SEMINOLE, FL. State inspectors walked into Zom Hee Restaurant at 9015 Park Blvd on July 30 and found food sourced from unapproved or unknown suppliers, a violation that means no one, including regulators, can trace where that food came from or whether it passed any federal safety inspection.
Six high-severity violations were documented. Zero intermediate violations. The restaurant was not closed.
What Inspectors Found
The food sourcing violation is among the most serious a restaurant can receive. When food enters a kitchen from an unapproved or unknown supplier, it has bypassed the USDA and FDA inspection systems entirely. If a customer becomes ill, investigators have no supply chain to trace.
Toxic chemicals were also found improperly stored or labeled near food preparation areas. That violation is not about cleanliness, it is about the direct risk of chemical contamination reaching a customer's plate.
Food contact surfaces, the cutting boards, prep tables, and utensils that touch every dish leaving the kitchen, were found not properly cleaned or sanitized. Inspectors also cited the restaurant for inadequate handwashing facilities, meaning the physical infrastructure for proper hygiene was not in place, and for improper handwashing technique among staff, meaning that even when employees attempted to wash their hands, they were not doing it correctly.
The sixth violation: no consumer advisory posted for raw or undercooked foods. Without that notice, customers who are pregnant, elderly, immunocompromised, or otherwise vulnerable have no way to know they may be ordering something that carries elevated risk.
What These Violations Mean
The food sourcing citation carries a specific danger that goes beyond the meal itself. If a diner becomes sick after eating at Zom Hee, health investigators would need to identify the origin of the food to determine whether other people, at other restaurants or in grocery stores, were exposed to the same contaminated supply. With an unapproved or unknown source, that chain of investigation stops immediately.
The combination of inadequate handwashing facilities and improper technique is not redundant, it is compounding. The first violation means the infrastructure for hygiene does not meet code. The second means that even with whatever facilities exist, employees were not using them correctly. Together, they describe a kitchen where pathogens on hands have a direct route to food.
Improperly stored or mislabeled chemicals near food prep areas represent a different category of risk entirely. This is not a bacterial contamination concern. This is acute poisoning, the kind that can send a customer to an emergency room within hours of a meal.
The missing consumer advisory for raw or undercooked items is particularly pointed in a restaurant serving dishes where raw fish or undercooked protein may be standard. Customers who are pregnant, elderly, or living with conditions that compromise their immune systems cannot make an informed choice if the restaurant does not tell them what is on the plate.
The Longer Record
Zom Hee Restaurant: Recent Inspection History
July 30 was not an aberration. State records show Zom Hee has accumulated 382 total violations across 29 inspections on record. Every inspection in the past three years except one has produced at least six high-severity violations. The September 2023 visit produced nine.
The pattern is consistent and it runs in one direction. High-severity violations, the kind that carry direct public health consequences, have appeared in every recent inspection without exception. The restaurant has never been emergency-closed.
The July 2023 inspection, which produced only one high-severity violation, stands as the single outlier in an otherwise unbroken record of serious citations. The inspections before and after it returned to the same elevated counts.
Still Open
Six high-severity violations. No intermediate violations. No closure order.
Zom Hee Restaurant at 9015 Park Blvd was open for business after the July 30 inspection, the same day inspectors documented food from an unknown source and toxic chemicals stored improperly near where that food was being prepared.
