A new statement from the OK hashgacha says that the proprietor of Kosher Chinese Express in Manalapan intentionally sold treif to his customers. Just a few days ago, YWN reported that OK Kosher has pulled their certification of Kosher Chinese Express in Manalapan, NJ, after damning video emerged of the eatery’s proprietor buying treif meat and chickens at a nearby wholesale store.
The full statement reads as follows:
OK Kosher has completed an extensive investigation into the events at Kosher Chinese Express in Manalapan, New Jersey. Kosher Chinese Express intentionally violated its obligation to the kosher consumer despite OK Kosher’s having assigned multiple Mashgichim Temidim to this restaurant.
These Mashgichim Temidim were the only people who had keys to the restaurant, refrigerators, and freezers.
A video of the owner buying non-kosher chicken and meat in bulk was shared with OK Kosher. The restaurant was immediately closed for investigation. It was determined that those products were not brought into the restaurant and they were permitted to reopen with additional kosher precautions.
A few days later, empty boxes from non-kosher chicken and meat (a different brand from the original video) were discovered by OK Kosher Rabbis in one of the communal dumpsters in the shopping plaza where the restaurant is located. The neighboring restaurants were questioned and it was confirmed that the boxes were not their property and they had not used the products which were originally in these packages. At this point the owner was notified that the restaurant would remain closed until further notice.
The owner was questioned by OK Kosher Rabbis about the boxes in the dumpster. The owner then decided to permanently close Kosher Chinese Express, essentially acknowledging wrongdoing.
Later, we obtained verbal admission from the owner that he brought in non-kosher chicken and meat in small amounts over an extended period of time. We did not find physical proof of this, but it seems that the products were somehow snuck in during operational hours.
Consumers can contact OK Kosher Certification at 718-756-7500.
The owner verbally admitted to bringing in the non-kosher items beginning with the nationwide chicken shortage in March 2022.
HaRav Menachem M. Weissmandl shlit”a was consulted throughout the investigation and he ruled that kashering is necessary if you reheated the food using your own equipment. Consult a Rav about koshering questions.
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28 Responses
This is a great step forward to admit and explain the situation. What is missing:
1) How was he able to trick cameras and mashgichim especially when they were on alert (last few days)?
2) What can be done to fix/improve the situation not to happen again?
perhaps a civil lawsuit, requiring the owner to pay punitive damages of 10x (or more?) the money which he made fraudulently? (as tzedakah to feed the poor, of course.)
if the probability of being caught is high, and the consequences of cheating are drastic enough, there will be less temptation to cheat.
People will be talking about this for a great long time.
Sad when things like this happen. A conversation regarding what happened and how to prevent it is an important conversation to have to prevent this from happening again and to maintain trust in the OK and other kashrus agencies.
My question is regarding the infamous video showing him loading his car at the wholesale place.
First, who took the video?
Was it someone hired by OK labs to spy on him, or just any person who took it upon themselves and submitted it.
Because it seems that this was the smoking gun, and so if not for that video, were the OK mashgichim that out of touch to not put 1 + 1 together and figure it out? And this would have gone on forever?
Totally agree with 2qwerty. I would think the OK needs to come out and explain this. How is the frum public supposed to be able to trust the kashrus in non-frum/non-jewish owned establishments, if even alerted mashgichim couldn’t catch this..?
