Local News

Actions

DIRTY DINING: Expired food and a moldy pepper at DJ's Taco Bar

Posted at 10:45 PM, Feb 01, 2017
and last updated 2017-02-02 11:08:18-05

For the fifth time, Dirty Dining is back at Hawaiian Marketplace on the Las Vegas Strip. 

This time, we're visiting DJ's Taco Bar, which got 39 demerits and a C grade for things like old, outdated food. 

Inspectors said the expired pinto beans belonged in the trash, not on customers' plates. Same for black beans that had been expired for more than a week and habanero salsa that was expired for 11 days. 

There was a moldy chili pepper stored with tomatillos and meat in the chef's drawer that was deep in the temperature danger zone.

RELATED: DIRTY DINING PHOTOS FOR FEB. 1

When we asked to talk to the person in charge, an employee said no one was there and makes a call. Just as she starts to do that, two security guards come inside the restaurant and say there's no video recording on private property.

She hides behind the horchata to have a conversation, then invites us to come back and speak to the owner. Security tells us to come back in 15 minutes.

We return in 15 minutes to find the restaurant doors locked and no one in sight. They turned the open sign off too, leaving food unattended and steaming. 

Turns out, they were! The employee who told us to come back after talking to her boss was hiding from us behind a door that said, "Sorry, we have no public restrooms." 

She cracked it open and peeked at us and as soon as she saw us looking back at her she quickly closed the door.

Apparently, they didn't want to answer why a latex glove was laying on the floor next to a soda nozzle. And speaking of soda nozzles, theirs was covered in slime. 

There were also utensils and trash under equipment on the floor. 

An employee's open drink was sitting right on the cutting board. The cutting knife for enchiladas was stored with ice and sour cream and the tip of it was starting to rust away.

Moving on to imminent health hazard closures, Los Tacos on Sahara Avenue near Valley View Boulevard was shut down for having no hot water. They were allowed to re-open the next day, even though inspectors found pork stomach stored in a puddle of blood in a cardboard box.

"This is not OK!!!" That's what a health inspector wrote on this verified complaint that led to shut down at McDonald's on Nevada Highway in Boulder City. 

Employees say they were forced to work for days under an imminent health hazard -- a broken water heater that flooded the entire kitchen and dining area. 

The health report says McDonald's general manager "Ruben says it's not that big of a deal," even though employees had no hot water to wash their hands or anything they were using to cook food in the kitchen.

Los Tacos and McDonald's are both back to A grades. 

DJ's Taco Bar still has a C. They're scheduled for re-inspection on Thursday.