A Chinese restaurant has been forced to close its doors after it was raided by local cops, who made a gross discovery when they inspected the eatery’s “roast duck”. The Jin Gu restaurant, in Madrid’s Usera district, was found to be selling a common vermin found on many city streets – pigeon.
Grim police footage from inside the restaurant showed leathery strips of meat hanging from a clothes horse inside the kitchen in vile conditions. Other clips showed bags of discoloured meat along with bowls of plucked and cooked pigeons.
The restaurant had excellent reviews, but within a few hours of customers leaving, they reportedly began to feel discomfort. Madrid Municipal Police officers received numerous complaints about the restaurant before raiding it on March 25. When they entered the restaurant, they went out to a back room where they were met with a vile sight – 300kg of rotten food.
It is thought that the restaurant grabbed pigeons off the street, kicking them to death before plucking them and selling them as roasted duck. According to local media, the restaurant also had eight faulty, rusty freezers all filled with bags of unlabelled and undated meat.
There were also cockroaches in the kitchen and a whole host of rat traps scattered across the floor. The restaurant was also found to have no thermometers to measure the temperatures of areas where food was being stored. Their cookware was also found to be rusted and unsanitary.
“Everything smelled of rotten seafood; it was almost unbearable,” said one of the officers who took part in the raid. It is estimated that more than a tonne of products had been stored without any temperature control or health guarantees.
Along with the gross conditions, investigators also found the restaurant to be in possession of prohibited and illegal items, such as sea cucumbers, which are protected by strict marine laws. During their search, cops also found a secret storage room hidden behind a shelf in the restaurant’s disabled toilet which was not listed on the business’ licence.
Fire extinguishers were not placed properly as they did not meet the minimum height from the ground and emergency doors at the restaurant had been blocked by bins. As a result of the raid, the restaurant was forced to close and its owner is now being investigated for crimes against public health, wildlife and consumer rights.
Despite having been shut down by cops, a sign in Chinese outside the restaurant indicates it has been closed for a holiday. The word “dirty” has been written next to it in marker.
Residents who live in the same building as the Chinese restaurant told El Mundo they have reported the restaurant to the police several times. One resident said: “None of us ate there. It smelled bad, and we saw food brought in on a cart and left at the door on broad daylight.”
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