Restaurant owner claims customer who found insect in food staged photos, but netizens say this is ‘ridiculous’

A woman caused a minor furor online when she posted a photo of an insect she said she found at in her order of dim sum at House of Seafood in Punggol.

“Claiming that it was a “cockroach”, Ms Kristine Giam added, Disgusting, almost bite into it already. Not a full grown size (I might be wrong cos I’m not a roach expert)” on her Oct 19 post on the COMPLAINT SINGAPORE Facebook page.

She tagged not only the restaurant but also the Singapore Food Agency (SFA) and the National Environment Agency (NEA) in her post, and added that she had already lodged a complaint with the SFA.

And while the restaurant’s owner, Mr Francis Ng, apologised, he added that it was possible that the roach had not come from his establishment.

“Our kitchens are very clean. The dim sum is placed in the steaming baskets and served, no problem at all,” 8world quotes him as saying.

Mr Ng added that the roach may have flown into the eatery through an open door, and alighted on Giam’s plate.

He also said that video cameras from that time showed that there had been three siu mai in her order, and she had already eaten one.

But after she found the insect, she allegedly took the two other siu mai, “placed them on a plate, and found a good angle, making sure to place it in front of the restaurant’s signage before taking a picture of it,” he said.

He also claimed that the customer had refused for the dim sum to be removed from the bill, and wanted the total amount to be waived.

Her bill came up to $42.60 after deducting the cost of four dim sum items, she said in a post on her own page.

“The staff offered a $50 voucher instead of waiver of the meal, I didn’t accept it bcos I’ve those vouchers already and I’ve never use it before..as I don’t think I will go back again and spend another $100 after this episode just so I can uitilise the voucher on normal/off peak days as the voucher have terms&condition to meet.

I mean… Come-on #houseofseafood, your service recovery can be better than just a voucher to apologise for what is found on ur food right? Not as if I ate lobster and seafood items and I asked for waiver of the meal.. I only had some dim sum.. Total bill after deduct the affected items is $42.60.. After all we didn’t even had a full and pleasant meal at your restaurant due to the cockroach. 

You should at least have a manager or a person who can make decision when such situation arise and not just let a service staff handle these.”

The SFA has looked into the incident and discovered food safety lapses at the eatery, adding that action would be take, 8world reported.

Most netizens commenting on an AsiaOne report appear to side with Ms Giam in the matter.

Some said, however, that “People do try to scam a free meal.”

/TISG

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