this is a terrible story , yet it is impossible for any certification or business of any sort to be 100% correct 100% of the time and thats why halacha has concepts of chazakah & rov
the idea that heads need to roll anytime there is a major mess up is not a torah concept, the idea that someone has to publicly apologize … is a new culture no one owes you more than who they are..( the ok is not bnei brak & u know it)
there is a understanding between us the customer , the company and hechsher… that each needs to do the proper thing, its unrealistic for anyone to think that any hechsher cant ever be duped..there are yidden that are way more stringent & limit where they eat & what they order..the rest of us “rely” and eat…
The video is a video from 2013. It happened to come out again because Hashem wanted it to which got the OK investigating. Civil lawsuit won’t help the fact that people already ate treifos and neveilos and it can easily happen again. The only option at this point is if all the hechsher companies decide together to adopt a more stringent kashrus. For example if they decide to adopt bishul yisrael according to the bais yosef and not the rama, chances of this happening would be like not at all happening. Acc to the shulchan aruch all meats and chickens need to be put on the fire by a Jew. Acc to the rama he only needs to turn on the fire in the morning once and then can go cleaning the tables and chairs the rest of the day. Perhaps in Europe it worked but here in America it does not. I believe in Israel today all Jews follow the stringencies of the sephardim over the ashkenazim based on the bais yosef like with wine, yashan, bishul yisrael, and others not like the kulos that were accepted here according to the rama.
Toras Avigdor Q&A
Q:
What should be the attitude of an Orthodox Jew regarding glatt kosher Chinese restaurants?
A:
I think it’s superfluous to even speak about this. We’re definitely happy that they are glatt kosher. And if they would close down entirely it would be even better.
TAPE # 38 (November 1974)
Now imagine products coming from far away countries that have half baked masgichim overlooking thousands of boxes of products. How can we trust products like that. It’s impossible. If you can’t watch a store how you going to watch a mass production factory out of the country no less.
I don’t get it. What is so surprising? When so many, too many of us worship the all mighty dollar this will continue. How many of us truly examine our behavior and justify and rationalize our making a few dollars extra here and there whether via the government or dealing with others? What does “frum” really entail?
Only eat in a establishment if you would eat in the owner’s home. Mashgichim are worthless if the owner is trying to pull a fast one over them.
Btw, I’m sure that everyone who ate in the restaurant feels much better now knowing that the treife they ate isn’t the treife from the photo. Not
The title of the article is unfortunate.The רב.המכשיר is the one responsible. Especially when the owner isn’t שומרי מצות, the רב המכשיר is the one being relief upon to verify that an appropriate system is in place.
Since the cases were found in nearby dumpsters, how were the chickens being smuggled in? We’re workers stuffing frozen chicken into their underwear? Or were they just carrying whole cases into the kitchen, emptying them,.and then just discarding the boxes?
We still don’t have answers to any of these questions. All of the evidence is circumstantial. And the owner.has already written off the business because of the bad publicity from the original accusations,.and may not be answering questions truthfully.
The only thing we do know is that based on the system the רב המכשיר had one place, it is completely possible that non kosher was served.
‘We did not find physical proof of this, but it seems that the products were somehow snuck in during operational hours”
THEY SAY THERE WERE “multiple Mashgichim Temidim” HOW IN THE WORLD DID THEY SNEAK IN “SMALL” AMOUNTS DURING “operational hours”? AND THEY FOUND EMTY BOXES? SMALL AMOUNTS? IN BOXES? IN FRONT OF MASHGICHIM? AND SECURITY CAMERAS? IN TODAYS DAY ANG AGE? BROUGHT IN IN BROAD DAYLIGHT? THEY TRUSTED A GOYISH OWNER? HARD TO BELEIVE THERE WERE MASHGICHIM THERE WHO UNLOCKED THE DOOR IN THE MORNING, STAYED A WHOLE DAY WATCHING, AND LOCKED THE DOORS AT NIGHT, AFTER THE WORKERS CLEANED UP AND PUT AWAY EVERYTHING! SURE! I WOULD NOT BE SURPRISED IF THERE ARE MANY WITNESSES THAT THE WORKERS CLEANED UP AND LOCKED UP EVERY NIGHT AND NO MASHGIACH WAS AROUND TO LOCK THE DOOR.
If they had “multiple” mashgichim, and these guys were “the only people who had keys to the restaurant, refrigerators, and freezers”, and there were cameras in the restaurant HOW was treif meat brought in “over an extended perior of time??? Are these vigilant mashgichim now working at other restaurants in the NYC metro area?
