My daughter and wife got food poisoning from Sushi Oyama in Burnaby!!!
 

As a few members/friends on this board already know, my wife and daughter suffered bad cases of food poisoning a few days ago. Here's what happened & my review of how the restaurant's management dealt with it.

Sushi Oyama has been my family’s favourite local sushi place for years. We’ve brought literally dozens and dozens of new diners there for lunches, dinners, and special events. Unfortunately, the quality has gone downhill in recent months and just recently our family suffered two extremely severe cases of food poisoning after ordering and eating some takeout sushi from Oyama. Last Friday, we had a small fire in our backyard but were very fortunate that our neighbour’s four years old son saw it, told his dad, and had his dad call the fire department. The two then came over to knock on our door and let us know. I was able to quickly put out a fire (motor on a fish filter seized and caught fire), even before the fire trucks came. As a reward for our little hero, I asked his proud father what his son’s favourite food is. He told me sushi, specifically California roll. So I offered to take them to Oyama for lunch or dinner but then we settled on us just delivering some takeout sushi that night to accommodate their busy schedule. Fine, ordered a big Party tray for them and some extra sushi (Dynamite, California rolls & Tempura Udon for our own dinner). Dropped off the sushi to the neighbours and went home where we had our own sushi & udon for supper. Note: the only food we consumed that night was from Oyama. My daughter had some sushi then went out for a short violin lesson (20 min.). Came home and finished her dinner. I had saved the entire California roll because it’s her favourite. She gave a couple pieces to her mom. Long story short, 20 minutes after eating the California roll from Oyama, my seven years old Felicia is throwing up violently in the bathroom. After the third time, I called Oyama to inform them about what’s happening and make sure they double check their food prep hygiene and safety protocols. The hostess was sympathetic and offered a free California and Dynamite roll. We all hoped the worst was past. WRONG! Felicia ended up vomiting 13 times and then started having diarrhea. My wife, who had 2 pieces of the tainted sushi, then started feeling deathly ill as well and threw up. Both my wife and daughter were completely incapacitated from Friday evening till Sunday noon. They were finally recovered enough to get out of bed by Sunday. I constantly emailed Oyama throughout the night and throughout the weekend. I spoke a few times to the manager, who’s main priority was to deny that it could have been Oyama’s fault, claiming that they had not had any reported “health or safety issues in 4, 5, 6 years” (her words). She said she would talk to the staff and owners and get back to me. She never did. Any contact with the manager was initiated by me. She never even replied to my emails or text messages. The sense I got was that she was hoping if she ignored me, I would just go away. Well, a relative suggested looking into the Health Inspection records for Oyama. I was shocked to learn from this link http://www.healthspace.ca/fha/food that Sushi Oyama on Kingsway in Burnaby had failed four of their last nine inspections. In 4 of the last nine inspections by the Fraser Health Authority, Sushi Oyama scored a HIGH HAZARD RATING. Click on the link to see for yourself. The manager never offered to apologize to my family (especially my little girl who suffered most) and never offered to at least refund our order or anything. Altogether, my wife and I each lost a day and a half of work over the weekend, and my daughter was still too weak and ill to go to school on Monday.
I have a policy of writing positive reviews when a business provides good/great service and we are happy with their products. I also have a policy of informing businesses that fail to do so and give them an opportunity to make things right. Other businesses whether online (like Amazon or eBay e-tailers) and even local businesses, when informed that their product or service failed, at least apologize and take steps to rectify the issue. They send replacements or offer a full refund for defective items. They take the appropriate actions to make things right for their customers, resulting in a win-win situation as they retain a happy, loyal customer who spends more money at their business in the future.
I do not enjoy blasting a local business, especially in these tough economic times. However, the attitude of the management at Sushi Oyama has indicated clearly to my family that they are not going to accept any responsibility for the food poisoning incident that my seven years old daughter and wife suffered after eating that California roll from Oyama. This update of my previously very positive review of the same sushi house is to warn fellow patrons to be aware that if you eat here and get food poisoning, management will deny that it’s their food and will try to ignore your complaints and avoid taking responsibility. Don’t expect a refund either or any other compensation for your pain and suffering. I am very sad that it has come down to this because Oyama has been our go-to sushi place for several years and now we have to find a different place for our sushi fix. It has now been 12 days and still NO response from Sushi Oyama’s management. Therefore, I feel obligated to warn the public that if you eat at Oyama and get food poisoning, based on my family’s experience, management will NOT accept responsibility and will try to ignore your complaints and hope you just go away. I am sad it has come to this because we used to love eating at Oyama, but now my daughter won’t even eat any sushi anymore. I have kept my daughter’s soiled clothing, have several digital photos of the incident and had three family members who are retired nurses (two of them registered nurses) over to check on my daughter and wife during the incident to confirm they were suffering from food poisoning and offer advice on how to treat it. I told this to the management at Oyama and they still have chosen to pretend this never happened. This is what happened to our family. You be the judge.

