‘So big caterpillar’ in mee hoon kuay, diner horrified

SINGAPORE: A man took to social media after finding a rather sizable creepy crawler in his wife’s noodle soup. He also posted photos of the bug.

“Bought Mee Hoon Kuay for my wife from Nam Kee (Pau) at Canberra Plaza. Found a caterpillar inside the soup. So big caterpillar and yet the staff didn’t notice?” wrote Mr Justin Tan on the popular COMPLAINT SINGAPORE page on Saturday (March 9). His post has since been widely shared and commented on.

The photos show a yellow segmented bug on a spoon from a bowl of soup. Mr Tan also posted a photo of a receipt from Nam Kee Pau at Canberra Plaza earlier that day. It showed a purchase of Mee Hoon Kuay for S$5.40, including GST and a takeaway container.

When we contacted Mr Tan, he told us that he had contacted the eatery through its Facebook page but had not yet received a reply. The Independent Singapore has similarly reached out to Nam Kee Pau and will update this report if and when we get a response.

Caterpillars eat leaves, which is the likeliest reason they end up in meals. Aside from the possibility of bugs, vegetables—as well as fruit—can also contain germs that can cause people to get sick, including salmonella, e. coli, and listeria.

This is why it’s very important to wash vegetables and fruit under running water before eating them raw, cooking them, or using them in a salad, even if they are peeled before consumption.

Fortunately, caterpillars are generally not harmful when consumed by humans. Some are venomous, but since caterpillars are very small, they won’t be able to do much damage.

However, this is by no means the first time that people in Singapore have found foreign objects in their food items, and it most likely won’t be the last.

Just last week, a man also posted on the COMPLAINT SINGAPORE Facebook page after finding a piece of plastic inside a pork sausage. Ironically, the word “halal” was written on the plastic piece.

Items such as screws, staple wires, glass, and other such objects have also been found in food products in the past. /TISG

Read also: Customer warns against pork sausage with plastic inside that says ‘halal’