MIAMI, FL. Back in April 2026, state inspectors walked into China Mei at 17852 S Dixie Hwy and found food sourced from unapproved or unknown suppliers being served to customers who had no way of knowing it had never passed a federal safety inspection.
That was one of eight high-severity violations documented during the April 7 inspection. The restaurant was not emergency-closed.
What Inspectors Found
The food sourcing violation was among the most serious. When a restaurant obtains food from suppliers outside the USDA and FDA inspection network, there is no traceability if a customer gets sick. Inspectors also cited the restaurant for food not cooked to required minimum temperatures, a violation with direct consequences: Salmonella in poultry survives below 165 degrees Fahrenheit and can cause severe illness within hours of consumption.
Inspectors additionally documented that employees were not reporting illness symptoms, that handwashing technique was improper, and that food contact surfaces had not been properly cleaned or sanitized. Those three violations together describe a kitchen where contamination could move from a sick worker to a cutting board to a customer's plate without interruption.
The restaurant was also cited for misusing time as a public health control, meaning food was allowed to sit in the temperature danger zone, between 41 and 135 degrees Fahrenheit, without proper tracking. A separate violation noted that no consumer advisory was posted for raw or undercooked menu items, leaving customers with no warning that certain dishes carried elevated risk.
On the intermediate side, inspectors found improper sewage or wastewater disposal, multi-use utensils that had not been properly cleaned, single-use items being reused, and inadequate ventilation and lighting. Twelve violations in total.
What These Violations Mean
The food sourcing violation carries a specific danger that goes beyond the meal itself. When food bypasses the federal inspection chain, there is no documentation of where it came from, how it was handled, or whether it was tested for pathogens like Listeria or Salmonella. If someone became ill after eating at China Mei in April 2026, investigators would have had no supply chain to trace.
The undercooked food violation compounds that risk. Poultry that does not reach 165 degrees Fahrenheit and ground beef that does not reach 155 degrees can harbor Salmonella, E. coli, and Campylobacter in concentrations high enough to cause serious illness. Combined with food contact surfaces that were not properly sanitized, the potential for cross-contamination across multiple dishes was documented as present.
The employee illness reporting failure is a separate and acute concern. Norovirus, the leading cause of foodborne illness outbreaks in restaurants, spreads rapidly when infected workers continue to handle food. Inspectors found that China Mei employees were not following the reporting requirements designed to catch that transmission route before it reaches customers.
Improper sewage disposal, also cited here, introduces the possibility of fecal contamination in a food preparation environment. That violation, alongside improperly cleaned multi-use utensils and reused single-use items, describes a facility where basic contamination barriers had broken down across multiple systems at once.
The Longer Record
The April 2026 inspection did not represent a sudden decline. State records show China Mei has accumulated 440 total violations across 29 inspections on record, a history that stretches back years and includes repeated high-severity findings.
The December 2025 inspection, conducted over two consecutive days, tells its own story. On December 2, inspectors cited the restaurant for 12 high-severity and 5 intermediate violations. A follow-up the next day, December 3, still found 1 high-severity and 3 intermediate violations. The April 2025 inspection logged 9 high-severity violations. The December 2024 inspection logged 10.
The only clean inspection in the recent record came in March 2024, when inspectors found zero high-severity and zero intermediate violations. That result was sandwiched between two inspections on March 18, 2024, that together documented 6 high-severity violations, and a January 2024 inspection that found 8 high-severity and 3 intermediate violations.
China Mei has never been emergency-closed in its inspection history on record. That remains true after April 7, 2026, when inspectors documented 8 high-severity violations and walked out the door without posting a closure notice. The restaurant was open for business.