Sneaky, Seedy Restaurant Tricks
by Spence Cooper on 10/19/09 at 8:27 am
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Or are you being tricked?
We previously reported on fraud, deception, mislabeling and substitution of various kinds of fish in the restaurant industry. The most extensive fraud involves the substitution of the far-less expensive fish tilapia with red snapper as well as the mislabeling of Asian Catfish as grouper.
Last year in August, ABC News published a story about couple of teenagers who collected fish samples in stores and restaurants in New York City. They sent the samples to the University of Guelph in Canada. Of 56 samples that could be identified by a DNA barcoding identification technique, 14 were mislabeled. In all cases the fish were labeled as a more expensive fish.
The outright fraud and deception by restaurants isn’t confined to New York, there are cases all across North America and Canada, and the deception isn’t confined to just fish.
Jackie Sayet with Miami New Times recently did a piece on bogus Kobe beef. It seems dozens of Miami restaurants including upscale and casual eateries as well as local and national chains include misleading information on their menus, duping unwitting customers into paying top dollar for the highly expensive Kobe beef from the black Tajima breed of Wagyu cattle, raised in Japan under strict agriculture oversight.
Authentic Kobe beef sells for $16 to $30 per ounce depending on the cut, according to Anshu Pathak, owner of Kobe Beef Incorporated, a leading online purveyor.
Pseudo Kobe beef in the U.S. is the brainchild of American farmers who imported a few dozen Wagyu cattle and then cross-bred them with domestic Angus. Sayet claims the offspring look similar to the pure-bred Japanese, but the meat is darker, with less marbling and a bolder flavor and texture. The American version costs four to ten dollars per ounce; the Australians produce something similar.
Sayet says at the Bancroft Supper Club in Miami Beach, they sell “Kobe beef mini burgers” and “Kobe beef carpaccio” for $18.00, but what they’re selling is Australian Wagyu.
At a high-end Miami steak house Meat Market, the meat labeled “Kobe skirt steak” at $31 and “white truffle Kobe tartare” at $21 comes from Snake River Farms in Idaho, not Japan. And there’s a neighborhood burger joint in South Beach selling seven-dollar “mini Kobe corn dogs” also from Snake River Farms.
You can bet your bottom restaurant dollar this Kobe beef mislabeling fraud isn’t confined to Florida.
There’s a USDA Certified Kobe Beef Program with guidelines for the Japanese product’s representation in the American marketplace which individual states use for regulations, but no one enforces them, you’re on your own — and the same holds true for county agencies, regardless of any civil or criminal statues on the books.
Be it fish or beef, most consumers don’t really have the savvy to know they’re blatantly being ripped off by falsely labeled product. And since no one enforces regulations, fraudulent restaurant owners willing to scam the public know it’s like taking candy from a baby.
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