ORLANDO, FL. Workers at Eddie V's Restaurant on West Sand Lake Road were not following parasite destruction procedures during a state inspection on October 6, a violation that means customers who ordered fish or pork dishes may have been exposed to live parasites, including Anisakis and Trichinella, that proper freezing or cooking would have killed.
That was one of seven high-severity violations inspectors documented in a single visit. The restaurant was not closed.
What Inspectors Found
The parasite destruction failure was not the only citation tied directly to what ended up on a customer's plate. Inspectors also found that food was not cooked to the required minimum temperature, a separate violation that can allow Salmonella in poultry to survive below 165 degrees Fahrenheit and reach a diner's table still dangerous.
Those two violations together, undercooking and skipped parasite destruction protocols, describe a kitchen where the last line of defense against foodborne illness was not being applied.
Inspectors also cited the restaurant for improper use of time as a public health control. When a kitchen uses time rather than temperature to keep food safe, it tracks how long food sits in the temperature danger zone and discards it before bacteria multiply to harmful levels. The citation means that tracking was not being done correctly, and food that should have been thrown out may not have been.
Toxic substances were found to be improperly identified, stored, or used. That violation carries the risk of chemical contamination of food or surfaces, with no warning to customers.
Two violations pointed to the people handling the food rather than the food itself. Employees were not using proper handwashing technique, meaning pathogens can survive on hands even when a worker goes through the motions of washing. Separately, at least one employee was not reporting illness symptoms as required, the condition inspectors flag as an outbreak enabler, because a sick food worker with norovirus or a similar illness is a direct transmission route to every plate that leaves the kitchen.
The seventh violation was no allergen awareness demonstrated. Food allergies affect 32 million Americans, and a kitchen that cannot reliably identify or communicate allergen content in its dishes puts those customers at acute risk with every order.
What These Violations Mean
The parasite destruction citation is specific to upscale seafood and meat menus. Eddie V's is a fine dining steakhouse and seafood concept, exactly the kind of restaurant where raw or lightly cooked fish appears on the menu. Anisakis, a roundworm found in fish, can cause severe abdominal pain and vomiting if consumed alive. Trichinella, found in undercooked pork, can cause muscle pain, fever, and in serious cases organ damage. Proper freezing or cooking kills both. When those procedures are skipped, the menu becomes the exposure.
The illness-reporting failure compounds every other violation on the list. A worker who does not report symptoms and then handles food improperly, using a flawed handwashing technique, while the kitchen is also undercooking dishes and mismanaging time controls, creates a cascade of overlapping risks. Any one of these violations in isolation is serious. All seven together in a single inspection visit describe a kitchen operating with multiple simultaneous gaps in its food safety system.
The allergen violation carries its own urgency. Unlike most foodborne illness, an allergic reaction can become life-threatening within minutes. A restaurant that cannot demonstrate allergen awareness cannot reliably protect a customer who discloses a peanut, shellfish, or tree nut allergy before ordering.
The Longer Record
The October 6 inspection was not an anomaly. State records show Eddie V's on Sand Lake Road has been inspected 23 times and has accumulated 126 total violations across that history. The restaurant has never been emergency-closed.
The pattern of high-severity violations stretches back through every recent inspection on record. Inspectors found three high-severity violations in May 2026, two in October 2025, three in April 2025, and two in December 2023. The restaurant has not had a single recent inspection that came back clean of high-severity citations.
What changed on October 6 was the scale. Seven high-severity violations in one visit is more than double the count from any of the eight most recent inspections on record. The prior high was three, logged on three separate occasions.
The restaurant remained open after the October 6 inspection.
