HOUSTON – It’s one of the tenets of safe cooking within the restaurant industry: When handling ready-to-eat food, you must wear protective gloves to prevent bacterial contamination.
But at Pho Tran at 10800 Bellaire Boulevard, Houston health inspectors caught employees using their bare hands while handling ready-to-eat vegetables in the food preparation area.
Moving on to Ichiban, located at 5015 Westheimer, health inspectors found rodent droppings sitting right on top of several containers of food.
They noted there were no rodent traps to stop rodents within the restaurant.
They also found that restaurant workers had been using household Raid insect killer in place of a professional pest control product.
Up next, we visit the popular Papparrucho’s Mexican Grill on Sage Road near the Galleria.
There, restaurant inspectors ordered the destruction of 9 pounds of cheese and cheesecake deemed not safe for human consumption.
The problem was the walk-in cooler was holding at 52 degrees, and city rules say it must be 41 degrees or colder to keep food safe.
When Channel 2 Investigates visited the restaurant, we asked if the cooler had been fixed and if we could verify that it was working properly.
“The cooler, now it’s fixed,” the bartender told us.
But we wanted to see for ourselves, and the bartender happily agreed to show us.
Minutes later we arrived at the cooler, checked the temperature and found it to be sitting at exactly 41 degrees.
The next stop is Whataburger, located at 444 W. Little York, where health officials ordered 1,200 pounds of ice be condemned and thrown away because it was contaminated.
Inspectors said the ice machine was contaminated with both black mold and pink slime.
Workers were ordered to clean the machine and toss the ice out.
And this week we want to congratulate the hardworking crew at The Brooklyn Meatball Company, located at Houston Center on Main Street.
It receives our coveted A-Plus Award for knocking out a perfect restaurant inspection report.
So we at Channel 2 News say Boooo-yaaaahhhh!
Love those meatballs.