VIJAYAWADA: You need to be careful about the restaurant you decide to go to when you feel like eating out because there are high chances that it flouts the Food Safety and Standards Authority (FSSAI) rules as most of the famous restaurants in city were caught serving frozen, rotten, or stale meat in the joint raids carried out by FSSAI and Vigilance Enforcement (V&E) officials on Saturday.
The illegal practice of serving food that is unfit for consumption came to light once again when officials found that Tamarind Multicuisine Restaurant, situated near new government hospital, was serving to its customers stale rice and smelly biryani prepared using frozen and rotten chicken.
“During our raids, we found that the restaurant was serving food which was not fit for consumption. The cooking staff was using frozen chicken and stale rice and biryani. The manner in which they were cooking was also unhygienic. They don’t even have a FSSAI license,” FSSAI regional officer N Purnachandra Rao said. Officials collected samples of chicken biryani and chicken wings from the restaurant for testing, and gave an improvement notice to it.
The FSSAI officials also inspected Sri Krupa Mess and Caterers, adjacent to the Tamarind Restaurant. “We found them using poor quality tea powder and corn flour. Samples were collected and action will be initiated against them if the reports deem the food items unfit for consumption,” he said. Two other restaurants raided in Kamayyathopu and Poranki near Vijayawada were indulging in similar practices.
The Tamarind Restaurant case is not an isolated one. On July 17, 2018, FSSAI officials found that Alfa Hotel in Tikkle Road was serving frozen chicken to its customers. Following complaints, officials inspected the hotel and sealed it. In another incident, two friends on July 22 got the shock of their lives when hotel Silver Spoon, Teachers’ Colony, served a cooked lizard along with chicken in the biryani they ordered.
According to sources, there are around 400 identified hotels and restaurants in city, out of which more than 80 per cent flout rules or are running without a valid FSSAI license. “Right from salt to meat, they (errant hotel managements) are using substandard material. Even the food served to patients at the government hospital is better,” said the V&E DSP Vijay Paul, who was one of the officials who conducted the raids.
Denizens also asked officials concerned to take action against the errant food joints.