Critical deficiencies’ found at 42% of shawarma eateries
Level nearly double the rate of other restaurants

By Glen McGregor February 7, 2010, The Ottawa Citizen

City of Ottawa public health inspectors, such as Michelle Desjardins, above, have written up more than 1,500 area food premises since January 2009 for not complying with regulations. Infractions ranged from a failure to keep food cold to storing toxic substances in the kitchen.
With its garlicky goodness and quick hit of protein, the shawarma ranks among pizza and Tylenol as favourite late night snacks for Ottawa partygoers. 

But some of the city’s shawarma restaurants have shaky records on food safety, a Citizen analysis of health inspection reports show.

A sample of 52 Ottawa-area shawarma shops inspected since last January shows 22 were found with “critical” deficiencies on their health inspection reports before the problems were fixed. That’s nearly twice the rate of critical problems found in other local eateries.

At Shawarma Albaba on St. Laurent Boulevard, city inspectors reported problems with food storage, temperature after cooking or reheating, and other deficiencies, according to reports in the city’s EatSafe database. The restaurant was also advised to bring in a pest control operator.

Manager Ali Nasser blames an ant problem on one of his neighbours throwing food outside and says he has gone to court over the matter. All other issues have since been fixed, he says, pointing to a clean inspection on Jan. 28.

“Everything is fine,” Nasser said. 

The OH-YA Café Plus in the ByWard Market building was cited three times for not keeping food cold enough and was told to adjust its refrigerator. Inspectors also noted problems with employee hand-washing and “hot holding” — ensuring food was kept at 60 degrees C after cooking or reheating.

Owner Omar Elgummi said he never had any problems with health inspections. 

“As far as I’m concerned, we never had any issues. The temperature may have been off a few degrees here or there,” he said. If so, it would have been adjusted, he said.

“There was no issues with the meat,” Elgummi said. “This place is nice and clean and there’s nothing wrong with it.” 

Inspectors gave the café a clean inspection on Jan. 12. 

Food safety issues are not unique to Ottawa’s shawarma spots. In 2008, Health Canada put out an advisory document created after consultations by the improbably named “Federal/Provincial/Territorial Donair Working Group.”

The group was formed after four food-borne illness outbreaks in Canada. In 2004, health officials in Calgary reported 84 cases or confirmed or probable E.coli infection, traced back to two donair restaurants believed to the be the likely source of contamination. There were similar outbreaks in the Windsor, Ont., area, in Edmonton in 2005 and again in Calgary in 2006.

The Health Canada document noted the technique of cooking donairs and shawarmas in which a cone of meat rotates next to an electric or gas grill. This method relies on visual inspection of “doneness” and raises the risk that E. coli, Salmonella, and Campylobacter bacteria may not be killed off in the cooking process, the document said.

For food not already cooked, the working group recommended secondary cooking of meat sliced from the donair cone, to a temperature of 71 degrees C (160 degrees F) for beef, lamb and pork and 74 degrees C (165 degrees F) for chicken.

The guidance, however, is not binding and it appears few shawarma spots follow the advice. City of Ottawa inspectors check to ensure that shawarma meat is cooked to 74 C and held at 60 C.

“We never re-cook it,” said Sammy Midani, manager of Civic Shwarma on Bank Street near Lansdowne Park. “If you cook it again, it’s going to dry.”

Midani said he is certain that the meat is properly cooked on the spit before it is served. He has been cooking shawarma for 25 years, in Canada and in Syria, and has never seen a customer served raw meat.

Civic Shwarma was cited for 22 deficiencies over the course of five inspections since last May. Midani said there were concerns about employees washing their hands after handling customers’ money. Some washed with only water so the inspector told them to use soap, he said.

Other problems were due, in part, to difficulties with the renovations of the shop, Midani said. Inspectors found no problems in their last inspection of Civic Shwarma in January.