Ming Du Might Be Ming Done (Again)

The steam-table empire is down one today, as Ming Du, formerly Ying Du – serving up darn good and darn cheap Chinese steam table fare and steamed buns – has been shuttered by the DoH. You might be able to fake out the tax man, but you can’t hide from the Long Arm of the NYC Department of Health.


A swing by the restaurant at lunchtime yesterday had a bunch of the folks who normally prepare and serve the food sitting around unhappily, and a guy with a rolling case of chemicals and a respirator come in and out. Hopefully they’re going to do something about the ingress and egress of whatever may have gotten near (or hopefully not TOO near) the food. Gas all you want but the pests will return if you skimp out on the treatment.

A quick search for Ming Du at the DoH’s website shows one hell of a laundry list of violations, racking up a high score in a situation where you really want to score like a golfer – as low as possible. The big hitters include “Live roaches present in facility’s food and/or non-food areas” and “food not protected from potential source of contamination during storage, preparation, transportation, display or service.”

I’ve eaten at places with a C and had no problems. Ming Du got inspected two weeks previous with another C, based upon their score, before this one caused their closing. It was the same issues, almost worse for the presence of flies. While I’d do another C-rated restaurant in the future if the price was right, maybe Ming Du just couldn’t keep the coefficient of insanely cheap food, prepared well, and kept sanitary. I will miss massive schlogs of bitter melon, roast pork, and stir-fried eggplant over rice – unless Fuji Bakery can pull together something in the absence of their three-blocks-uptown competition.

Related:
Ying Du’s Roaster Ruined by the DOH?

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