Barf’s Up: Brisbane seafood restaurant fined $37,000 after raw-egg aioli sickens 29

For casual-corporate barf, nothing beats the South Bank Surf Club.

The South Bank Parklands, which were established on the former site of World Expo 88, are one of Brisbane’s most popular tourist attractions.

Approximately 11,000,000 people visit the South Bank Parklands each year.

On Sept. 23, 2015, Brisbane’s South Bank Surf Club allegedly made up a large batch of raw-egg-based aioli sauce and served it for seven days.

At least 29 diners were sickened.

At the time, the manager of the club said the cause was “a bad batch of eggs’’ provided by a supplier. They said the eggs had been used in sauces served with seafood platters.

“We’ve been caught out, unfortunately. Our customers’ wellbeing is our priority and anyone with concerns can get in touch with us,” they said. “To rectify the problem, we are not making sauces in-house.’’

Guess they were too busy courting biz-cas types to worry about microbiology.

The South Bank Surf Club was fined $37,000 this week for its food-porn mistake in making aioli dip with raw eggs, then leaving the dip out on a warm counter for hours.

Lawyers for the restaurant on Thursday entered guilty pleas to 22 charges of serving unsafe food over eight days.

The charges did not arise from unhygienic practices and the company had no knowledge the food was unsafe, the court heard.

Really?

Western Australian hockey player Kelli Reilly had snacked on buffalo wings with aioli sauce with her team at the restaurant the day before they were due to play in the final of a masters competition in Brisbane.

They won gold at the tournament but soon after, Ms Reilly was hospitalised for three days and still suffers from the salmonella poisoning.

She has not been able to play hockey since and has sworn off aioli.

‘I’ve been through a lot, I’d probably not like to comment on it all because it has impacted me a lot and my family,’ she said outside court.

‘I would not wish this on anybody.’

A table of Australian egg outbreaks is available at https://barfblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/raw-egg-related-outbreaks-australia-10-9-15.xlsx.