Tag Archives: Sydney Fish Market

If the ice cream’s free, don’t have the chocolate

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That story about the Whytes who found some brown in their ice cream at the Coogee Bay Hotel in Sydney, Australia will lead to a formal complaint and subsequent investigation by the New South Wales Food Authority.

To tackle the poopy publicity, the hotel hosted a press conference yesterday, and offered free ice cream to patrons.

The Sydney Morning Herald reports Monday morning that yesterday – they’re 14 hours ahead or something — in the beer garden was just another sunny Sunday afternoon.

“Bevan Read, at lunch with his wife and three daughters, unknowingly took advantage of the free ice-cream offer. As the girls sat down to their bowls of vanilla ice-cream, a flash of horror passed across their mother’s face as she heard the news. But after careful inspection, the girls were allowed to continue to eat.

Mr Read said, "We’re pretty impressed they’re putting on free ice-cream for the kids," before adding jokingly, "I’m just glad that I’m not having any."

Eddie and Lynne Sulkowicz had brought their granddaughters, Claudia and Alexia Karam, for a meal. They said they would probably still eat there but the girls’ mother said they would not be having ice-cream. "At least not chocolate, anyway," Mr Sulkowicz added.
 

‘You made my mum eat poo;’ legal action planned against Australian pub

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So this family goes to a pub to watch some footy. Let’s call them Mr. And Mrs. Whyte, because that’s their names.

The Whytes didn’t like the service, thought the food expensive, and complained.

Never complain about restaurant food and then get more food, especially if it’s free. Didn’t anyone watch that movie, Waiting, featuring Mr. Scarlett Johansson, Ryan Reynolds?

As reported in the Sydney Morning Herald, the Whytes and their three sons were served complimentary gelato dessert by Coogee Bay Hotel staff three weeks ago after complaining about food prices, facilities and staff attitude.

Mrs Whyte said,

"There were four scoops including vanilla, chocolate and hazelnut. At the bottom, there appeared to be chocolate. Greedily, I went for it ahead of the kids. Thank heavens I did. The stench, the taste … I spat the food into a napkin and immediately I was sick.

"There was no doubting what it was. The whole family became hysterical. My poor son screamed at one of their staff: ‘You made my mum eat poo."’ The family complained to Waverley police.

The story says that the family took a sample of the gelato and had it tested at the National Measurement Institute. A report from the institute found: "The sample has an offensive odour and physical properties similar to human excreta."

In a letter to the family, hotel general manager Tony Williams said,

"If the incident did happen, as claimed, then it may well have been an act of industrial sabotage — with the hotel as a victim alongside your family."

But yesterday Mr Williams said the case was now a legal issue that would be "vigorously defended".

"We are aware of the allegation and are treating it as extremely suspicious. Mr and Mrs Whyte have made a demand for up to $1 million from The Coogee Bay Hotel … We categorically stand behind the high quality of our food and the exemplary hygiene standards set in the new brassiere kitchen."
 

Australian sushi business fined over rats

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The Sydney Morning Herald reports that the Chief Industrial Magistrates Court fined Sushi World’s Camperdown premises more than $60,000 after it heard the business was closed by the New South Wales Food Authority after an inspection in November 2006 revealed it was a "risk to public health.”

Inspectors who toured the premises found rat faeces scattered over the floor, on equipment and in food-processing areas. Two 12.5-kilogram bags of flour had been "gnawed open by rodents" and one of the creatures was seen in the food storage area, the court heard.

The NSW Chief Industrial Magistrate, George Miller, said Sushi World’s failure to adhere to parts of the food standards code indicated "serious shortfalls in basic food handling", and the company’s continued breaches from November 2006 to May 2007 suggested a "disturbing willingness to run a food business without regard for basic hygiene standards".

During the hearing its director, Suk Joon Song, said trade decreased by 50 per cent due to negative publicity after the charges had been made public.

Sushi World no longer operates from the Camperdown premises but has opened a factory in Meadowbank, which has been approved by the NSW Food Authority.
 

Trendy Sydney restaurant named and shamed; no fridge thermometer

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The name and shame of restaurant inspection disclosure results seems to be working in Sydney and still sucking in Melbourne.

Bills, the trendy Darlinghurst eatery that helped make ricotta hotcakes an inner-city breakfast staple, has become the first upmarket Sydney establishment named on the State Government’s list of restaurants fined for breaching food safety laws (right, actor Hugh Jackman and family headed to breakfast at Bills).

The Liverpool Street restaurant, one of three Sydney eateries owned by the celebrity chef Bill Granger, has been fined $660 for failing to comply with the food safety code.

Just two days after the NSW Food Authority began publishing a register on its website of restaurants caught breaching food laws, a City of Sydney inspector fined Bills for failing to have a thermometer in its refrigerator.

