What City Inspectors Found
Inspectors found many restaurants still making substitutions, one far beyond grouper or red snapper.
“There were several different things there,” Hershberger said about KC Sushi, 7753 NW Prairie View Road. He said one example of the four items they found substituted “was frozen cuttlefish sold as squid.”
Inspectors say the manager there acknowledged fake squid, fake crab, fake salmon eggs and fake red snapper.
A woman who identified herself as the manager of KC Sushi told NBC Action News they believe cuttlefish is the same thing as squid.
The FDA's list of authorized marketing terms for seafood does not list squid as an acceptable term for cuttlefish, however it does list "ross cuttlefish" or "lesser cuttlefish" as an unacceptable marketing slang term for squid or calamari. The FDA does not recognize slang terms as marketing names.
KC Sushi said it was replacing other items on the menu and changing vendors.
At Michael Smith's Restaurant on Main they told health inspectors staff error is why we got a comparably valued Sea Bass instead of Grouper during our test.
Michael Smith has blasted our report for including our findings on his restaurant.
Click here to read more about Smith’s complaint.At Bice, in the Kansas City Power & Light District, where we got sutchi catfish instead of grouper, and Nara on Main, where our tests indicated we got tilapia instead of red snapper, inspectors say the restaurants have changed the menu.
Health department reports indicate Bice, Michael Smith’s, and Nara "addressed or corrected" the problem before inspectors arrived.
Our tests indicated every sushi restaurant tested substituted with cheaper fish.
City inspectors confirmed evidence of ongoing substitutions at KC Sushi, Domo, and Kata along with the restaurants Fish City, Couzin’s and Red Snapper, where our tests indicated the restaurant wasn’t serving red snapper.
“These are classified as a critical violation,” Hershberger said.
At the Hilton Drum Room and Friend’s Sushi and Bento, inspectors found no confirmation of substitution.
Our DNA test indicated both substituted a cheaper fish for red snapper.
At restaurants across town, they're now changing the menus to be in compliance.
Just taking the red off of red snapper allows Couzins to now legally sell the less expensive snapper their supplier delivered.
“We believed that we were selling the real red snapper,” Acklin said.
Many of the restaurants tested were in other metro cities which haven't reported inspection findings.
None of the restaurants we sampled acknowledged intentionally violating FDA regulations.
Most restaurants claimed they believed they were ordering, paying for, and serving fish that was promised on their menu, but didn’t understand the differences between species.
