DORAL, FL. A state inspector who walked into La Tremenda Casa de Asados on NW 41st Street on August 18 found food sourced from unapproved or unknown suppliers, meaning the meat and other ingredients on those plates had bypassed every federal safety checkpoint designed to catch Listeria, Salmonella, and E. coli before they reach a customer's fork.
The restaurant was not closed.
Despite six high-severity violations documented in a single visit, the Doral asado spot continued operating. The inspection record, filed with the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation, shows the six high-priority citations were accompanied by two intermediate violations, for a combined total of eight findings that day.
What Inspectors Found
The unapproved food sourcing violation was not the only concern that day. The inspector also cited the restaurant for having no employee health policy, meaning there is no written procedure requiring sick workers to stay out of the kitchen.
Handwashing problems appeared twice in the same inspection. The facility had inadequate handwashing infrastructure, and separately, employees were observed using improper hand and arm washing technique. Both citations appeared on the same report.
No person in charge was present or performing supervisory duties during the inspection. The restaurant also lacked a consumer advisory notifying diners that raw or undercooked items carry added risk, a requirement that exists specifically to protect pregnant women, elderly customers, and anyone with a compromised immune system.
The two intermediate violations, improper sewage or wastewater disposal and inadequate ventilation and lighting, added further weight to a record that inspectors documented and then left behind without ordering the doors shut.
What These Violations Mean
Food from unapproved sources is not a paperwork problem. When a restaurant cannot document where its meat, poultry, or seafood came from, there is no chain of custody. If a customer gets sick, investigators cannot trace the contaminated product back to a farm, a processor, or a distributor. USDA and FDA inspection systems exist precisely to catch Listeria, Salmonella, and Shiga toxin-producing E. coli before food reaches a commercial kitchen. Sourcing outside that system removes every one of those checkpoints.
The absence of an employee health policy compounds that risk directly. Norovirus alone accounts for an estimated 20 million illnesses in the United States each year, and food workers are a primary transmission route. A written health policy is the mechanism that keeps a symptomatic employee out of food preparation. Without one, there is no formal barrier between a sick cook and a customer's plate.
The two handwashing citations together describe a facility where proper hand hygiene was structurally impossible. Inadequate facilities means the infrastructure to wash hands correctly was not in place. Improper technique means that even when handwashing was attempted, it was not done in a way that removes pathogens. Studies show that improper technique leaves contamination on hands at rates comparable to not washing at all.
The sewage and wastewater disposal violation carries a separate category of risk. Improper handling of wastewater creates conditions for fecal contamination to spread across surfaces, equipment, and food contact areas throughout the facility.
The Longer Record
The August 2026 inspection was not an aberration. State records show La Tremenda Casa de Asados has been inspected 12 times and has accumulated 121 total violations. The pattern of high-severity citations runs back at least two years.
In August 2024, inspectors found six high-severity violations. In April 2024, six more. In February 2025, one visit produced six high-severity violations and five intermediate ones. A second visit that same month found two high and three intermediate. In August 2025, a single inspection turned up seven high-severity violations and four intermediate ones.
The most recent prior inspections, both conducted on September 22, 2025, together produced six high-severity violations and seven intermediate ones across two visits on the same day.
In none of those inspections did the state order an emergency closure. The facility has zero emergency closures on record across all 12 inspections.
Still Open
The six high-severity violations from August 18, 2026 follow a two-year pattern in which the same restaurant has repeatedly drawn the same categories of serious citations, including unapproved food sourcing, absent management, and handwashing failures, without triggering a shutdown.
Calls to the restaurant were not returned.
As of the inspection date, La Tremenda Casa de Asados remained open for business.
