Another in the weekly we’ve-been-doing-it-this-way-all-our-lives-and-never-got-sick declarations from a restaurant tentatively fingered in an outbreak of illness.

The Hickory Daily Record reports 40 people have complained to officials at Catawba County Public Health that they got sick after eating a meal at Conover’s Harbor Inn Seafood restaurant.

One thing the victims have in common is that they ate at Harbor Inn on Jan. 13.
Health officials are working to determine what the illness is and what caused it, said Catawba County Public Health Outreach Manager Amy McCauley

The first complaints came in on Jan. 17. As of Monday, 40 cases had been reported. None have required hospitalization, said Catawba County Health Director Doug Urland.

“Our Environmental Health workers have been to the restaurant almost every day to investigate and educate the staff about proper food handling techniques and to make sure they are stringent about safe food handling techniques,” McCauley said.

George Ziogas owns the Conover Harbor Inn and said he has no idea why some of his customers got sick following their Friday the 13th meal.

“The Health Department came in and they could not find anything. All of the food temperatures were OK. All of the salad bar temperatures were OK,” he said. “We’ve been open for 23 years and we’ve never had a problem.”

Recent inspection results have given Harbor Inn consistently high marks.
The most recent inspection came on Dec. 29 and Harbor Inn got an A with a score of 99.5. Three months earlier the restaurant scored 99.5. In June, Harbor Inn earned a 100.5.

“I want people to know we’re going to be here a long time – we’re not going anywhere – we’ve been here 23 years and this was a one-time incident,” Ziogas said.

“I eat here all the time and I like the food – if I didn’t, I wouldn’t come back,” said Cora Greene, of Mountain View, on Tuesday, after sharing a meal of whitefish with her son. “This can happen anyplace, but I’ve never gotten sick. I’ll be back.”

Health officials are working to identify the mysterious illness and its cause, but won’t speculate on what it may be.

On Friday, Catawba County Public Health began distributing stool sample kits to the victims of the illness at the request of the North Carolina Division of Public Health. The people complaining of illnesses related to Harbor Inn meals have been instructed to use the kit and return it to Catawba County Public Health, which will then send the kits to the state lab for testing.

It takes about a week to process the tests, and it won’t be clear what’s been making people sick until the results are in.

None of the distributed kits had been returned to Catawba County Public Health as of Tuesday, McCauley said.

The symptoms associated with the Harbor Inn outbreak are intense nausea, vomiting and diarrhea. The onset came within 12 to 24 hours following the Jan. 13 meal and lasted from 24 to 36 hours for most of the victims, according to reports from Catawba County Public Health.

The Mandarin Palace Restaurant in in Fredericton, New Brunswick (that’s in Canada), which was closed after rotting bear meat was discovered in a freezer, has reopened after a reinspection by Department of Health on Thursday.

There's a note on the inspector's report that says a food course must be completed as discussed with the business owners Johnny and Tina Tu.

"I will be reopened today," said Tu. "I am preparing everything brand new, my chicken balls and my egg rolls."

Tu said she sat down with government investigators to discuss how and why rancid parts of a black bear were found in her restaurant's cooler. She told The Daily Gleaner she agreed to keep the bear for one of her customers, but the customer later told her to keep the bear.

Tu didn't know what to do with it and was getting conflicting advice on how to dispose of it.

"I hope everybody understands that I never touched the bear. I didn't eat it and I wouldn't serve it to people," Tu said.

Tu said customers know that chicken is chicken and beef is beef.

"They can taste. They know. There's the difference. I don't want people to be scared. I didn't touch anything with the bear," she said.

The Health Department said the condition of the bear meat created a high risk for cross-contamination. Officials told Tu and her husband Johnny -- the restaurant's co-owners -- the cooler where the bear was stored had to be stripped bare of its contents and sanitized prior to reinspection. The department also said it would provide information on food-handling techniques and food safety.

Fox News reports Chicago’s Alinea was given the Michelin Guide’s coveted three-star rating last month, the only Chicago restaurant to earn that top honor, but later in the month it failed an inspection by the City of Chicago's food protection division.

Violations included foods at improper temperatures, employees not able to wash their hands properly, black mold growth inside an ice machine, and the front door was cited as not being insect or rodent-proof.

More food safety, less food porn.

That failing inspection report was listed as taking place on Nov. 30th. One week later, on Dec. 8, the restaurant was re-inspected and received a passing grade.

The second report did still mention a few issues, such as ventilation equipment that was needed, but it was a passing grade.

With no further news on the raw-egg-in-mayonnaise salmonella outbreak at a Canberra cafe and bakery that has sickened 13, attention in the capital today turned to the owner of a Chinese restaurant who was convicted and fined $8000 after breaching the territory's food safety laws.

Health authorities shut down the Grand Court restaurant in October, 2010 for 11 days after finding grimy work surfaces and ''biological matter'' all over the cool-room floor.

But the ACT Magistrates Court heard owner Michelle Foo, 28, had worked hard to clean up the restaurant and had been allowed to reopen after it passed a health inspection.

Foo had pleaded guilty to four charges of failing to comply with food hygiene requirements and unsafe food handling.

Her defence lawyer told the court that the evidence against his client was indisputable but said Foo was very remorseful for the offences and had since turned things around at the eatery.

The court heard Foo had previously worked for Woolworths and had no experience of running a restaurant when she bought the Grand Court in August 2010.

The restaurant was old and inadequate and staff did not follow appropriate hygiene practices.

A health officer inspected the premises after a customer complained about a cockroach in a takeaway bag.

According to documents tendered in court, the inspection uncovered dirty work surfaces, greasy walls, dirty equipment and a lack of proper food-storage containers.

Authorities shut the restaurant down amid fears it was ''critically unhygienic''.

The Grand Court had since been cleaned up and had passed every health inspection for the past year.

Magistrate Maria Doogan said it was difficult to accept Foo's excuse that she was an inexperienced restaurateur, saying anyone who went into the restaurant business should know about hygiene standards.