BTW, since this happened, another friend from church who was also a regular customer at Oyama on Kingsway told us that when she called them to complain that they had been given sushi that was NOT fresh (i.e. House rolls with hard, dry rice as if it was stored in the fridge and not made fresh), the person she was talking to just hung up on her. This happened twice to her so she's never going back.

I tried them before ( as well as the one in poco) nothing really outstanding to me but I will not go there not to take a chance. I like Sushi Garden & Noa's ( was Sushi House) in the neighbourhood where you and i live.

PS That building was originally a funeral home... then PJ Burgers, and a few other restaraunts...hope you and family are doing recovering :)

Sorry to hear that Anthony
Hope everything is better by now.
I will definately not ever go there and will tell my friends.
Thanks for the heads up

Thankfully, both Irene and Felicia are now fully recovered although my daughter lost a few pounds that weekend and she was slim to begin with. Now she won't eat sushi, but that's understandable.

The only silver lining is that my 4 year old Isabella (who LOVES California rolls) was staying at my parents house and the little 4 years old neighbour boy who saved our place from the fire didn't get the California roll. They would have ended up in the hospital for sure. I tried convincing Felicia to go to the hospital several times but she refused and so I had my mom and two aunts (all retired nurses from St. Vincents & VGH) come over to check on her and we followed their advice for home treatment to the T. My sister and cousin went 3 weeks earlier and told us after this happened that they both thought quality was way down, the sushi tasted a bit off and was not well rolled (i.e. falling apart).

Sorry to hear and glad they're doing better now! That's not a pleasant way to spend a weekend :(

You sure it was from that meal though? I just read on Webmd that food poisoning symptoms can start in as little as one hour in the case of a staph and up to 10 days later. My GF and I just had a bout of food poisoning in Asia but we narrowed it down to a meal 36 hours earlier. 20 minutes just seems incredibly fast

I hope Felicia gets her taste for sushi back! Mmmmsushi

Really difficult to pin it on the sushi unless you've had someone identify the strain of bacteria that caused the illness.

Seems like ti could have been anything your wife and daughter both ate throughout the week.


Here is a bit of info from Mayoclinic...


Contaminant Onset of symptoms Foods affected and means of transmission

Campylobacter 2 to 5 days Meat and poultry. Contamination occurs during processing if animal feces contact meat surfaces. Other sources include unpasteurized milk and contaminated water.

Clostridium botulinum 12 to 72 hours Home-canned foods with low acidity, improperly canned commercial foods, smoked or salted fish, potatoes baked in aluminum foil, and other foods kept at warm temperatures for too long.

Clostridium perfringens 8 to 16 hours Meats, stews and gravies. Commonly spread when serving dishes don't keep food hot enough or food is chilled too slowly.

Escherichia coli (E. coli) O157:H7 1 to 8 days Beef contaminated with feces during slaughter. Spread mainly by undercooked ground beef. Other sources include unpasteurized milk and apple cider, alfalfa sprouts, and contaminated water.

Giardia lamblia 1 to 2 weeks Raw, ready-to-eat produce and contaminated water. Can be spread by an infected food handler.

Hepatitis A 28 days Raw, ready-to-eat produce and shellfish from contaminated water. Can be spread by an infected food handler.

Listeria 9 to 48 hours Hot dogs, luncheon meats, unpasteurized milk and cheeses, and unwashed raw produce. Can be spread through contaminated soil and water.

Noroviruses (Norwalk-like viruses) 12 to 48 hours Raw, ready-to-eat produce and shellfish from contaminated water. Can be spread by an infected food handler.

Rotavirus 1 to 3 days Raw, ready-to-eat produce. Can be spread by an infected food handler.

Salmonella 1 to 3 days Raw or contaminated meat, poultry, milk or egg yolks. Survives inadequate cooking. Can be spread by knives, cutting surfaces or an infected food handler.

Shigella 24 to 48 hours Seafood and raw, ready-to-eat produce. Can be spread by an infected food handler.

Staphylococcus aureus 1 to 6 hours Meats and prepared salads, cream sauces, and cream-filled pastries. Can be spread by hand contact, coughing and sneezing.

Vibrio vulnificus 1 to 7 days Raw oysters and raw or undercooked mussels, clams, and whole scallops. Can be spread through contaminated seawater.

Regardless of where they caught it, I'm glad to know they have recovered. Send my regards to your wife and daughter.

As a safety precaution, I won't be heading to that establishment any time soon and will advise my friends/family to avoid it. I have caught food poisoning before from undercooked chicken and it is NO FUN.

Oh gosh that's terrible Anthony! Glad to hear everyone has made a complete recovery! I recall getting sick once on bad sushi. It's not pleasant. :cry:

Headline grabbed me, as I just ordered from the Coquitlam location. Quickly checked the link and found Coquitlam has recieved all great scores.
Thank you for you post, more importantly I'm glad to hear your family is recovering.

I have been to the coquitlam location maybe half a dozen times. No sickness to report but the food is average at best, and more than half the time they'd get our order wrong...

