Insect Invasion: West Boca Restaurant Closed

A popular West Boca restaurant was temporarily closed after inspectors found live small flying insects on food in the kitchen.

Over 50 inspections in this week’s report with many of them in West Boca and some close by. Several are in The Reserve on Clint Moore, plazas on Glades including Shadowood, Westwinds, and Boca Lyons, plus Delray Marketplace and more.

The big story this week is Tempura House temporarily closed by inspectors with 11 violations including 5 high priority, live small flying insects, and multiple stop sale orders.

• Live, small flying insects in kitchen, food preparation area, or food storage area. Observed 19 flies at dry storage area, did not land on food contact surfaces. Observed 4 flies at cookline landing on food contact surfaces, cutting board and prep table. Cutting board and prep table cleaned and sanitized. Observed 2 flies at prep sink, landed on raw chicken chicken discarded.
• Raw animal food stored over ready-to-eat food. In reachin cooler next to walk-in cooler, raw steak and fish over garlic butter and lemons.cookline raw beef over water chestnuts. items moved **Corrected On-Site**
• Stop Sale issued due to adulteration of food product. Raw cut chicken at prep table next to dishwasher, 2 live flies found landing in side the bin on to the chicken. Chicken discarded.
• Stop Sale issued on potentially hazardous (time/temperature control for safety) food due to temperature abuse. 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. rice (65°F – Cooling) cooked last night and stored in walk-in cooler overnight. Rice discarded.

Tempura House has had many bad inspections over the years. It should be noted that the restaurant database now shows it as Karen’s Crystal Land Inc. That corporation has owned the restaurant for years. It appears the corporation was sold by former ownes Man Lup Lee and Chan Biu Lee to new owner Wei Chen. That corporate filing happened in early January, so we’ll see if things improve under the new owner.

Inspectors cleared the restaurant the next day with zero violations found.

Also in The Reserve, Villa Rosano had 8 violations, 3 high priority. Both Ben’s Deli and It’s All Greek had 5 violations each. Fit Foodz Cafe had only 2 violations.

Batch Gastropub in Delray Marketplace had a poor inspection with 11 violations, 7 high priority, including:

• Live, small flying insects in kitchen, food preparation area , 2 live flies in kitchen area. Did not observe them landing on Food contact equipment. 4 live flies in bar area, did observe them landing on food contact services.
• Operating with an expired Division of Hotels and Restaurants license, expired on December 1st, 2019.
• 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. Butter at grill in butter wheel. Butter discarded
• Ready-to-eat, potentially hazardous (time/temperature control for safety) food marked with a date that exceeds 7 days after opening/preparation. Nashville hot sauce in walk-in cooler dated 12/21/19 (inspection date 1/6/2010). Item removed and discarded **Corrected On-Site**
• Stop Sale issued on potentially hazardous (time/temperature control for safety) food due to temperature abuse. 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. At walk-in cooler butternut squash soup (60°F – Cooling); mactac sauce (46°F – Cooling) items discarded.

A follow up inspection four days later found no violations.

Also in Delray Marketplace, the new Ganzo had 6 violations, 2 high priority. That’s not a great sign for a brand new restaurant.

Terra Fiamma and Cinebowl & Grille did better with just 2 violations each. Burt & Max had 3. Lucille’s BBQ was one of the best this week with only 1 minor violation.

Along Glades Road, Pei Wei in Westwinds had 8 violations, 3 high priority. Chipotle next door did well with only one violation. Steve’s Pizza and Shen’s Peking in Boca Lyons Plaza had 5 violations each.

In Shadowood Brooklyn Boys Pizza had 5 violations while Boston Market had 3 violations.

Other notables this week include:

• La La Land in Loggers Run (3 violations)
• Gary Woo Express on Yamato (3)
• Marlee’s Bistro on Glades (3)
• McDonald’s on Clint Moore (3)
• Melting Pot on Federal Highway (2)
• Taco Bell in Sandalfoot (2)
• Dunkin Donuts on 441 in West Delray (1)
• Angelo’s Pizzeria in the same miniplaza (1)

Our spreadsheet for this week is below: