Rodent droppings in rice: Chinese restaurant labelled as “disgusting “by magistrate and fined $100K

A Chinese restaurant owner in Perth has been fined $100,000 for poor hygiene standards.

Choi Wan Chong’s Aquarium Seafood Chinese Restaurant was labelled “disgusting” by the magistrate, after a litany of charges included a dead rat and cockroaches in the kitchen and rodent droppings in rice.

The magistrate even went so far to say, the food served in the restaurant would not be fit for animals.

The breaches of the Food Act are contrary to the venue’s claims that for the last 20 years it was a “household name in the Ascot culinary scene” where its diners are treated to a “feast for the senses not to be missed”.

The restaurant also boasted an “award winning” chef.

The prosecution of the owner is now one of the most serious prosecutions under WA’s Food Act. The owner faced the Perth Magistrate’s Court last month.

Sentencing Magistrate Lynette Dias said the restaurant was unfit to “serve animals, let alone human beings” and noted the state of the restaurant as “sickening”, “disgusting” and “nauseating”.

City of Belmont staff found the floors, walls and equipment to be covered in “thick layers of grease and oil”, food waste was on the floor, under benches and on shelving in the kitchen and cool room.

The routine follow-up inspections were undertaken in June and July last year.

“There were food splatter marks on the ceiling in the kitchen area, as well as dirty light switches and power points and dirty shelves,” prosecutor David Gillett said.

Further breaches included live and dead cockroaches — and their eggs, rodent faeces on food trays, and “rodent faeces were observed in an uncovered container of rice”.

Irit Jackson, 20^th June 2022