Restaurant Inspections: Palace Homestyle Noodle, Asian Bistro and More

Inspectors from the Virginia Department of Health visited several restaurants in or near Fairfax City this week. See a sampling of those results below, and visit the health department's website for a complete list of recent inspections.

Palace Homestyle Noodle
3250 Old Lee Highway E.
Date of inspection: April 19

Two critical violations, three non-critical violations.
The following ready-to-eat food that is made using a combination of ready-to-eat, potentially hazardous ingredients is not properly dated for discard using the date of the first-prepared ingredient: nothing in any refrigerator had date markings.
 
Al-Maza
10427 North St. #102
Date of inspection: April 17

No violations were found during the inspection
 
Asian Bistro
3950 University Drive ##202
Date of inspection: April 16

Two critical violations, one non-critical violation.
Single-use gloves worn during multi-tasked food preparation.

"Ideally, an operation would have no critical violations, or none which are not corrected immediately and not repeated. In our experience, it is unrealistic to expect that a complex, full-service food operation can routinely avoid any violations," according to department of health website.

The site continues: "Keep in mind that any inspection report is a 'snapshot' of the day and time of the inspection. On any given day, a restaurant could have fewer or more violations than noted in the report. An inspection conducted on any given day may not be representative of the overall, long term cleanliness of an establishment."

Full reports can be accessed on the health department's website.

• A core item "usually relates to general sanitation, operational controls, sanitation standard operating procedures (SSOPs), facilities or structures, equipment design, or general maintenance."
• A priority item is "a provision in this Code whose application contributes directly to the elimination, prevention or reduction to an acceptable level, hazards associated with foodborne illness or injury and there is no other provision that more directly controls the hazard," and "includes items with a quantifiable measure to show control of hazards such as cooking, reheating, cooling, handwashing."
• A priority foundation item "includes an item that requires the purposeful incorporation of specific actions, equipment or procedures by industry management to attain control of risk factors that contribute to foodborne illness or injury such as personnel training, infrastructure or necessary equipment, HACCP plans, documentation or record keeping, and labeling."