SOUTH MIAMI, FL. A Japanese restaurant that serves raw fish had no documented procedures for destroying parasites in that fish, according to state inspection records from August 20 — one of 11 high-severity violations cited at Akashi Japanese Restaurant on South Dixie Highway during a single visit. The restaurant was not closed.
The inspection, conducted on August 20 at the 5830 S. Dixie Hwy. location, also found food from unapproved or unknown sources, no consumer advisory for raw or undercooked items, and inadequate shell stock identification records for shellfish. Taken together, the violations describe a kitchen where a customer eating sushi or raw oysters had no meaningful guarantee of where the food came from, how it was handled, or whether it was safe to consume.
What Inspectors Found
The parasite destruction violation is particularly acute for a sushi restaurant. State and federal rules require that fish served raw be frozen to specific temperatures for specific time periods to kill parasites including Anisakis, a roundworm that can embed in the stomach lining and cause severe abdominal pain. There was no documentation that Akashi followed that process.
The shell stock identification failure compounds the risk. Oysters, clams, and mussels carry tags that trace them back to a specific harvest area and date. If a customer gets sick, those tags are the only way public health investigators can identify the source and pull contaminated product from other restaurants. Without those records, that trail goes cold.
Inspectors also cited toxic chemicals stored improperly or without labels, food contact surfaces not properly cleaned or sanitized, improper handwashing technique, and required procedures for specialized processes not followed. Five intermediate violations accompanied the high-severity findings, including improper sewage or wastewater disposal and multi-use utensils not properly cleaned.
No person in charge was present or performing duties during the inspection.
What These Violations Mean
The parasite destruction failure is not a paperwork problem. Anisakis larvae are invisible to the naked eye and survive in raw or lightly marinated fish. Proper freezing, at minus 4 degrees Fahrenheit for seven days or minus 31 degrees for 15 hours, kills them. Without documentation that Akashi performed either protocol, there is no way to know whether the fish served to customers that day was safe.
The food from unapproved sources violation strips away another layer of protection. Approved suppliers are inspected and licensed; their products carry a chain of custody that allows regulators to trace contamination back to the source. Food from an unknown or unapproved source has no such trail. If someone got sick, investigators would have no starting point.
The employee health policy violations, two of them cited separately, create a direct transmission route for illness. Without a written policy and without employees reporting symptoms, a worker with Norovirus can handle raw fish, sushi rice, and ready-to-eat items for an entire shift. Norovirus is responsible for roughly 20 million illnesses annually in the United States, and food workers are among the most common transmission vectors.
The sewage disposal violation, listed as intermediate, is not minor in a food preparation context. Improper wastewater handling introduces fecal contamination risk into the same environment where food is being prepared and plated.
The Longer Record
Akashi Japanese Restaurant: Recent Inspection Pattern
The August 20 inspection was not an outlier. State records show 33 inspections on file for Akashi, with 517 total violations accumulated across that history. The restaurant has never been emergency-closed.
In August 2025, the location was inspected three times in ten days. The first visit on August 4 produced 14 high-severity violations. The second, on August 5, found 9. The third, on August 14, found 8. That sequence did not result in a closure.
The pattern across the past year shows high-severity violation counts that have never dropped to zero and have repeatedly returned to double digits. The categories repeat: management failures, illness reporting gaps, food sourcing concerns, and raw fish handling problems documented across multiple visits at the same address.
A follow-up inspection was conducted on August 21, the day after the 11-violation visit. That inspection found 5 high-severity violations and 5 intermediate ones.
Akashi Japanese Restaurant remained open after the August 20 inspection, with 11 high-severity violations on the books and no consumer advisory posted for the raw fish on its menu.
