DORAL, FL. Inspectors visiting Bonsai Sushi Bar Restaurant at 10832 NW 58 St on July 22 found the kitchen serving food sourced from unapproved or unknown suppliers, a violation that means inspectors have no way to trace the origin of ingredients if a customer gets sick.
The July 22 inspection produced seven high-severity violations and three intermediate violations. The restaurant was not closed.
What Inspectors Found
The unapproved food sourcing violation is particularly pointed at a sushi restaurant, where raw fish is the core product. Ingredients that bypass USDA and FDA inspection channels carry no documentation of where they were processed, how they were handled, or whether they were tested for pathogens.
Inspectors also cited the restaurant twice for chemical hazards: once for toxic chemicals improperly stored or labeled, and again for toxic substances improperly identified, stored, or used. Two separate citations for chemical mismanagement in a single inspection visit indicates the problem was not limited to one area of the kitchen.
The handwashing findings compounded the risk. Inspectors cited both inadequate handwashing facilities and improper hand and arm washing technique. The first violation means the physical infrastructure for hand hygiene was deficient. The second means that even when employees attempted to wash their hands, they were not doing it correctly.
Food contact surfaces were not properly cleaned or sanitized. Inspectors also found sewage or wastewater being improperly disposed of, multi-use utensils not properly cleaned, and single-use items being reused.
What These Violations Mean
The unapproved food sourcing violation carries a specific consequence that most customers do not consider: if someone gets sick after eating at Bonsai Sushi Bar, investigators cannot trace the ingredient back through a supply chain. There is no invoice, no licensed distributor, no lot number. At a restaurant serving raw fish, that gap is not theoretical.
The dual chemical storage citations point to a risk that operates entirely outside the kitchen's food preparation habits. Improperly stored or unlabeled chemicals near food preparation areas can contaminate surfaces, utensils, or food directly, and mislabeled containers create acute poisoning risk if a substance is mistaken for a food-safe product.
The handwashing violations work together in a damaging way. Inadequate facilities means employees may not have had access to proper soap, water, or drying equipment at a designated handwashing sink. Improper technique means that even with access, pathogens were not being removed. Norovirus, which causes roughly 20 million illnesses in the United States each year, spreads primarily through exactly this route.
Improperly disposed sewage or wastewater introduces fecal contamination risk throughout the facility. Raw sewage contains E. coli, Hepatitis A, and other pathogens. Combined with surfaces that were not properly sanitized and utensils that were not properly cleaned, the July 22 inspection documented multiple overlapping contamination pathways operating simultaneously.
The Longer Record
Bonsai Sushi Bar: Recent Inspection History
The July 22 inspection did not arrive in isolation. Eight days earlier, on July 14, inspectors had already documented nine high-severity and three intermediate violations at the same location. The restaurant was not closed after that visit either.
Across 28 inspections on record, Bonsai Sushi Bar has accumulated 335 total violations. Six of the seven most recent inspections before the clean March and November 2024 visits each produced at least seven high-severity violations. The pattern is not a restaurant having a bad week.
The single inspection in September 2025 that produced only one high-severity violation stands out in the record precisely because it is the exception. Every inspection on either side of it produced seven or more high-severity citations.
The restaurant has never been emergency-closed in its inspection history.
After seven high-severity violations on July 14, and seven more on July 22, Bonsai Sushi Bar remained open for business.
