DAVIE, FL. State inspectors who walked into Cilantro Asian Bistro at 11590 W SR 84 on July 13 found a restaurant serving raw and lightly cooked fish without any documented procedure to destroy parasites, one of 12 high-severity violations recorded that day. The restaurant was not closed.
The July 13 inspection produced 12 high-priority citations and one intermediate violation. The full list covers nearly every layer of food safety infrastructure: management oversight, employee illness reporting, handwashing, shellfish traceability, chemical storage, and the handling of raw fish.
What Inspectors Found
The parasite destruction finding is the most acute. An Asian bistro serving sushi, sashimi, or any raw or lightly cooked fish is required to document that the fish was either commercially frozen to kill parasites such as Anisakis, or cooked to a temperature sufficient to destroy them. Inspectors found no evidence that procedure was being followed.
Toxic chemicals were stored or labeled improperly, meaning cleaning agents or other hazardous substances were kept in proximity to food or in containers that could cause confusion. That is a direct poisoning risk, not a theoretical one.
The restaurant also had no consumer advisory posted for raw or undercooked foods. Customers with compromised immune systems, pregnant women, the elderly, and young children have no way to make an informed decision about what they are ordering if the menu carries no such notice.
A Cascade of Handwashing Failures
Three of the 12 high-severity violations involve handwashing alone. Inspectors cited inadequate handwashing by food employees, inadequate handwashing facilities, and improper hand and arm washing technique, all as separate findings.
That combination matters. It means employees were not washing their hands when they should have been, the physical infrastructure to do so was not adequate, and when handwashing did occur, the technique was wrong. Each finding compounds the others.
Two more violations address illness reporting. The restaurant had no written employee health policy, and employees were not reporting symptoms of illness. Together, those two citations describe a kitchen where a sick worker has no formal obligation to disclose symptoms and no written guidance telling them to stay home.
No person in charge was present or performing supervisory duties during the inspection. That finding sits at the top of the list for a reason: CDC data links the absence of active managerial control to three times as many critical violations in a given facility.
What These Violations Mean
The parasite destruction failure is not a paperwork problem. Anisakis larvae can survive in raw or undercooked fish and cause severe abdominal pain, vomiting, and, in some cases, intestinal perforation if ingested. Proper freezing, documented and verifiable, is the only reliable way to kill them before a dish reaches a customer. Without that documentation, there is no way to know whether the fish served at Cilantro Asian Bistro on July 13 or on any prior visit was safe.
The illness reporting failures carry a different but equally serious risk. Norovirus, one of the most common causes of foodborne illness outbreaks in the United States, spreads primarily through food workers who are symptomatic and continue working. A restaurant with no written health policy and no active manager on duty has removed the two most basic mechanisms for catching that problem before it reaches a dining room.
The improper chemical storage violation closes a loop that the other violations open. If handwashing is inadequate, surfaces are not sanitized, utensils carry bacterial biofilm, and chemicals are stored near food, the cumulative exposure risk for anyone who ate at this restaurant on July 13 is not theoretical. It is the product of at least seven overlapping failures happening at the same time.
The Longer Record
The July 13 inspection was the 21st on record for Cilantro Asian Bistro. Across those inspections, the facility has accumulated 137 total violations.
The pattern in the prior inspection data is not one of isolated bad days. The restaurant logged 6 high-severity violations in May 2024, 5 more in November 2024, 8 high-severity violations in March 2025 followed by a clean callback the next day, and 5 more in both July 2025 and January 2026. The July 13 total of 12 high-severity violations is the worst single-inspection count in the recent record.
Cilantro Asian Bistro: Recent Inspection Pattern
The restaurant's one prior emergency closure came in May 2016, for roach activity. It reopened the next day. In the decade since, the facility has never been closed again, including after the 8-violation inspection in March 2025 and the 5-violation inspection in January 2026.
After 12 high-severity violations on July 13, 2026, Cilantro Asian Bistro remained open for business.
