97 rodent droppings. Dirty hands fixing food. Miami metro restaurant issues

Rodents, roaches and failing at proper handwashing and basic cleanliness caused seven South Florida restaurants to fail inspection over the last nine days.

This week’s Sick and Shut Down List includes representatives from Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties.

As usual, we remind readers we don’t do the inspections, nor do we choose who gets inspected. The inspections are done by the Florida Department of Business & Professional Regulation. Inspections are either routine unannounced inspections or inspections sparked by complaints from consumers, which can be made at the DBPR website.

Restaurants that fail inspection remain closed until they pass a callback inspection aka re-inspection, which is usually the next day.

In alphabetical order…

Buccaneer restaurant, 142 Lake Drive, Palm Beach Shores

Complaint inspection, nine total violations, four High Priority violations

Let’s start with a little food fibbing…

“Identity of food or food product misrepresented.” What’s presented as yellowtail snapper, a Sept. 30 invoice shows was “lane snapper is served as a substitute.”

Over at the dishwasher area, “approximately 30 flies were landing on clean, sanitized bowls.” A trio of flies in the dining room landed on the pizza station’s dining table and cooler.

An “employee preparing foods touched face and hat and continued to work with foods without washing hands.”

Then again, the prep area handwash sink was “blocked by a big mixer,” and the handwash sink in the dishwasher area was blocked by food containers. You could get to the cookline handwash sink, but, once you got there, no soap for you.

Instead of keeping food in reach-in or walk-in coolers when it needs to be kept at or under 41 degrees overnight, staff used the grill station drawers. That didn’t get the job done, and an avalanche of Stop Sales for “temperature abuse” came down on mahi-mahi, salmon, halibut, branzino, hamburgers, filet mignon, raw chicken, crab cakes, cut lettuce and empanadas.

China One, 15711 Sheridan St., Southwest Ranches

Routine inspection, 15 total violations, six High Priority violations

The only adjectives inspectors usually unpack for roaches are “dead” or “living.” But this inspector was moved to note “three large roaches crawling underneath the cookline.”

One apparently regular-sized roach “crawled on a table by a can opener holder.” One gang of roaches rolled six deep on the floor underneath a cookline cart. Three roaches were on the floor in front of the food expo station, where the cooks put food ready to head out to customer tables. Six roaches hung out on a pipe under the three-compartment sink.

Also under the three-compartment sink: a pan of raw chicken. That counts as “food thawed in an improper manner” for myriad reasons.

(“Chicken is a major source of salmonella infection,” the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says. “In fact, more than 1 in every 25 packages of chicken at the grocery store is contaminated with salmonella.”)

“Throughout the kitchen,” the “wall was soiled with accumulated grease, food debris, and/or dust.”

Despite having a sleepover in the walk-in cooler, egg rolls and tempura chicken still measured 55 degrees and 47 degrees, respectively. That counts as temperature abuse, worth a double shot of Stop Sales.

On the re-inspection, four live roaches at various kitchen spots kept China One closed.

They got out of the inspection penalty box by passing the second callback inspection.

China Spring III, 8100 Wiles Road, Coral Springs

Routine inspection, 15 total violations, seven High Priority violations

In the dry storage area, there were “four rodent droppings on a can of sauce.” But the rodents did their dookie damage in the kitchen, where there were “approximately 20 rodent droppings on the floor, underneath prep tables, containers of food and reach-in coolers.”

Roach corpses were found in the kitchen prep area and a restroom.

The chopped lettuce and raw bean sprouts weren’t time marked, and nobody could seem to remember how long they’d been there, so each got hit with a Stop Sale.

Also sent to the garbage via Stop Sales were dented cans of pineapple juice, oyster sauce and bean sauce.

An “employee handled dirty dishes, then proceeded to handle clean dishes and engage in handling food without washing hands.”

Ginger sat in the walk-in cooler in to-go shopping bags, which are fine for touching styrofoam and takeout containers but aren’t food-grade bags.

Throughout the establishment, “nonfood-contact surfaces were soiled with grease, food debris, dirt, slime or dust.”

Keke’s Breakfast Cafe, 7609 N. State Road 7, Parkland

Routine inspection, 15 total violations, 10 High Priority violations

The inspector halted the cutting and portioning of unwashed strawberries.

Failing at proper washing seemed a theme throughout this inspection.

