The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's Public Investigator Blog goes "Behind the scenes at your local restaurants."
El Rey Food Mart had a lot of cleaning up to do after Milwaukee health inspectors stopped in just before Christmas. The popular Burnham Street grocery store had a dirty meat slicer, unrefrigerated mayonnaise and was storing individually cooked chickens at room temperature in a box on the floor, according to city records.
Other eateries, schools and cafeterias struggled with important food safety measures as well — containers of flour were infested with moths, meat wasn’t properly stored and mold grew inside ice machines and soda gun holsters.
Welcome to the monthly update of the restaurant inspection database for the City of Milwaukee. In case you missed it last month, you can now see establishments plotted on a map.That means you can plug a street name into the search box and take a stroll down the road (with your mouse) to see which restaurants or other establishments had violations. You can also use the comprehensive chart we’ve posted to scroll through all restaurants, bars and cafeterias that received violations this year.
Like always, you can get a closer look inside the food establishment by clicking on the "details" page.
But before you head off to search on your own, here’s another quick glimpse into some Milwaukee restaurants, grocery stores, schools and other spots where food is served.
The list of violations at El Rey Food Mart continued.
The deli and bakery areas had a “severe fruit fly problem,” a violation that also occurred during an August 21 inspection, according to city records. The meat slicer that is supposed to be cleaned every four hours was only being washed at night. In the deli freezer, raw, frozen meat was being stored over frozen fruit.
A health inspector doing the grocery store’s review was concerned.
“There is a dire need to reduce the menu so that proper attention can be given to food safety,” the inspector wrote in the grocery store’s report.
The store owner, Ernesto Villarreal, said in an interview that he had a meeting with the deli manager soon after the inspection.
“I think this will not happen again,” Villarreal said.
Workers at Botanas on South 5th Street needed to be reminded not to touch ready-to-eat food with their bare hands. One cook used his hands to put a chimichanga on a plate, according to inspection reports.
At the International House of Pancakes on Layton Avenue, raw meat was being stored next to ready-to-eat food. That’s a problem because meat can contaminate ready-to-eat food that won’t be cooked to kill bacteria.
...Only one restaurant had notable rodent-related issues: An inspector checking out Tu-Trinh Restaurant on South 27th Street found some mouse droppings on the floor below the dishwasher, behind a cooler and on a shelf along some stairs.
El Rey is really getting hammered.
TMJ4's January 15 installment of "Dirty Dining" targeted El Rey.
Tu-Trinh Restaurant just happened to be the establishment featured on the January 8 "Dirty Dining" segment.
What a coincidence! I guess the great minds at TMJ4 and the Journal Sentinel think alike.
I think the restaurant inspection database is a great tool for diners.
I also think that TMJ4's "Dirty Dining" segment, a regular feature on its 10:00 PM Thursday newscasts, provides a worthwhile service to the community. Food safety is an important public health issue.
I like that the media are acting as watchdogs and informing the public about restaurants with violations.
Of course, the Internet makes the inspections more accessible.
As a result of these factors, consumers are better informed and restaurants are more likely to pay a higher price in lost business when violations pile up. It's about accountability and the consequences. Restaurants are more likely to clean up their acts when confronted with the possiblity of a poor inspection record becoming known to current as well as potential customers.
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While I'm on the subject of food safety, an update on the Brookfield Perkins is in order.
Previous posts on the violations at the Brookfield Perkins:
Perkins and Dirty Dining
Perkins, Dirty Dining, and TMJ4, Part Deux
Perkins, Dirty Dining, and TMJ4, Part Trois
Here is UPDATE FOUR (YES -- FOUR!):
Last Friday, January 16, I e-mailed TMJ4's Courtny Gerrish about the "Dirty Dining" page on the TMJ4 website being scrubbed of all traces of the December 11, 2008 segment she did about the health code violations at the Perkins in Brookfield.
That's e-mail number THREE to TMJ4 since December.
After my second e-mail, sent on January 2, 2009, I was told that the news assignment desk was "working on putting [the Perkins story] back on the dirty dining web site," that they weren't aware it had been taken off.
It's January 22 and the web page has been updated twice since then; but the Perkins story has still not been returned to its place as promised.
My January 16 e-mail alerting Courtny Gerrish, and Cc'd to two others at TMJ4, was ignored. Obviously, the reply I received to my second e-mail was, to be blunt, crap.
I want to know why the Perkins story was posted and then quickly removed. It's such a simple question.
I suppose I could bring this unresolved matter to the attention of TMJ4's "I-Team."
Is something going on in your neighborhood or workplace that needs to be investigated? Tell the I-Team!
Yeah, I-Team, there's something dirty going on at TMJ4 and I'm not talking about dining.
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