sale. Salsa cooling over night at walkin cooler at 48° F. Discarded. **Corrected On-Site** **Warning**
Raw animal food stored in top portion of make table over ready-to-eat food in bottom portion of make table – no complete physical barrier between top and bottom. Raw fish over veggies on top of make table at cookline cooler. **Corrected On-Site** **Warning**
Small flying insects in bar area. **Repeat Violation** **Warning**
Spray bottle with chemical/toxic substance stored near/on/above food preparation surface or food. Soap over soda boxes and cleaners by drinks in bar area. **Corrected On-Site** **Warning**
Stop Sale issued on potentially hazardous (time/temperature control for safety) food due to temperature abuse. Salsa cooling overnight at walkin cooler at 48° F. **Warning**
Thermotape failed to turn black to indicate the sanitization temperature of 160 degrees Fahrenheit was achieved on the dish surface. Discontinue use of dishmachine for sanitizing and set up manual sanitization until dishmachine is repaired. **Warning**
Toxic substance/chemical stored by or with food. Propane over food in dry storage shelving by cookline. **Corrected On-Site** **Warning**

Cabo Flats also had 18 violations in our March report on restaurant inspections in “Near Boca” (West Delray, Coconut Creek and Parkland).
Others with bad numbers include:

Shanghai Chinese on Atlantic (24 violations, 7 high priority)
Odyssey Diner (stop sale for temperature abuse on cooked potatoes, 24 violations, 6 high priority, plus a dead roach found in a storage area)
Ho Ho Chinese (closed twice, two days in a row, for roaches, 21 violations, 5 high priority)
Ruvens (closed for roaches on May 6th, stop sale on milk, butter and cream cheese for temperature abuse, 21 violations, 6 high priority)

A routine inspection of Ruvens only two weeks later on May 21st found 13 violations including three high priority. They also had 34 violations at Ruvens in late April. Odyssey Diner had 58 violations in our March report.
Japango in Delray Marketplace had 13 violations including three high priority.
South of the border in Coconut Creek and Margate, Lemon Tree Cafe on Lyons Road had 16 violations including 2 marked high priority, while Golden Corral on Sample Road had 15 violations, all minor.
The best result in this report goes to the new Papalani Gelato which had a perfect licensing inspection. We’ll be doing a story on them shortly. A Burger King on Atlantic in Delray and NYC Sandwich Company on Powerline in Coconut Creek were next best with two minor violations each.
As usual our full spreadsheet for this report is below. Readers can check any restaurant at the Florida Licensing Portal.
[gview file=”https://westbocanews.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/nearboca-6-3-2015.pdf”]

Tastee Troubles in West Boca Inspections

The Tastee Express hot dog vendors have had a lot of inspection troubles in the last month or so. Usually the inspection reports from these “mobile” vendors are near perfect so a string of bad reports stands out. We typically don’t report them because we only know they’re based in West Boca but we don’t know where they are.
From state records there appear to be six of the Tastee Express units based out of the industrial/warehouse units at 10058 Spanish Isles Blvd, with a “main address” nearby in Boca Gardens. The owners also have a residence address in Century Village.

Tastee Express #8 had emergency orders against it on both April 6th, 7th and April 27th with temporary closures each time. In total violations the worst inspection was May 13th with 20 including 4 marked high priority.

Displayed food not properly protected from contamination. Hot dogs and sausages hot holding on grill uncovered. **Repeat Violation** **Warning**
Employee failed to wash hands beforechanging gloves and/or putting on gloves to work with food. **Repeat Violation** **Admin Complaint**
Potentially hazardous (time/temperature control for safety) food cold held at greater than 41 degrees Fahrenheit. Not enough ice – hot dogs range in temperature from 39-64°. **Repeat Violation** **Warning**
Potentially hazardous (time/temperature control for safety) hot held at less than 135 degrees Fahrenheit or above. Polish kielbasa and Italian sausage hot holding at 117-120°, peppers and onions at 130°. **Repeat Violation** **Warning**

Another one, Tastee Express #10, was also temporarily closed on May 14th and may not have reopened. It’s possible this is the vendor in front of Lowe’s which we noticed maybe a week or two ago.
Unfortunately we can’t know where these mobile food operations are located so it’s hard to advise our readers which ones to avoid. As we said earlier, most mobile vendors have very good inspection reports. Based on this we’re going to avoid any Tastee Express vendors until this gets cleared up.
On the bright side Tastee Express 9 had a perfect inspection in late April.

The worst of the regular restaurants in this report goes to Mama’s NYC in Logger’s Run Plaza, which had 16 violations in late March including 7 high priority and some items removed in “stop-sale” orders. The main problem appears to have been food temperatures.

Deli meats cold held at greater than 41 degrees Fahrenheit. Ham 59°, mortadella 55°, cheese 42°, tomato 53°
Employee failed to wash hands before putting on new set of gloves to work with food.
Potentially hazardous (time/temperature control for safety) food cold held at greater than 41 degrees Fahrenheit. Oil and garlic 55°, cheese 56°, lettuce 56°, corrective action taken, moved all items to walk in cooler
Potentially hazardous (time/temperature control for safety) food identified in the written procedure as a food held using time as a public health control has no time marking and the time removed from temperature control cannot be determined. See stop sale. **Corrected On-Site**
Raw animal food stored over ready-to-eat food in walk-in cooler. Raw chicken over cooked lasagna **Corrected On-Site**
Refrigerated potentially hazardous (time/temperature control for safety) food received at greater than 41 degrees Fahrenheit. Pasta 51°, spaghetti 52°, ziti 51°, moved all items yo walk in cooler. Corrective action taken.
Stop Sale issued on potentially hazardous (time/temperature control for safety) food due to temperature abuse. Ham 59°, mortadella 55°, cheese 42°, tomato 53°

Next worst was Packy’s in the same plaza, which had 10 violations in late April. Only two were marked high priority and there were no stop sales or other problems.
Mozart Cafe off Powerline and Josef’s Table in Polo Club Shoppes also had 10 violations with only one marked high priority each.
Winners in this month’s report include the recently remodeled Wendy’s in Logger’s Run Plaza and the new Rafina Greek restaurant in Wharfside Village (replacing Euro Fusion), which had perfect inspections. Brooklyn Water Bagel on Powerline and the McDonald’s on Clint Moore both came close with only one minor violation.
The new Lemon Grass Hotpot in Boca Grove had only three violations. We hope to try both that and Rafina soon.
Our full spreadsheet is below.
[gview file=”https://westbocanews.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/westboca-5-2015.pdf”]

Roaches, Rodents and Mold on an Epiphany? Restaurant Inspections for East Boca

Update: Villagio in Mizner Park was temporarily closed on May 20th due to roaches, and there was also a stop sale due to raw beef being left out all night. They had a total of 23 violations.

High Priority – Roach activity present as evidenced by live roaches found. Observed approximately 10 inside a broken oven that is not in use on the cook’s line.
Stop Sale issued on potentially hazardous (time/temperature control for safety) food due to temperature abuse. Piece of raw beef left at room temperature all night.

Stir Crazy at Town Center has had a string of rough inspections over the last several months. The worst of it, recently, was on April 27th when they were closed by inspectors for the day due to both roaches and rodents.

Roach activity present as evidenced by live roaches found. Observed approximately 10 live roaches by the walkin cooler, 3 live roaches by dry storage shelving, 10 live roaches by the dish machine, 16 live roaches by the cookline area, 1 live roach at the employee restroom and 2 live roaches by the mop sink.
Rodent activity present as evidenced by rodent droppings found. Observed approximately 15 dry rodent droppings in upstairs storage room.

The restaurant appears to struggling with inspections. We count six inspections since February with four requiring follow-ups. Four of those inspections happened in the last three weeks. Their first inspection in February found dead roaches and as we reported in August, they had problems with rodents on an inspection in July.
Usually when we see a place have a bad inspection they respond with near-perfect inspections for at least a little while. Stir Crazy seems to be having trouble getting things right. The April 27th inspection found 17 violations and only couple weeks later they had 16 violations.
While that was probably the worst inspection in this report, it is not the worst number. Yakitori Sake House in Royal Palm Plaza “wins” that prize with a total of 40 violations including 8 marked “high priority,” some of which are a bit unnerving:

Dishmachine chlorine sanitizer not at proper minimum strength. Discontinue use of dishmachine for sanitizing and set up manual sanitization until dishmachine is repaired and sanitizing properly. 0 ppm chlorine, corrected to 100 ppm chlorine. **Corrected On-Site**
Employee handled soiled dishes or utensils and then handled clean dishes or utensils without washing hands. **Corrected On-Site**
Employee handled soiled equipment or utensils and then engaged in food preparation, handled clean equipment or utensils, or touched unwrapped single-service items without washing hands. Dishwasher from handling dirty equipment to handling clean plates without washing hands first.
Employee washed hands with no soap. **Corrected On-Site**
Food stored in ice used for drinks. Water bottle and apple at bar.
Potentially hazardous (time/temperature control for safety) hot held at less than 135 degrees Fahrenheit or above. Sushi rice at 109° F in sushi bar area under no temperature control. Rice time marked. Assisted operator in completing application for time as a public health control. **Corrective Action Taken**
Raw animal food stored over ready-to-eat food. Raw shrimp over prepped veggies at walkin cooler. Raw fish over cream cheese and krab at sushi bar cooler. **Corrected On-Site**
Raw animal foods not properly separated from one another based upon minimum required cooking temperature in reach-in freezer – all products not commercially packaged. Raw chicken next to and touching raw beef at Whirlpol cooler. Raw chicken over raw shrimp at Whirlpol cooler.**Corrected On-Site**

Yakitori Sake House did follow up with a near-perfect inspection a week later.
Second worst in total number was Chick N Chop on Federal Highway with 31 violations including the most interesting one we’ve ever seen:

Food with mold-like growth. See stop sale. Observed a gray mold growing on an epiphany in a case of eggplant in the rear prep area. **Warning**

We’re not sure how an epiphany would get into a case of eggplant, what it would look like, or how mold would grow on it. But we don’t think we’d want to eat that.