Someone working the cookline “handled a soiled wiping cloth, and proceeded to prepare food for order without washing hands.”

An “employee cracked raw shell eggs and changed gloves without washing hands.”

At the food expo station, someone “touched her face, then proceeded to handle clean equipment and bottles of hot sauce without washing her hands.”

Another worker “picked up soiled equipment from floor” before cleaning the grill, handling ham from a cooler and starting to prepare food “without changing his gloves or washing his hands.”

Someone who did think to wash his hands after handling dirty dishes did so for “approximately eight seconds” before handling clean utensils. That doesn’t meet the 10- to 15-second state requirement.

The handwash sink near the flat-top coolers didn’t have any way to dry your hands.

The seven-day timer ran out on tuna in the flip-top cooler the day before the inspection. That led to a Stop Sale order.

The first re-inspection on Tuesday was ruined by 10 flies “landing on clean utensils, equipment, walls and boxes of soda.”

The re-re-inspection later Tuesday was ruined by five flies in the dishwasher, food prep and dining room areas. The manager killed a fly landing on walls in the dining area, but Keke’s remained closed.

Wednesday, Keke’s got out of the re-re-re-inspection without any flies and re-opened.

Miami Crab & Seafood Restaurant, 20723 NW Second Ave., Miami Gardens

Routine inspection, eight total violations, three High Priority violations

“Rodent bait not contained in a covered, tamper-resistant bait station.” The inspector saw “bitten rodent bait on the floor in the kitchen storage room.”

Apparently, that bite wasn’t enough to fatally damage the rodent’s insides, as no dead rodent was spotted.

What was seen, on the other hand, was “75-plus rodent droppings on the floor of the kitchen storage room where single service items are stored,” over seven rodent droppings on the floor “in the back storage room where flour, sugar and seasonings are stored,” five pieces of rodent regularity on the floor behind the front counter reach-in cooler,” and “10-plus rodent droppings on the shelves where employees store personal items.”

Oh, and the inside of the microwave oven “has an accumulation of black substance/grease/food debris.”

Miami Shores Golf Club, 10000 Biscayne Blvd., Miami Shores

Complaint inspection, 22 total violations, three High Priority violations

We told you earlier this week about the rodent problems at the restaurant overlooking Miami Shores Country Club’s golf course.

READ MORE: See which Miami-Dade country club’s restaurant had rodent poop on clean dishes

Tribute to Tobacco Road by Kush, 650 S. Miami Ave., Miami

Routine inspection, 37 total violations, eight High Priority violations

“Three or four” roaches died on the cookline floor.

Four roaches crawled on the cookline back wall. Three roaches were visible in the wall near the cookline handwash sink. Three other roaches were living their best lives on the wall behind a cookline reach-in cooler.

The wall in the kitchen and prep area was “soiled with accumulated of food debris in kitchen and prep area.” The back wall of the dishwasher machine area was decorated with “a mold-like substance.”

The “floor in the bar area, entire kitchen, dry storage area, behind and underneath equipment, on the floor and along wall junctures has an accumulation of debris and trash.”

Sounds like almost as much of a hot mess as the walk-in cooler.

Look down and “water was draining onto the floor of the walk-in cooler.” Look up and “water was leaking from the ceiling inside the walk-in cooler unit.”

Along with water, there was a “bucket of brine chicken wings and several other food buckets” stored on the walk-in cooler’s floor.

The “fans were soiled inside the walk-in cooler.”

A “can opener was soiled in the kitchen area.”

A worker “began working with food, handling clean equipment or utensils, or touching unwrapped single-service items without first washing hands.”

Then again, a handwash sink was “blocked with several liquor tanks and bags with wiping cloths.”

At the bar area handwash sink, there were “no paper towels or mechanical hand drying device.”

The buckets of sanitizing solution for wiping cloths were just water in the kitchen and bar areas: zero parts per million of sanitizer.

Two turkey breasts were thawing at room temperature on top of the prep table. As is the case with its poultry cousin, chicken, that’s an invitation to foodborne disease bacteria. Staff was allowed to thaw it under running water.

The label on commercially processed reduced-oxygen packaged fish states to keep the fish frozen until it’s time to cook or at least take it out of the packaging if you’re going to thaw it. That got ignored, as indicated by the five salmon packages, sitting in the walk-in cooler, still in the packaging and defrosted. Stop Sales were issued on all that salmon.