Restaurant bites back when customer video shows worm in fish

www.ctvnews.ca...

The video was shot over the weekend at Stella Marina Bar & Restaurant in Asbury Park and shows the thin, pale worm crawling out of a piece of cod.
In a Facebook post, people at the restaurant criticize customer Jim Guinee for trying to "destroy" their "reputation and possible livelihoods" ...
The restaurant writes parasitic roundworms "are frequently found in the guts and in the flesh of fish" and occasionally are missed by inspectors.

So apparently the customer is in the wrong for pointing out to people a restaurant is serving fish with roundworms. Even a reasonably trained chef or Cook should notice worms in the fish they're serving. That's fairly unacceptable and i'm sure they'd have a lot more to complain about if someone became infested by parasitic worms because of them.

a reply to: dug88

Extra texture and protein whats the big deal?

a reply to: dug88

Kind of strange it survived the cooking process.

I would definitely walk out with no bill if legit.

originally posted by: Zarniwoop
Kind of strange it survived the cooking process.

Forget that. I find it odd that it survived the fishing and packing processes. Almost all cod is processed at plants after being caught at sea where it can be iced for up to a week before it arrives at the port. It then gets cut, placed in a bag and then covered with more ice before the distribtor brings it to the restaurant.

ETA: The place is kinda skeevey, look at some of the Yelp pics. So the worm may be the least of your concerns.

a reply to: AugustusMasonicus

So... you're a bit skeptical?

Dbl

originally posted by: AugustusMasonicus

originally posted by: Zarniwoop
Kind of strange it survived the cooking process.

Forget that. I find it odd that it survived the fishing and packing processes. Almost all cod is processed at plants after being caught at sea where it can be iced for up to a week before it arrives at the port. It then gets cut, placed in a bag and then covered with more ice before the distribtor brings it to the restaurant.

ETA: The place is kinda skeevey, look at some of the Yelp pics. So the worm may be the least of your concerns.

Thats what I was thinking, unless these guys are serving cod they bought off the warf laid out on ice (which some restaurants do) I find this highly suspect.

originally posted by: Zarniwoop
So... you're a bit skeptical?

Yes and no, I was a seafood product manager before I was a chef and I've seen this before, I've just never seen a live worm after the food has been cooked. You can easily find them in fresh cod, which is why I never eat it, but I've never seen one wriggle out of a cooked piece of fish.

It could be accurate but it could also be attributed to poor food handling. If they placed the cooked fish where they prep the raw fish and a worm was there it could have gotten onto the plate. Without seeing the sanitary conditions of the restaurant and/or the actual plate of food it's really hard to tell.

a reply to: Whatthedoctorordered


What the doctor ordered in this case should be Bourbon.

a reply to: AugustusMasonicus

Gotta be frozen to kill roundworms. Also fairly well cooked. I prefer my fish to be neither, but I don't like cod or salmon much.
www.washingtonpost.com... =.26743f48b307
www.today.com...

Yep, that's damn gross. I grew up in FL and ate a LOT of fish, be it at the restaurants or caught & cooked myself/with my dad. Never saw a single worm in any fish I ate, and that's as it should be.

However, since the fish is cooked, I'm skeptical it came from the fish itself. They tend to be taken care of quite easily with proper cooking temps (sorry folks, but that much is true. You may have eaten roasted parasites in a fish dish without knowing it) I'm betting that sucker came from the veggie area. Going with my gut hunch on this, and calling the veggies contaminated.

originally posted by: Phage
Gotta be frozen to kill roundworms. Also fairly well cooked. I prefer my fish to be neither, but I don't like cod or salmon much.

www.today.com...

Not necessarily. We used to get hundreds of pounds of cod in a week and I would have someone candle it to remove parasites. About half of them were already dead and the colder the season the less live ones there were.

If the worms are present then likely so are some eggs:

What is ascariasis?

