Food for Thought Report 11.20 - KCBD NewsChannel 11 Lubbock

We begin at at Josie's #3 at 5101 Aberdeen. Their last health inspection put them at the top. They've waited months to do it again, so what happened to put them at the bottom.

Manager Lisa Castaneda invited us inside their kitchen to explain. "I talked to my employees numerous, numerous time and told them that we needed to be ready. We were ready; I was ready. The week of the inspection I was not at this location because we opened up our new one, so I was not here. So all the things that were marked off that were critical violations they knew better and they're taught better, they just didn't do them."

So let's take a look at the violations.

• Shredded Cheese was above 41 degrees.

"We do have freezer pans and these help maintain food at the proper temperatures. "

• Hot sauce was expired.

"We use a ton of hot sauce, we never have hot sauce sitting in the refrigerator for more than seven days. "

• There was no thermometer in a cooler.

"All of our refrigerators do have thermometers they are kind of hidden, the thermometer is (underneath) the ledge."

• Handsinks were blocked.
• Handsinks were used for purposes other than hand washing.

"We had two violations that had to do with our hand sink. There was a towel with hotsauce in this sink, and one of my employees was filling up a pitcher with water to fill up a mop bucket. "

• An employee's phone was on a cutting board.

"The phone was on a cutting board, and there was no prep being done at the time. They know not to do that. Cell phones aren't even allowed in the kitchen. "

• An employee was walking around the kitchen while eating.

"I got marked off for an employee walking around eating in the kitchen, and it was my dad. He saw the inspector followed her around and didn't even realize he was eating while he was following her. "

• Glasses and equipment under cabinets in the drive through area were dusty.

"The dusty glasses were nowhere near our food. The kitchen is (on one side) and the glasses were stored in a box on the other side of the restaurant. "

According to the report, all violations were corrected while the health inspector was there. "At Josie's we pride ourselves on having a very clean kitchen, hot, hot food, good quality food and I would like everybody to come out and continue to eat with us."

get more>> Web Enhanced 11/20/08 Food for Thought 11.20 Here is a complete list of the restaurants and their violations for the week ending on 11/20/08.

Next we head to O'Hana Japanese Steak House at 5217 82nd Street. They had six critical violations.

• Raw shrimp and raw chicken - above the safe cold temperature of 41 degrees - was thrown out.
• Raw chicken and beef were stored on the same try. Raw shrimp was being stored in flour.
• Scallops were thawing an a hand sink. An employee's drink did not have a lid.
• A sanitizing solution was at toxic levels. Another solution was stored near raw chicken.
• The dishwashing machine was not sanitizing.
• The ice scoop was on top of the ice machine, which was dusty.

According to the report all violations, expect one, were corrected during the inspection. Management tells us that all violations have since been corrected.

And we wrap up this edition of Food for Thought at the top. Ambrosia Catering at 4208 Boston once again cooks up a perfect health inspection.