OVIEDO, FL. State inspectors visited Koi Sushi on Aloma Avenue on May 6 and found food sourced from unapproved or unknown suppliers being served at a restaurant that specializes in raw fish, with no consumer advisory on the menu warning customers of the risk.
That was one of ten high-severity violations documented that day. The restaurant was not closed.
What Inspectors Found
The full list of high-severity violations spans nearly every stage of food handling. Inspectors cited inadequate handwashing by food employees and, separately, improper handwashing technique, meaning workers were attempting to wash their hands but doing it incorrectly. Food contact surfaces were not properly cleaned or sanitized. Time as a public health control was not properly used, a citation that applies when a facility uses elapsed time rather than refrigeration to keep food safe and fails to track or enforce that window.
The shellfish citation adds another layer of concern for a sushi operation. Inspectors documented inadequate shell stock identification and records, meaning the facility could not demonstrate where its shellfish came from or when it arrived. That violation, combined with the unapproved food source citation, means two separate problems with ingredient traceability were documented on the same visit.
No person in charge was present or performing supervisory duties at the time of the inspection.
What These Violations Mean
The food-from-unapproved-sources violation is particularly serious at a sushi restaurant. Fish and shellfish served raw or lightly cooked carry a higher baseline risk of Listeria, Salmonella, and hepatitis A than most other foods. Suppliers approved by state and federal regulators are inspected, traceable, and required to meet handling and temperature standards throughout the supply chain. An unapproved source has none of those checkpoints. If a customer became ill, investigators would have no chain of custody to follow.
The absence of a consumer advisory compounds that risk directly. Customers with weakened immune systems, pregnant women, the elderly, and young children face the greatest danger from raw fish, and they rely on menu disclosures to make informed choices. None were available here.
The two handwashing violations together describe a facility where the basic contamination barrier between workers and food was unreliable. Inadequate handwashing means the practice was not happening consistently. Improper technique means that even when it was happening, it was not eliminating pathogens. Those two violations appearing together on the same inspection record are not redundant; they describe failure at both the frequency and the execution level.
The employee illness reporting violation means there was no system in place to keep sick workers out of food preparation. Norovirus, one of the leading causes of foodborne illness outbreaks nationwide, spreads most efficiently through infected food handlers who do not know they are required to report symptoms or stay home.
The Longer Record
Koi Sushi: Recent Inspection History
State records show 28 inspections at this address, with 269 total violations on record. Every one of the eight most recent inspections in the available history produced at least five high-severity violations. The May 6 visit, with ten, is the worst single-day count in that stretch.
The follow-up inspection conducted the next day, May 7, found six high-severity violations still present. That is not a facility that corrected its most serious problems overnight.
Koi Sushi has never been emergency-closed in its inspection history. The pattern in the records is not a facility that occasionally has a bad day; it is a facility that has produced high-severity violation counts across three consecutive years without a single inspection resulting in a closure order.
After ten high-severity violations on May 6, including food from an unverified source being served at a raw-fish restaurant with no warning to customers, the doors at 3635 Aloma Avenue stayed open.