Another bad one goes to Nino’s of Boca II on NE 5th Ave (east of Federal Highway north of Glades). They had 13 violations and some kind of emergency order recommended. They’ve had some bad inspections as we mentioned in March, and October. This may have been the final straw because it looks like the restaurant has closed. Their website is gone and their phone number is disconnected. Because they’re closed we can’t find the latest inspection report, though it was covered by BizJournals.com:

ordered to close temporarily for a fourth time this year on March 16 for rodent problems, when inspectors found rodent droppings near cooking equipment in the kitchen

Now for the real winners:
Several places had perfect inspections, including the Cinemark theater, Strikes bowling, PF Chang’s, Estia Greek Taverna, Amitie Cafe, Lion & Eagle Pub, Funky Buddha Lounge, Skyview Cafe, Little Caesars, and several places within the Boca Raton Resort.
Other notables with good numbers include Shake Shack on Glades and Sushi Ray in Town Center Circle with just two violations each. Morton’s of Chicago in Town Center Circle had only three minor violations.
Others with 10 or more violations were:
Federal Highway:
Renzo’s Cafe Pizzeria, Sushi of Boca Raton, Taverna Kyma (including a stop sale due to temperature problems), Sinful Sandwich, Piezano’s Pizza & Pasta, Sonny’s Gelato CAfe, adn Sakura Thai & Japanese.
Mizner Park & Royal Palm Plaza:
Dubliner, Sapphire Indian, Casimir Bistro, Lemongrass
Other:
Dean Anthony’s Express Pizza (Yamato), Cheescake Factory, DaVinci’s of Boca (Town Center), Boca’s Best Pizza Bar, and Bogart’s Bar & Grille
As usual, our full spreadsheet is below.
[gview file=”https://westbocanews.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/eastboca-5-2015.pdf”]

Apeiro Hit With 18 Violations: The Near Boca Inspection Report

The new Apeiro restaurant in Delray Marketplace had one of the worst inspections we see in our latest “Near Boca” report. They had a total of 18 violations including 6 marked as “high priority.” Perhaps the biggest concern was that several foods and sauces were not kept at proper temperatures including a stop-sale. Here’s the worst of it:

Cooked potentially hazardous (time/temperature control for safety) food not cooled from 135 degrees Fahrenheit to 41 degrees Fahrenheit within 6 hours. Roasted garlic cream sauce 49°, eggplant meat 49°, Brie fondue 49°, acqua pazza sauce 49°, herb balsamic sauce 47°, bolognese sauce 47°, falafel mix 47°, cooked mushrooms 47° all in containers that were too deep, and coved and held overnight or more.
Employee failed to wash hands before changing gloves and/or putting on gloves to work with food. **Corrected On-Site**
Potentially hazardous (time/temperature control for safety) food cold held at greater than 41 degrees Fahrenheit. Foods in walk in cooler were temping in at 45° because the walk in cooler had an ambient temperature of 44-45°. Corrective action taken – operator adjusted the temperature setting for walk in cooler to a lower temperature. Walk in cooler is now reading an ambient temperature of 37°. **Corrected On-Site**
Stop Sale issued on potentially hazardous (time/temperature control for safety) food due to temperature abuse. Roasted garlic cream sauce 49°, Brie fondue 49°, acqua pazza sauce 49°, eggplant meat 49°, herb balsamic sauce 47°, bolognese sauce 47°, falafel mix 47°, cooked mushrooms 47° all cooled in deep containers, covered and held overnight. Garlic and oil mixture – held at room temperature (78°) for more than 4 hours.
Thermotape failed to turn black to indicate the sanitization temperature of 160 degrees Fahrenheit was achieved on the dish surface. Discontinue use of dishmachine for sanitizing and set up manual sanitization until dishmachine is repaired. **Corrected On-Site**

