India, Aug. 22 -- The restaurant was first inspected on April 16 and served with a notice mentioning 25 deficiencies such as wet and slippery floors in the kitchen, lack of records of raw materials, lack of testing of drinking water, lack of records of the quality of edible oil, lack of proper segregation of vegetarian and non-vegetarian food, and open windows without insect screens. During the subsequent visit, FDA officials found that nothing had been done about these deficiencies and suspended the licence. "The list of compliances required was very detailed," said Omaer Shaikh, managing director, Shalimar restaurant. They included use of separate colour-coded knives for vegetarian and non-vegetarian food, use of gloves, maintenance of health reports for all staff, provision of reverse osmosis (RO) water, implementation of a food safety management system, installation of fly traps in windows, and so on. Apart from putting these measures in place, the restaurant also got its top 10 selling dishes tested at an NABL-approved laboratory to prove that the food was safe for consumption, Shaikh said. "We also repainted the interiors wherever the paint was peeling off before reopening on August 4," Shaikh said. "We could have reopened earlier. But hearings happen only on Tuesdays. We were also asked for additional compliance beyond what had been pointed out earlier, which we completed immediately." Over the next few weeks, the restaurant's non-AC section on the ground floor will be converted into an air-conditioned one to ensure better hygiene, he added.ateeq shaikh...