Montreal Restaurant Fines

[eastender]

Various Montreal food providers were cited, convicted and fined during 2012 for various code infractions.

http://www.protegez-vous.ca/sante-e...s-le-top-50-des-amendes-pour-insalubrite.html

Good to know when dining out.

 

[Gentle]

Yeah specially if you like going to restaurant Beijing !

Glad I never went to any of all these 50 (filthy) places.

 

[EagerBeaver]

It's interesting to see Buffet Maharaj at #5 on that list, as I recall Rumpleforeskin reporting someone he knew was food poisoned there a few years ago. I am surprised that the St. Jacques Eggspectation is #1. That is usually a very high volume restaurant especially on weekends with about 5 large hotels within 1 block of that resto.

I have eaten at the following restaurants on the top 50 list:

1- Eggspectation, St. Jacques
13- Wok Cafe
21- Restaurant Fung Shing
31- Restaurant Beijing (many times)
35 - La Caverne Grecque
44- Restaurant Saigon VIP

Can't say any of the above stand out as obviously disgusting. Any high volume restaurant is probably going to get fined because lots of food is being shuffled through the place, and the more product, the more chances for problems and rodent infestation.

 

[TheDon]

Like Alyssa Roze says you should be more concerned about the type of infraction instead of the fine amount.

Having rodent feces around food or storing chemicals on top of food is alot more serious than not having a sani bucket on line, or having your steam table 5 degrees below the recomended temperature.

 

[EagerBeaver]

cockroaches.

This reminds me many years ago I went to a local Chinese restaurant with my cousin, a foodie like me who is notoriously brusque with restaurant staff even under the best circumstances. We went to a restaurant that for many years had been good, but I was sensing a downward trend as we arrived, not exactly sure why.

As we sat down in our booth there was a dead cockroach laying on its back right in the middle of our table. My cousin and I both looked at it, and then at each other. 2 seconds later the waiter came over with menus. My cousin looked at him and said, "we don't want any menus. Your restaurant is disgusting (pointing at the dead cockroach on the table). We are leaving." I followed her out the door.

Place was out of business within a few months after that.

 

[MtlNewbie]

Not even gonna read the thread properly. Just gonna say I pretty much always agree with Alyssa's logical and level-headed points.

 

[quietguy]

Hello all...

You might appreciate the following web site:
http://resto-net.ca/en
It's an open database project and will provide you most of the details about the fines (infraction, dates, judgment and fines) of most restaurants in the MTL area.
You should be able to determine if the infractions are serious or not. You may get the drill down of a specific restaurant by clicking on it...

Hope this helps !
QG

 

[EagerBeaver]

quietguy,

Thanks for posting that link, that website provides all the details Alyssa was looking for..................

 

[CWipes]

Darn! I eat at #5 Buffet indienne Maharaja all the time. Well at least I did.

This web site is extremely helpful but it's also freaking me out.
http://resto-net.ca/en

Thanks!

 

[EagerBeaver]

It seems that the violations assessed against Marche Kim Hour relate to storage of hot foods at inadequate temperatures. I have often wondered whether rotisserie chickens sold in places like this are kept sufficiently warm. It's a fine line because if you keep the food too hot it dries out, but if it's not 60 degrees celsius, you get fined.

 

[EagerBeaver]

Darn! I eat at #5 Buffet indienne Maharaja all the time. Well at least I did.

They have a good variety of violations, but it seems that they are at least keeping the food hot:

http://resto-net.ca/en/establishments/buffet-indienne-maharaja

At a buffet restaurant, this should be somewhat comforting to know.

 

[Doc Holliday]

Boustan got fined a couple of times (a few years ago) under the former ownership, according to one of the sites posted here. I suspect from the nature of the fine(s) that it had to do with keeping certain types of food (e.g. chicken) warm for an extended period. Considering the type of food they serve, this was almost inevitable.

One of my buddies despised the place because he didn't find it clean enough, but he'd be very surprised at what the new ownership has done with the place. I was very impressed when i walked in last summer. The new owners, by the way, are one of its former employees & his father. I found them to be extremely friendly the last time i was there.