Ascariasis is an infection of the small intestine caused by Ascaris lumbricoides (A. lumbricoides), which is a species of roundworm. Roundworms are a type of parasitic worm. Infections caused by roundworms are fairly common. Ascariasis is the most common roundworm infection. About 10 percent of the developing world is infected with intestinal worms, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). However, infections with parasitic worms are not as common in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Source

Yummy, move along, nothing to see here!

originally posted by: Nyiah
Yep, that's damn gross. I grew up in FL and ate a LOT of fish, be it at the restaurants or caught & cooked myself/with my dad. Never saw a single worm in any fish I ate, and that's as it should be.

Next time you're back in Florida go down to the fish market, find some red snapper and look in the mouth.

Still not the nastiest fish parasite out there.

originally posted by: AugustusMasonicus

originally posted by: Zarniwoop
So... you're a bit skeptical?

Yes and no, I was a seafood product manager before I was a chef and I've seen this before, I've just never seen a live worm after the food has been cooked. You can easily find them in fresh cod, which is why I never eat it, but I've never seen one wriggle out of a cooked piece of fish.

It could be accurate but it could also be attributed to poor food handling. If they placed the cooked fish where they prep the raw fish and a worm was there it could have gotten onto the plate. Without seeing the sanitary conditions of the restaurant and/or the actual plate of food it's really hard to tell.

I'm going to go out on a limb here, I have a Culinary Arts Degree and it looks to me that the cod is undercooked. As a chef you can attest that fish should be slightly undercooked (think 125-135) when it comes off the pan or out of the oven, and finished with the carry over heat, but this cod looks like it was under that at the plate, which means it could have been 100-115 when it went on that plate. Those worms would have survived the low temps of that cooking. Sadly, cod could survive getting pulled at 140 or even a little over that without damaging the flavor to much (the texture goes all to hell, but it is still eatable), but in the case that doesn't seem to be an issue. Bad cooks or bad recipe, you all can decide.

originally posted by: AugustusMasonicus

originally posted by: Nyiah
Yep, that's damn gross. I grew up in FL and ate a LOT of fish, be it at the restaurants or caught & cooked myself/with my dad. Never saw a single worm in any fish I ate, and that's as it should be.

Next time you're back in Florida go down to the fish market, find some red snapper and look in the mouth.

Still not the nastiest fish parasite out there.

I caught a lot of snapper, flounder, grunt & sheepshead, and always got a good look in the mouths taking the hooks out. They never had any oral parasites that we ever noticed. Either we got lucky and fished miraculously clean, or it's become more prevalent today?

a reply to: Guyfriday


I was thinking it was possible but as I said before, without having the actual plate in front of me it's hard to say it's cooked to doneness or not.

originally posted by: Nyiah

I caught a lot of snapper, flounder, grunt & sheepshead, and always got a good look in the mouths taking the hooks out. They never had any oral parasites that we ever noticed. Either we got lucky and fished miraculously clean, or it's become more prevalent today?

Nah, those snapper bugs have been around forever. Some species get them and others don't, red snappers seem to be particularly prone.

I've definitely seen worms in trout i've caught before. I never ate those. I've never seen them in a restaurant or in fish i've bought. When i worked in a grocery store i remember some fresh, wild caught fish would come in with worms, they were always found when gutting and wouldn't be sold. But i have heard stories of finding worms in #ty sushi places and gas station sushi in town before. Who knows how true they are though. I dislike parasitic worms. The idea of such things living inside of me stealing my sustenance kind of disgusts me...that and those classic biologyv textbook pictures of horribly infested digestive systems.

originally posted by: AugustusMasonicus
a reply to: Guyfriday


I was thinking it was possible but as I said before, without having the actual plate in front of me it's hard to say it's cooked to doneness or not.

Very true, I'm just going off the look of the tissue (playing CSI:ACF) but this is very true without actually having the plate in front of me it's hard to be certain so I'll stick with my guess. I was going to poke over the Yelp comments on this place but people were referencing this report and some of the complaints look like stock complaints. I almost wonder if this was a real issue or one of those "Extortion for good review" things.