28/07/2010 - Mouse leaps from restaurant bowl
Health inspectors have criticised a London restaurant owner after a mouse was seen jumping from a bowl of sweet and sour sauce which was about to be served.
West London-based Kam Tong, Hung Tao and Kiasu restaurants in Queensway, Bayswater, had an "appalling catalogue of offences" according to inspectors who visited the restaurants.
Inspectors found cockroach eggs in the dim sum and baskets of prawn crackers and mouse droppings all over the kitchen.
One rodent was photographed scampering along a kitchen drainpipe in the Kam Tong restaurant after jumping from a bowl of sweet and sour sauce in the kitchen.
Owner Ronald Lim, of Barnet, north London, admitted 17 counts of breaching food hygiene regulations at Southwark Crown Court.
Judge Geoffrey Rivlin QC ordered him to pay fines totalling £30,000, plus £18,131 costs, and handed him an eight-month jail term suspended for two years.
He was told that if he did not pay the fine, he would face 18 months in jail, a spokeswoman for Westminster City Council said.
The three restaurants were shut down between May and August 2008 but have since reopened. Lim now has three months to prove he has improved standards before a decision is made on whether to ban him from operating a catering business altogether.
Copyright © Press Association 2010
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