The original owner kind of gave me anxiety whenever i'd walk in. He reminded me a bit of the Soup Nazi from one of the Seinfeld episodes. However, i got to know him better a couple of years ago & found him to be very personable once i got to know him better (and vice-versa). He told me he had always hoped that his two sons would be interested in taking it over, but they weren't really interested. He came close to shutting the place down, but luckily for the fans of the place (like myself) one of his enterprising employees stepped up & purchased it.

 

[lgna69xxx]

Just had some Boustan delivered a couple days ago and they are MUCH friendlier on the phone now also, I even asked for some extra garlic mayo on the potatoes and did they ever put extra on! (no charge) Best deal for delivery in all of Mtl as fas as I am concerned.

 

[Doc Holliday]

>>> Somebody already forgot what the "reply with quote" button was for? Mod 11.

I agree. I believe delivery is free if the order is over $8. They're mighty quick also! :thumb:

 

[CWipes]

They have a good variety of violations, but it seems that they are at least keeping the food hot:

http://resto-net.ca/en/establishments/buffet-indienne-maharaja

At a buffet restaurant, this should be somewhat comforting to know.

I'm not sure if a variety of violations is ever a good thing. My concern is that if these are just the violations that were detected when an inspector showed up what are the violations that occur the rest of the months the inspector doesn't show up?

 

[EagerBeaver]

CWipes,

Not sure how much of any of this can be attributed to competitors ratting each other out. It is very odd to me that the Eggspectation on St. Jacques is #1 on the list and none of the other Eggspectations are even on the list. I thought about this: what is unique about the Eggspectation on St. Jacques? Well, unlike the others, it is surrounded by 5 hotels and it does a huge business from tourists staying at the said 5 hotels. The hotels are the Intercontinental, Westin and Embassy Suites on St. Antoine, the St. James on St. Jacques and then another hotel on the other side of St. Jacques, the name of which escapes me.

Perhaps rats from these hotels' restaurants, who are losing breakfast and lunch business in their own overpriced, sorry ass restaurants, are ratting out Eggspectation to the Health inspector?

Eggspectation probably does not need to retaliate because those hotel restaurants are vastly overpriced and not too many people eat there, and most tourists do not read nor are aware of the list posted by Eastender.

There is another Eggspectation underneath the Hyatt, but it is smaller resto and has significantly more competition from the Complex Desjardins food court restos. The other Eggspectation, on the corner of rue de la Montagne and de Maissoneuve, used to be somewhat dependent on the Hotel de la Montagne for business, and I would imagine the Hotel DLM's closure has hurt their business.

 

[CWipes]

I see what you are saying and I can believe it too. Now I have to worry about the restaurants that aren't on the list that i think can afford to bribe the inspector...

 

[EagerBeaver]

I see what you are saying and I can believe it too. Now I have to worry about the restaurants that aren't on the list that i think can afford to bribe the inspector...

CWipes, if you think about it Intercon and Westin are owned by corporate behemoths and they have plenty of money to pay inspectors to bust balls on Eggspectation so that their own restaurants have less competition. In my mind the biggest oddity on that list is that this branch of Eggspectation is far and away the biggest violator and the other branches did not even make the list. The one on rue de la Montagne is a pretty big operation, it's as big or bigger. Like I said the difference is that the one on St. Jacques is surrounded by 5 hotels whose customers are furnishing it HUGE business which the overpriced hotel restaurants are losing. I have eaten at that Eggspectation every time I stayed at Intercontinental which is probably at least 6-8 times through the years. I never had a bad meal there although the customer service is not the greatest. This is in part because they are crazy busy and at times disorganized. I never once ate breakfast at Intercontinental's absurdly overpriced restaurant. There is now a coffee shop on the ground level of the Intercon's building but they are not really full service breakfast and they probably have a deal of some kind with the Intercon not to compete with the food products sold by the Intercon's resto. As I recall they mostly sell coffee drinks, muffins, pastries, and pre-wrapped sandwiches.

 

[eastender]

Eggspectation. Not sure if the chain is a collection of corporate, franchised operators or a blend of the two but franchisees are never created equal, be it international entities like McDonald's or local regional chains.

The interesting aspect of the lists that has not been mentioned is that there are huge districts/arrondissements of the Island of Montreal that do not have any restaurants on the lists and there are certain types of restaurants that are not on the lists.

 

[themonk83]

just on thing, eggspectation on st-jacques is closed since at least this fall so it's really a moot point to talk about that one