We have previously discussed the relatively lack food safety regulations for restaurants where even the most egregious violations seem to require minor fines or brief closures, like the Chinese restaurant in Kentucky found to be serving road kill. Now another Chinese restaurant vividly illustrates the disconnect after deer heads, brains, and other animal parts were found in the kitchen of New China House in Lititz, PA (among other violations). However, the restaurant will remain open and serving the public.
The owner has only been identified as “Chun” but the Department of Agriculture described a horror scene uncovered by the state Game Commission:
“PA Game Commission confiscated the following from facility walk-in cooler and freezer after operator was unable to provide documentation that game animal meats being used in the facility were from an approved source: deer brains, deer heads, skinned and whole tails, legs, muscle meat, spines, necks and other unidentifiable parts both raw and cooked. Amount of parts removed included: 4 trash bags, 2 boxes, 3 plastic tubs, one 5 gallon bucket and 9 trash bags of prepared foods. In addition, sampling of prepared food found in walk-ins were taken to be tested for species identification.”
The next day the restaurant was found to still be out of compliance with 14 violations, including “An uncovered, metal bowl containing an unidentifiable, internal organ of a pig, according to operator’s wife, was observed stored on shelf of walk-in cooler. Wife states that it is for her lunch however, documentation of source could not be provided. Discarded.”
Chun insisted that they do not actually sell the meat and bones and only eat them personally. We are supposed to trust them on that.
Despite this record, the restaurant continued to serve customers. The restaurant has been the subject of six investigations since 2013 and four in 2015 alone.
Again, I am not sure that I know what it takes to shutdown a restaurant, but it seems to me that such outliers harm the overall market for restaurants (since this really makes me want to eat at home tonight). Yet, restaurants tend to oppose more stringent measures even though few establishments would ever come close to the conditions at the New China House.
Source: NY Daily News
Karen, Correct. When we adopted our son from Colombia he had the giardia bacteria. He had no symptoms, acquiring the bug from mountain streams. But, it is contagious[feces] so when we got back to the US he had to take the most god awful medicine to rid himself of giardia. It was his “Welcome to America” treatment.
Nick – you are lucky your son did not pass it on to you and your wife.
DBQ – and that’s doubly tragic, because many grasslands evolved around periodic fires. You get your best wildflower shows right after a fire. The lack of controlled burns led to these months long forest fires, where forests choked with underbrush seemed to burn forever. The same goes for grassland. Perhaps the pathogen has taken such a hold because there are not as many natural fire cycles in the grasslands.
Nick – I think you can build up a tolerance to food cooties. I know the natives in South America drank water that made some primatologists I traveled with extremely sick. I think it was amoebas. They thought adding lemon made it safe for gringas, but were oh, so wrong.
Dust Bunny Queen
Here’s more of the Hammond story. Seems their cattle used the marsh as a watering hole, they parked farm equipment in the marsh and took ‘exception’ when efforts were made to haul out the equipment, and were quite ‘unpleasant’ the the Fish and Game Warden’s family. The link has the interesting story:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/01/05/showdown-in-the-malheur-marshes-the-origins-of-the-armed-occupation-in-burns-oregon/
I’ve eaten in some pretty funky looking restaurants, taco stands, food trucks and never gotten sick. But, the trendy, PC, Chipotle is killing people. Anthony Bourdain does a good rant @ our govt. obsession w/ “food safety.” He gave the rant eating in a ‘C’ rated restaurant in LA’s Koreatown.
I have been to China but only in Hong Kong and they have a McDonalds so I eat when I am in Hong Kong. I can go ten days without any food. We are creatures of another planet.