During a relaxing vacation camping near Crisfield, MD, we decided to treat ourselves to a night out to dinner. We selected a kitschy little place with a small menu but we had been there before and it had just what we wanted in a casual environment. I ordered a combo platter that included a good selection. My choices were fish sandwich, scallops, breaded oysters and steamed shrimp. After ordering at the front counter we selected our seat inside the air conditioned out building.

The waitress serves our food and I look at my platter….wait…is that? Do I see a raw shrimp on top of my steamed shrimp? Yes, I do. GASP. I call the waitress over and she doesn’t seem to concerned but takes my platter away. About 2 minutes later she reappears with what seems to be the same platter with the raw shrimp removed. She explains “The cook said the shrimp must have fallen on your platter when they were putting new shrimp in the steamer” The look on my face must have told the story, she asked quite curse, “Is there something else wrong?” I am going to end the story there and let you make your own conclusion.

I believe this type of disregard and lack of understanding of food safety can be corrected through proper training. They should have never been allowing raw food in the general area of cooked food and especially carry raw food over top of cooked food.. This is basic cross contamination. In addition to this error in food safety, they did not understand the risk associated with the error! This was confirmed when they didn’t even try to hide the fact that the brought out the same platter with the raw food removed.

Only 5 jurisdictions in Maryland require a certified food manager on duty at all times. If this restaurant had someone on duty trained they would not have lost a repeat customer. Required or not – TRAIN YOUR STAFF IN FOOD SAFETY!