A condom was in his soup! That’s right…that’s what a customer in a Chinese restaurant was claiming, but did his claim have any merit?
There is no question that businesses usually survive on their reputation, so it can be devastating if even one bad word is uttered because they can lose customers very quickly. Due to this, many businesses take serious precautions when dealing with customers. However, there are always going to be people who try to take advantage of this review-based system.
One of the most bizarre complaints recently happened at a hotpot restaurant in Leshan City, Sichuan province, China. They had their reputation jeopardized by a customer simply due to the fact that he was claiming that he had found a condom inside his dish.
The customer’s name was Mr. Hu, and he had gone to the restaurant with a friend on the 18th of December. At that time, he noticed that there weren’t that many customers as it was a rather late hour. However, he claimed that as he was finishing up he had encountered a rather chewy piece of food. To his horror, the man claimed that it was a condom, and the disgusted and furious man called a server over. The server offered to check surveillance videos in an effort to determine what happened, but they were in a blind spot.
Naturally, the restaurant owners denied the allegations, stating that they always monitored their cooks. As a result, they insisted that it was impossible that the condom could have come from them. However, the customers were not done yet.
These customers threatened to publicize the issue online unless they were paid at least 10,000 yuan (~RM6500). These restaurant owners argued that their allegation was baseless due to the fact that condoms cannot be cooked in a hotpot.
The restaurant employees took a video of themselves cooking the condom in a hotpot, and they discovered that a condom cooked in this manner will expand.
Unfortunately, the revenue from the restaurant had been dropped drastically, with their average of 6,000 to 9,000 yuan going down to just 700 yuan. However, the story does have a happy ending. Apparently, another restaurant owner contacted them about this SAME man, claiming that he had attempted to pull the same stunt in his noodle shop.
In this case, the man claimed that he had found a worm in his soup, and he yet again demanded compensation.
However, the two restaurant owners got together and decided to report these incidents to the police, who eventually got the man to confess that he had put a condom and the worm in his meals himself!
It’s good to see that this story has a happy ending, that is for sure!