Why would this even surprise us, Why wouldn’t a Chinaman do it ?, if he can get the same meat 20-30% cheaper, he has to be crazy for passing by the opportunity to make an extra two to three thousand dollars a week, especially if he doesn’t understand or cannot comprehend why it would be wrong
Anyone eating in a restaurant owned by Orientals, knows damn well he will be eating TREIF sooner than later.
The same goes to any so called Rabbi or kashrus org.giving the HECHSHAR
My late friend, a rabbi in New Jersey, once told me about a dinner for some Orthodox organization that took place in Manhattan at which, owing to a mix-up in the kitchen, treif food was mistakenly brought out and served. When one of the staff told the mashgiach about the mix-up and it had been determined that the attendees had indeed eaten of the treif, the mashgiach warned him to keep it under wraps lest a riot break out.
WAS THE OWNER A GOY (or frei Jew)?
Ok let’s spell out the actual flaw.
Any owner of a restaurant, even if he has no key to the freezer can bring in a few chickens per day.
1) back door
2) when mashgiach is in the bathroom
3) when mashgiach goes to daven?
4) just in a small shopping bag as if he is brining his own lunch or fruits.
5) they can save the kosher box and refill it next time with non kosher chickens…etc
If you don’t have a plan for each of these cases than the system is flawed because it’s easy to pull it off.
Some of the ways to help this is to add another layer of protection by having a dedicated person to watch cameras. He can watch with a delay using reward and handling few restaurants at a time.
Each delivery needs to be watched from truck to freezer.
Each bathroom break needs to be watched and so on.
All the sales and all the invoices need to be recorded to analyze and compare the daily, weekly, monthly correlation between invoices and sales.
All personal bags need to be inspected before they can be brought inside, even by customers.
I know some will say I’m going too far and it’s invasion of privacy. We can discuss it and find middle ground but I think these ideas have to be considered.
Having gone to this establishment many years ago, I had the impression that the mashgiach was unmotivated and unstimulated.
He was just sitting there pretty much doing nothing and waiting around because it was during a slow time.
“Only eat in a establishment if you would eat in the owner’s home.”
That’s the best advice, and the only foolproof way to make sure you’re not being duped. I feel bad for all those patrons who unknowingly ingested treifus. But I have a question: Kashering their keilim is clear enough, what isn’t so clear is how to kasher their neshamos. Or does it make a difference that they had no idea what they were eating?
It’s been said in earlier posts over the last few days, that this owner (and family) has other restaurants, at least one being in Brooklyn.
That needs to immediately be verified and if so, It needs to be publicly disclosed which restaurant that is, and the hechsher needs to be removed immediately, if it hasn’t been done so already.
Can anyone verify this and advise everyone?
So we see that a store may have MANY Mashgichim and cameras all over – and yet this still doesn’t help!
Frumkit is Reserved for Shul ONLY and NOT in dealing with spouse and children.
Tip your feather hat a bit to the left and you are Frum, then you can cheat in business, treat your kids like they are encroaching on your time, disrespect your father, mother, say lashon Hara, but in Shul you must listen to everyones problems and yell out your donation so people can hear you and be baal Chessed.
Isn’t that what they teach in Yeshivos by role models and rabbis?
BUSINESS IS BUSINESS.
You want Kosher food? Go home and ask your maid (wife) to cook for you
Business is Business
@okaaay said that this video is from 2013!! And the hashgocha continued!
Can this be verified, I assumed the video just occured!
I don’t understand how any frum you can feel comfortable eating in a restaurant owned and operated by a goy, let alone a Chinese goy. (Go ahead, call me racist).
And yes, I know that in most of the big Kashrus scandals the owners were frum yidden. The fact is that if there is enough of a motive, no hechsher is foolproof.
Did he use a window? Did he turn off the power to the cameras?