Deer heads, brains found in restaurant

A Chinese restaurant in Pennsylvania has been issued more than a dozen health violations for having deer heads and brains on its premises in addition to failing to comply with other health and safety requirements.

Health inspectors were back at the restaurant, New China House, on Monday to follow up on a mid-December check, the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture told China Daily.

The restaurant, located in Lititz, Lancaster County, in eastern Pennsylvania, has been open for business.

The owner of the New China House told PennLive that the deer meat was not for sale.

"They took the deer bones we need for soup for my wife and for me," said the owner, who was identified only as Chun.

A Pennsylvania Game Commission spokesman said that edible game parts are not allowed to be sold. Only deer farm-raised for human consumption is permitted for sale, according to PennLive.

"No one is permitted to sell the meat or other edible parts from harvested game," the spokesman said. "When hunters pay at the processor, they're paying for their deer or a deer they've been given to be butchered and/or turned into some processed product."

New China House was handed 18 violations when it was initially inspected on Dec 16. The Pennsylvania Game Commission had received a tip about potential health violations at the restaurant.

Health inspectors found deer brains, deer heads, skinned and whole tails, legs, muscle meat, spines and "other unidentifiable parts both raw and cooked," according to an inspection log.

The deer parts were found in a walk-in cooler and freezer, the Agriculture Department said.

"We look at every facility individually, and when we go in [for an inspection], we take nothing else into account except what the food sanitary is at that time, at that facility. As far as how [New China House compares with others], we have restaurants on all points on the spectrum.

"This was on the high-violation side, and actually, we closed them for a period of time, so it's on one side of the spectrum," said Lydia Johnson, director of food safety at the Department of Agriculture.

The restaurant was closed for part of Dec 16 after the inspection and later reopened. It was reinspected again on Dec 17 and had 14 violations.

Some of the violations were taken care of immediately on site - unsanitary areas were cleaned, unidentified meat was discarded - and the restaurant was given various amounts of time to address the remaining violations.

Results from Monday's inspection will be made available in the next several days, Johnson said, and if the restaurant gets more violations, it will again be given "correct by" compliance dates.

A restaurant is only shut down if it is deemed to pose an "imminent health hazard", Johnson said, which New China House currently does not.

amyhe@chinadailyusa.com