The owner of an oriental restaurant in Kingstown was on Tuesday ordered to stop making at their home in Cane Garden noodles for use in meals served to the public.
Public Health official visited the home after a health professional reported to them that noodles were being made at the house.
I-Witness News was told that health officials were shocked to find out that some residents of the “upscale neighbourhood” knew of the noodles production but did not report it to the authorities.
In addition to the fact that the restaurateur did not have a permit to produce noodles for sale to the public, Public Health officials, on visiting the premises, are said to have had concerns about the sanitation of the area where the noodles were being made.
Some construction is taking place at the premises and health care professionals are said to have found mosquito larvae in a container at the property.
The noodles are said to have been hung in a manner in which they could have been contaminated by airborne and other contagions.
The owner of the restaurant told I-Witness News that while he has been living in St. Vincent for almost a decade, he did not know that a permit was needed to produce the noodles, as that is not the case in China.
He said that he will obey the order of the public health officials and will seek the requisite permissions and make any necessary adjustment before recommencing production of the noodles, which, he said, are made with flour and water.
He explained that he had in the past made the noodles at the restaurant in Kingstown using a small machine, but recently imported a machine that allows larger scale production.
The restaurateur said that in addition to using the noodles in the meals served at the restaurant, the noodles are sold to other members of the oriental community for use in their families’ meals.
So what about all the street food — pizza, etc. — sold every day in Kingstown, all prepared at home by the vendors?
This has been openly done for years but had raised not an eyebrow from health authorities.
What gives?
It could be worse, I read of a case in China where they caught a man making a substance out of pulped cardoard box’s mixed with flower and water, then making noodles with it, had been doing it for years and his customers loved the product.
flower should be flour
sorry about that
David, there is a requirement to be licensed to prepare food at home to vend elsewhere, and the area used must be inspected and approved. The Food Handlers must present a doctors report on their health etc.
Of course when that started some years ago, it all started out with a bang, like everything else I doubt there is any continuing enforcement.
Some of the food sold in Kingstown may well kill you. And thats not just the street vendors. Even the permanent restaurants and takeaways are very suspect when you consider that Kingstown is rat riddled.
Where ever you go now someone is cooking with a converted gas cylinder BBQ, by the road, in yards, even in the car parks of other business’s. It seems it has got out of hand and needs some tough controls to be enforced.
There is a very serious health risk, but at least some of the poor criminally neglected dogs are getting the throwaways from the takeaways.
Hygiene, what hygiene? Are you kidding me?