When enjoying a hot pot there are plenty of ingredients one can expect to pull from its murky broth. A rat, however, is not one of them.
Unfortunately, this is what a group of restaurant-goers allegedly found last Friday night at a Phu Nhuan eatery, reports Thanh Nien.
"When we almost finished eating, we saw a dead rat at the bottom of the hot pot and were completely frightened," wrote Hoa Tranh on their Facebook page after the experience, along with the photo of the deceased vermin.
Tranh said that the manager apologized and offered to comp the group of 18’s meal. When asked to sign a document taking responsibility for the incident in case anyone became sick from the tainted hot pot, the manager accused the group of planting the rat.
The manager later relented and wrote a report saying that “there was a rat inside our hot pot due to our lack of food hygiene” and the group departed having paid half the bill.
After making the rounds on Vietnamese social media, the restaurant owner Ly Trieu Van spoke to Thanh Nien and denied the allegations.
“We cook our broth for twelve hours, and no rat, if there were one, could have stayed intact in that shape," he told the newspaper, adding, "It’s also strange when the customers, after seeing a rat in their hot pot, took pictures and laughed about it.”
Health inspectors paid a visit to Lau Cua 245 on Tuesday and while they were unable to drawn any conclusions regarding the rat incident, they said that the restaurant would be fined for numerous violations, including a lack of food hygiene training and proper working clothes for its staff.
