Food for Thought Report 6.26 - KCBD NewsChannel 11 Lubbock

Inspectors were busy checking into 25 local and county kitchens this week. What they found includes one perfect scoring restaurant and two low performers with a combined 12 critical violations. Let's put an end to the hunger and take a bite out of this edition of NewsChannel 11's Food for Thought.

Food for Thought 6.26 Here is a complete list of the restaurants and their violations for the week ending on 6/26/03. More >>

We start off with the new location of a long time Lubbock restaurant where watching the chef prepare your food right in front of you is all part of the dining experience. With zero critical violations, Tokyo Japanese Restaurant at 4637 50th St. gets a perfect score this week, making them a Food for Thought Top Performer.

The first of this week's Low Performers is Fox and Hound at 4210 82nd St. That's where five critical violations were found. Violations including:

• Improper hot hold of potentially hazardous food products. Beef and bean product were found at 108 degrees, hot foods must be kept at 140 degrees or hotter. The product was reheated to 165 degrees.
• The date marking system was not accurate or maintained on all products, mashed potatoes had no date mark and roast beef had an expired date of June 10th. The inspection took place June 17th.
• Toxic items were not properly labeled, a product was mislabeled.
• Thermometers were available but not properly calibrated.
• Food contact surfaces were not being cleaned or maintained, there were dirty and broken containers found on a clean shelf.

Other violations included a heavily soiled floor in a beer cooler, a soiled ice machine and no separation of personal and business items.

The General Manager at Fox and Hound told NewsChannel 11 all violations have been corrected and that they take sanitation and safety very seriously. She said there have been no problems since the inspection and everything is going well at the restaurant.

Our other Low Performer is Pirate's Restaurant at 1207 FM 1585 with seven critical violations.

• Cooked sausage was found at a temperature of 90 degrees--hot foods must be kept at 140 degrees or hotter.
• Eating is not allowed in the kitchen area while handling and preparing food.
• Potentially hazardous ready to eat food must be properly dated.
• The kitchen had sink was out of hot and cold water supply.
• The soap dispenser in the kitchen was empty.
• The dish washing machine was not working properly.
• Soda nozzles were soiled.

The owner of Pirate's told NewsChannel 11 a new faucet has been installed on the sink and it is now working properly. She said all violations have been corrected.