Apeiro’s inspection was in mid-April and indicated that a follow-up inspection is required. We don’t see that follow-up in the data yet.
Burt & Max in the same plaza (and we think with the same owner) had a pretty good inspection with 7 violations.
Ruvens on Jog Road in Delray had the worst number in this report with a whopping 34 violations, 8 of them marked high priority. The worst of that was: Stop Sale issued due to adulteration of food product. Unwashed orange inside a bucket of coleslaw in walk on cooler. However, a follow-up inspection was not required.
The Burger King on Atlantic near Military Trail was closed briefly in late April due to roaches: “one live roaches in kitchen, 8 live roaches in icee machine cabinet by the ice machine.” It was reopened the same day after a quick repeat inspection.
Others in Delray with poor numbers include Zorba’s Taverna on Linton (19 violations), The Grill at the Bridges (18), Beijing Palace on Jog (18), Mr. Chen’s Hunan Palace (17) and Bagel Twins (16), both on Linton, Gramercy Bagels & Deli (15), Greek Emporium (15) and Panda Gourmet (14).
The best inspection we saw in Delray was the Subway and the Philly Grill both on Military Trail near Atlantic with 2 violations each.
Broward County
The worst in Broward was China Buffet & Grill on Hillsboro west of Powerline, with 25 violations including 8 high priority and a warning issued.
Also on Hillsboro, La Brasa (at Lyons) and Muddy Waters (west of Military Trail) had 17 violations each. Duffy’s on Hillsboro had 12 violations but only one was marked high priority. Muddy Waters also had only one marked high priority.
Bru’s Room on Hillsboro near 441 had 11 violations with two marked high priority. Those two looked picky to us. Food supposed to be kept below 41º was at 44º, for example. They had a call-back a week later and had only one minor violation.
The good news in Broward includes Deer Creek Country Club (whose restaurant is open to the public) and Sublicious on 441 near Holmberg, with just one minor violation each.

Restaurant Inspections: Mostly Good News. Mostly.

Our latest restaurant inspection report for West Boca is mostly good news as several restaurants had perfect inspections. But we’ll start off as usual with the worst of the pack.

Kagura Japanese in the Polo Club Shoppes (Military Trail north of Clint Moore) was hit with 19 violations in early March. The worst of it was this, and it’s really not that bad:

Employee began working with food, handling clean equipment or utensils, or touching unwrapped single-service items without first washing hands.
Employee touching ready-to-eat food with their bare hands – food was not being heated as a sole ingredient to 145 degrees F or immediately added to other ingredients to be cooked/heated to the minimum required temperature to allow bare hand contact. Establishment has no approved Alternative Operating Procedure.
Potentially hazardous (time/temperature control for safety) food identified in the written procedure as a food held using time as a public health control has no time marking and the time removed from temperature control cannot be determined. Sushi rice

Kagura’s previous inspection in October had only 8 violations, and they had a perfect one a few months earlier in July of 2014.
Another Japanese place, Tempura House in The Reserve (Clint Moore and 441), had the next worst inspection with 14 violations including:

Cooked rice/pasta cold held at greater than 41 degrees Fahrenheit. Rice 70°, moved to walk-in cooler, corrective action taken
Fresh garlic-in-oil/margarine/butter or product containing fresh garlic-in-oil/margarine/butter mixture held at less than 135 degrees Fahrenheit. Oil and garlic at 80°on the cook line kitchen area, moved to reach in cooler corrective action taken
Potentially hazardous (time/temperature control for safety) food cold held at greater than 41 degrees Fahrenheit. Pork 52°, beef 53°, chicken 51°, raw pork 49°, shrimp 45°, scallop 52°, iced items and moved some to another reach in cooler, corrective action taken
Raw animal food stored over ready-to-eat food in reach-in cooler. Raw eggs sitting on top of ready to eat foods

Tempura House also had a bad run last year with two rough inspections in April and June.

On the plus side, many restaurants had excellent inspections. To be clear, what we look for are routine and complaint inspections so we are not including call-backs and licensing inspections in this list.
Perfect inspections – Zero violations
Brooklyn Boys Pizza (Shadowood)
IHOP (near SW corner of Glades and 441)
McDonalds (Clint Moore & Jog)
Domino’s Pizza (Boca Grove and also Mission Bay)
Lucille’s Bad to the Bone BBQ (Woodfield)
Sybarite Pig (Shadowood)
TW’s Lounge (west side of 441 near SW 18th)
House of Dog (Boca Grove)
Voodoo BBQ & Grill (Polo Club Shoppes)
Chez Marie Bistro (Polo Club Shoppes)
Giovanni’s Pizza (Powerline)
Mozart Cafe would have made the list but they had another inspection later in the month with several violations. The new Jet’s Pizza also had a perfect inspection but it was a licensing inspection and those are usually clean.
Others were near-perfect. Fit Foodz Cafe had only one minor violation. Twenty places were reported with just two violations including Nikuya in Logger’s Run.
For our full spreadsheet, see below.
First in pdf:
[gview file=”https://westbocanews.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/westboca-march.pdf”]
And next in Excel for those who like to play with the numbers:
[gview file=”https://westbocanews.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/westboca-march.xls”]