MIAMI, FL. In April 2026, a state inspector walked into Taj Mahal Indian Cuisine at 185 NW 36th Street and left with a citation sheet showing 10 high-severity violations, including food not cooked to the required minimum temperature, toxic chemicals stored improperly near food, and no demonstrated allergen awareness among staff.
The restaurant was not closed.
What Inspectors Found
The April 16 inspection documented 14 violations in total, 10 of them carrying the state's highest severity designation. Beyond the undercooked food and the chemical storage failures, inspectors found that employees were not washing their hands adequately, and that their technique, when they did wash, was improper.
Two separate handwashing violations on the same inspection report is notable. The first covers whether employees wash their hands at all at required moments. The second covers whether the washing itself is effective. Both failures were cited on the same visit.
The inspector also documented that the restaurant had no written employee health policy, meaning no formal system existed to keep sick workers out of the kitchen. Food contact surfaces were not properly cleaned or sanitized. Food was found in poor condition, mislabeled, or adulterated. The restaurant had no consumer advisory posted for raw or undercooked menu items, and no allergen awareness was demonstrated by staff.
Improper sewage or wastewater disposal was among the intermediate violations. So was the reuse of single-use items and improperly cleaned multi-use utensils.
What These Violations Mean
The undercooked food violation is among the most direct threats to a customer's health. Salmonella in poultry survives below 165 degrees Fahrenheit, and the margin between a safe internal temperature and a dangerous one is not visible to the eye or detectable by taste. A customer who ordered chicken that day had no way to know whether it had reached a safe temperature.
The allergen awareness violation carries a different kind of risk. Food allergies affect 32 million Americans, and allergic reactions send roughly 30,000 people to emergency rooms each year. When kitchen staff cannot identify allergens in the dishes they are preparing or serving, a customer with a peanut allergy or a severe shellfish reaction is relying on knowledge that the inspection record suggests did not exist at Taj Mahal in April.
Toxic chemicals stored near food is an acute hazard. Mislabeled or improperly stored cleaning agents can contaminate food directly, and the symptoms of chemical ingestion can appear within minutes of consumption.
The handwashing failures compound every other violation. Improper handwashing is the single most significant factor in spreading foodborne illness from person to person. When technique is also wrong, even employees who go through the motions of washing their hands may leave pathogens on their skin. Combined with no employee health policy, there was no documented barrier between a sick worker and the food being prepared that day.
The Longer Record
The April 16 inspection was not an anomaly. Taj Mahal Indian Cuisine has accumulated 221 violations across 21 inspections on record, and the pattern of high-severity citations runs through nearly every visit in recent years.
Eight days after the April 16 inspection, a follow-up visit on April 24 found 4 high-severity and 2 intermediate violations, meaning serious problems remained even after the initial citation. The December 2025 inspection had logged 8 high-severity violations. The April 2024 inspection found 5 high-severity violations. The June 2023 inspection found 5 high-severity violations with no intermediate violations at all.
The facility has never been emergency-closed. In more than two years of documented inspections, including visits that found 8 and 10 high-severity violations in a single day, the restaurant has remained open after every one.
Still Open
The April 16 inspection is part of a public record that now spans 21 visits and 221 total violations. The 10 high-severity citations from that single inspection represent the highest single-visit count in the facility's recent documented history.
After the inspector left on April 16, Taj Mahal Indian Cuisine continued serving customers.