Posted: February 17th, 2008 - 12:11pm by Doug Powell

The National Post reported Friday that Toronto public health authorities shut down one of Chinatown’s most prominent restaurants after a passerby took a photo of rats on a countertop.

Passerby Vivian Hui said rats were visible through a window of the Dumpling House Restaurant yesterday afternoon, adding,

"I noticed what I thought was a cat on the counter inside Dumpling House but it turned out to be four or five rats piled on top of each other eating from a bowl of flour or something."

She e-mailed her boyfriend, Matt Alexander, who alerted health authorities. He also sent the photo to blogto.com, a popular Toronto city blog.

Toronto Public Health said inspectors went to the restaurant immediately, saw evidence of an infestation, and shut the restaurant down.

A manager who answered the phone at the restaurant said they agreed with health inspectors that the restaurant needed to be shut down, adding,

"I fully agree. If there’s a problem, some indication, we have to take it seriously. We have pest control guys working on the case right now. … ‘We have a very good reputation.  That’s why we are taking this very seriously. I think [this shutdown] may affect business for a very short time, but not very much because our cleaning conditions are good."

The manager said he had never seen rats himself in the restaurant, and said any rat problem is not confined to Dumpling House. He said downtown has a rat problem generally, and the city needs to do something about it. Same as New York.

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