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It's one reason why I refuse to eat sushi I never saw the joy of eating raw food

On another note I can attest to what food poisoning looks and feels like having experienced it first hand recently and discovering first hand my body reacts poorly to food poisoning and made it especially bad especially since I had my heart attack 11 days previous to that fun it was not.

Glad to hear Felicia and Irene are ok now, and BTW buddy now you will never get me to eat that stuff. :lol:

FUGU!

Technically sushi is not raw food, its a term for the rice used in making rolls, sushi can be any form of cooked or uncooked protein, vegetables etc.
Sashimi means raw fish.

Sorry to hear that your family was sick Anthony, nothing worse than worshiping the porcelain throne.

Very true. The California roll, for example, is a combination of cooked rice, seaweed, imitation crab (which is actually pre-cooked fish), cucumber, and avocado.

My guess is on the avocado going bad.

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Good night! lol

Sorry to hear Anthony, we go to that place all the time and it has been pretty good....might have to change spots.

you gotta go Mega Sushi or Boss Sushi in Coq.

Boss Sushi is seriously good.

Japanese owned and they do not f around.

This can happen anywhere. Stopping going to a place that's always been good seems a bit over reactive :) I got food poisoning in my kitchen. I denied the blame too. I still eat there :)

Boss sushi eh.....gonna try it, my go to is California sushi, Korean owned but its darn good.

Guess you gotta a point.....my stomach is like a human garburator anyways. lol

Well, within quick driving distance of our place are well over a dozen sushi places. My daughter refuses to eat at Oyama after this. It's the management's reaction (or lack thereof) that contributes to our decision to no longer give them our business. Plus the fact they failed 4 out of their last 9 health inspections (as shown on the Fraser Health Authority website). Manager lied to me about how it couldn't be their sushi cause they have a perfect health and safety record for the last 4 to 6 years, when in fact they don't. The new Sushi Garden is opening up 3 minutes from our place soon so we'll give them a try, although Felicia's stomach is still not happy at the thought of eating sushi yet. Hopefully she'll change her mind if we go somewhere else for our sushi fix.

Rich, we also really like California Sushi, other than the wait times. Always had good food there. We also like Nao Sushi on Kingsway for their bento boxes and Sushi Town on Hastings, for their spicy salmon bowls. We go to about 5 or 6 different sushi places, so giving up one where we no longer trust is not a big inconvenience.

It's a lot different here than in Victoria where your options are much more limited in terms of sushi. Here, across from Metrotown Mall and within the mall, there are literally at least five or six sushi places. Kingsway is a magnet for sushi restaurants.:wink:

Last year 84% of all restaurants, eateries and coffee shops in the lower mainland were in violation of the health codes a surprising number given that the rest of the province last year averaged 27% health code violations.

Here are links to the Fraser health authority for violations and eatery closures for various cities in the Fraser valley

Closures
http://www.fraserhealth.ca/your-envi...rant-closures/

Inspection reports for every eatery in every city in the Fraser valley
http://www.healthspace.ca/fha/food

Violation and ticketing
http://www.fraserhealth.ca/media/foo...s_01082016.pdf

Mega is closer to California.

Boss Sushi is up in Westwood Plateau.

I am not a fan of California....I liken it to the McDonalds of the sushi world...very much geared towards high turn over.

They are cheap though...which is good from time to time.

Interested to know what you think of Boss if you go.

Now that this has turned into a sushi thread (sorry Anthony :wink:), I'll throw my vote into the hat.

Shima-ya on Victoria/41st has the best (real) sushi in GVRD. Having lived and traveled to Japan countless times, I can safely say that Shima-ya comes closest to Japanese proper nigiri sushi. It's a mom-and-pop place and it ain't cheap, but if it's quality you want, give it a shot.

For the Tricities peeps, Sushi 990 over at Poco has great bang for the buck and its quality is high above all the California Sushi, Sushi Town, etc.

Actually Shima-ya is my sister's and brother's favourite sushi place. My sister-in-law is Japanese Canadian and her mother is a retired sushi chef and they also like Shima-ya.

Good to know about Sushi 990 but rarely go to Poco except to pick up corals/fish:wink:

Also, a friend of mine on BCA just posted that 3 years ago his sister-in-law, mother-in-law & father-in-law all got food poisoning from the Burnaby Oyama and after vomiting for days, they swore never to go back. Other people have been texting and pming me with their own horror stories, which makes me sort of feel lucky that we didn't have any bad experiences for so many years, considering we ate there almost every month for a long time.

I wonder if its under new management because the quality has dipped (again, multiple people have mentioned this and asked me the same question). Up till now, it's was the two price jumps in less than a year and the slightly smaller portions we were served that caught my attention.

Oh well, Felicia has told me she never wants to eat there again so its actually good to learn about other sushi places our friends here are recommending to try out. Maybe one of these recommended places will become our family's go-to sushi place. I'll give it another week and then take the family out for sushi to see if I can get Felicia to try eating sushi again. I don't want this incident to turn her off from Japanese food long-term.