Last night, Bills said in a statement it was "shocked at this isolated incident and we took care of it immediately. … We do everything we can to do the right thing by our customers and to empower our workers to also do the right thing."

Try harder. And pay attention to the basics.

Name and Shame of restaurants: works in Sydney, sucks in Melbourne

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Amy and I spent a week in Melbourne in July. We ate out a lot. And it was simply dining on faith.

As Jason Dowling reports in Melbourne’s daily paper, The Age,

Dozens of city food businesses, including restaurants and cafes, have been prosecuted for breaching food hygiene laws in the past five years — but Melbourne City Council will not reveal who they are. …

The council’s inability to name restaurants with poor hygiene records comes as a "name and shame" food hygiene website in New South Wales had attracted 25,000 visitors in its first month.

The NSW Government has boasted the new website improved consumer information and "provides a powerful incentive for the food industry to boost its performance".

Melbourne City Councillor David Wilson was cited as saying the council did not support wider disclosure of poor hygiene discoveries at restaurants, adding,

"We believe that it is not appropriate for details of prosecutions to be released as restaurants may have changed management since the prosecution or they may not have breached food safety regulations since the initial prosecution and publication of a past prosecution could severely impact the viability of the current business.”

Councillor Wilson, I bet you won’t have the vote of my friend, Melbourne Milton (left, exactly as shown) next election. Milton wants to see the results of restaurant inspections and is so astute he said he knew the results didn’t really meant anything, didn’t make the food any safer and were just a snapshot in time, but the public disclosure made people more aware of food safety issues and people talked about it.

Even Durham Region in Ontario, Canada, is going to start with the red, yellow, green system of restaurant inspection disclosure.

Melbourne, figure it out. People who spend money in your restaurants should have access to inspection data if they want. Or they should take their money elsewhere.

Fish of the day sauce a killer

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The Sydney Morning Herald reports that coroner Jane Culver has found that a Sydney restaurant served asparagus sauce contaminated with bacteria in January last year, leading to the death of William Hodgkins, 81, because of slack procedures in its handling of the sauce.

The sauce, which was served with the fish of the day at Tables restaurant in Pymble on January 12, 2007, had 9.8 million colony-producing units of Bacillus cereus per gram.

Ms Culver said the sauce was made at 3pm the day before, on January 11, and refrigerated. It was taken out of the refrigerator on January 12 but not discarded after four hours of use. Four hours is the recommended amount of time for the sauce to be used after being refrigerated, Ms Culver said.

Instead of being thrown out, it was placed in a coolroom so that it could be used for serving meals.

Ms Culver said the container for the sauce had no label showing when it was made or when it should be discarded.

Beach playgrounds closed after 23 Sydney toddlers stricken with Salmonella

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Children’s playgrounds have been shut on Sydney’s northern beaches after a rare form of salmonella normally linked to tropical fish made dozens of toddlers seriously ill.

Authorities are now trying to figure out how sand used in at least two popular kids’ playgrounds has become contaminated.

The rare bacteria strain – salmonella paratyphi bio var java – has been linked to 23 cases of children struck down with severe vomiting, diarrhoea and stomach pain.

Tests have revealed the sand at both the Winnererremy Bay and South Avalon playgrounds are contaminated.

But health officials cannot rule out other playgrounds along the peninsula being affected. They are waiting for test results on other play areas.

Northern Sydney Central Coast Area Health Service’s public health physician Michael Staff said,

"In the past there have been cases of humans becoming sick from it when they have contact with their tropical fish tanks. But to our knowledge this is the first time in Australia a playground has been shut because salmonella is in the sand."

The source of the contamination is not known, but the pathogen is generally carried by certain species of birds and aquarium fish.

(from http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,23710202-5005941,00.html)

Leading chefs say Sydney fish market stinks

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A couple of Sydney’s top chefs have lambasted the Sydney Fish Markets for selling old, damaged seafood that is an "embarrassment".

Greg Doyle, of Pier Restaurant, said reviewers were "just being polite" when they said the markets were among the best in the world, adding,

"This is bullshit. I find the Sydney Fish Market an embarrassment. … You go down to the fish market and there is so much product that’s days and days old. They are spraying them with tap water and it can ruin the fish because it absorbs all this water. It’s old fish. That’s why the place has this stink."

Steve Hodges, of Fish Face is quoted in tomorrow’s edition of Time Out magazine as saying the markets are "f—ing terrible."

Grahame Turk, the managing director of Sydney Fish Markets, said he was appalled by the comments, adding,

"It’s ridiculous really, because all three of them have been down here buying fish. … look at the inside – I would be quite happy to eat my dinner off the auction room floor."

New South Wales Primary Industries Minister Ian Macdonald said there were  no problems with food safety.

"The New South Wales Government constantly monitors places like the Sydney fish market. The authority undertakes inspections and audits of the wholesale processes at the market. There’ve been shown to be no systemic problems with food safety."