Taichung probes grill over beef
ONLINE DEFENSE: The Japanese restaurant wrote on Facebook that it kept expired beef to train employees, a claim that the health department said was ‘highly suspect’
The Taichung City Health Bureau yesterday said it would investigate a restaurant’s claim that expired ingredients found in its kitchen were for employee training, after the high-end Japanese barbecue restaurant was on Sunday reported to have allegedly used expired beef and other ingredients.
The Taichung Office of Food and Drug Safety on Sunday confirmed that Wagyu Emperor (和牛Emperor) — which specializes in upscale yakiniku (Japanese grilled meat), with a menu that features a single dinner set for NT$3,900 (US$120.45) — had expired ingredients in its kitchen.
After receiving a tip-off from a former restaurant employee that the grill used expired beef, the office sent personnel to inspect the restaurant on Friday and found expired beef and other ingredients, it said in a statement.
The expired ingredients included frozen beef, miso, cold noodles and fermented bean paste, some of which were a week to five months past their expiration dates, it said.
The ingredients have been sealed, and after notifying the manager, the restaurant is to be fined NT$60,000 to NT$200 million for contravening the Act Governing Food Safety and Sanitation (食品安全衛生管理法), the office said.
Wagyu Emperor on Sunday night apologized on Facebook for the incident and for having an insufficient understanding of food safety laws and regulations by keeping expired beef in one of its freezers.
It wrote that the expired frozen beef and ingredients were for “employee training to improve service quality,” and that it had kept the expired meat in a separate freezer from the beef served to customers.
“The meat served during opening hours is absolutely not the expired meat mentioned in reports,” it said, adding that media reports were inaccurate, and that it would take legal action against false reporting.
However, Taichung Health Bureau Director Tseng Tzu-chan (曾梓展) said that during its inspection, some expired ingredients were found in areas where ingredients used for cooking were stored, leading inspectors to believe the restaurant was using expired ingredients in its dishes.
The expired ingredients included 18 boxes (219 pieces) of beef (three to five months past expiration), 11 boxes of miso (two to four months past expiration), two bottles each of Japanese and Korean fermented bean pastes (both two months past expiration), 24 boxes and 60 packs of cold noodles (expired by a week), two bottles of sea kelp broth, two bottles of concentrated honey lemonade, and two bottles of concentrated pomegranate drink, he said.
Regarding the restaurant’s claim that the expired ingredients were for “employee training,” Tseng said the bureau would investigate the case for clarification.
“We highly suspect that claim,” he said, adding that it would impose a heavy fine based on each expired item, as well as offer a cash reward to the whistle-blower.