MIAMI, FL. Inspectors visiting Aoki Teppanyaki at 7535 N. Kendall Drive on August 10 found food sourced from unapproved or unknown suppliers, meaning some of what was served to customers that day had bypassed every federal safety inspection designed to catch Listeria, Salmonella, and E. coli before it reaches a plate. The restaurant was not closed.
The August 10 inspection produced 11 high-severity violations and 5 intermediate violations, one of the heaviest single-day tallies in the facility's recorded history. State inspectors documented problems spanning food sourcing, cooking temperatures, handwashing, chemical storage, and basic management oversight, all in the same visit.
What Inspectors Found
The food sourcing violation sits at the top of any inspector's concern list. When a restaurant cannot document where its food came from, there is no chain of custody, no lot number, and no way to pull that food back if a supplier issues a recall.
Inspectors also cited the restaurant for food not cooked to required minimum temperatures. For a teppanyaki kitchen where customers watch protein cook on an open grill, that finding is direct: something left that grill before it was safe to eat.
Toxic chemicals were found improperly stored or labeled, and a separate citation noted toxic substances improperly identified, stored, or used. Two distinct chemical-storage violations in the same inspection means inspectors found more than one instance of cleaning agents or other hazardous materials in proximity to food or food-contact surfaces.
Shellfish traceability records were inadequate. Shellfish, including oysters and clams, are among the highest-risk foods served in any restaurant because they are often eaten raw or lightly cooked. Without proper tag records, there is no way to trace a contaminated batch back to its harvest waters.
The remaining high-severity violations covered the fundamentals of a functioning kitchen: no person in charge performing managerial duties, no written employee health policy, inadequate handwashing facilities, improper handwashing technique, improperly cleaned food contact surfaces, and no consumer advisory for raw or undercooked menu items.
What These Violations Mean
The food-from-unapproved-sources violation is not a paperwork problem. Federal inspection of meat, poultry, and shellfish exists to catch contamination before it enters a restaurant's supply chain. Food that bypasses those inspections arrives without any guarantee that it was tested, handled, or stored within safety standards. If a customer gets sick, there is no record to trace.
The cooking temperature violation compounds that risk directly. Salmonella in poultry survives below 165 degrees Fahrenheit. When food leaves a grill before reaching required temperatures, any pathogen present in the raw product survives to the plate. At a teppanyaki restaurant, where the theater of cooking is part of the experience, customers have reason to assume the food is fully cooked.
The absence of a written employee health policy means there was no formal mechanism requiring sick workers to stay out of the kitchen. Norovirus, which causes roughly 20 million illnesses in the United States each year, spreads efficiently from an infected food handler to every dish they touch. A policy that exists only informally is a policy that disappears the moment a manager is not watching.
The two chemical-storage violations introduce a different category of risk entirely. Acute chemical poisoning from mislabeled or improperly stored cleaning agents does not require prolonged exposure. A single contaminated dish can cause immediate harm.
The Longer Record
The August 10 inspection did not represent a new low for Aoki Teppanyaki. It represented a pattern that the inspection record has been building for years.
The facility has 36 inspections on record and 519 total violations across that history. In January 2026, inspectors visited on three consecutive days, finding 4 high-severity violations on January 14, 4 on January 13, and 8 on January 12. That cluster followed a nearly identical pattern from August 2025, when back-to-back inspections produced 5 high-severity violations on August 27 and 8 on August 26.
In March 2025, inspectors visited three times in two days. The first visit on March 28 produced 9 high-severity violations and 6 intermediate violations. A follow-up the same day found 2 high-severity violations. A visit the next day found 3 high-severity violations.
The pattern across those visits is consistent: an initial inspection with a heavy violation count, followed by a follow-up that finds fewer violations, followed months later by another initial inspection with a heavy violation count again. The August 10 inspection, with 11 high-severity violations, is the highest single-day tally in the recent record shown here.
Still Open
State inspectors have the authority to order an emergency closure when conditions pose an immediate threat to public health. After finding 11 high-severity violations at Aoki Teppanyaki on August 10, including food from unapproved sources, undercooking, and improperly stored toxic chemicals, they did not exercise that authority.
The restaurant, which has accumulated 519 violations across 36 recorded inspections and has never been emergency-closed, remained open.
