Chances are if you ever do go out to eat, you expect the restaurant in question to adhere to high standards of cleanliness. This is true before the pandemic, and only becomes all the more crucial in the wake of COVID-19 when we are all encouraged to practice stringent personal hygiene habits. But how would you react if you happened to find live rats scurrying about the kitchen of a restaurant you were dining in?
Live rats found in kitchen of popular teppanyaki restaurant
Just recently, Malaysian netizen @sarahshimmers shared a rather unpleasant encounter over social media when she had been dining at a popular Japanese teppanyaki restaurant in a KL mall. As it is typical for teppanyaki restaurants to prepare your meal right before your eyes, Sarah was afforded a clear view of the interior of the restaurant’s kitchen from where she had been seated.
And while watching your chef turn raw ingredients into a sumptuous meal would no doubt have held plenty of novelty for most diners, what many wouldn’t come to expect to find some pesky, uninvited rodent guests to join their meal. We are of course referring to the bane of kitchens everywhere: rats.
Only in this case, Sarah didn’t merely see one rat scurrying about the kitchen floor, which in itself would have posed a health hazard. She saw two rats.
When it comes down to common food safety practices in commercial restaurant kitchens, the sighting of rodents such as rats is alarming as according to the International Food Safety & Quality Network, these little creatures can carry a myriad of diseases in their bodies due to the unsanitary conditions that they tend to thrive in. In fact, they have been linked to cases of food poisoning, rat-bite fever, hantavirus, among others.
In fact, contamination of rat urine on food ingredients could lead to Leptospirosis, which is a bacterial infection caused by the Leptospira bacteria.
Restaurant staff simply laughed it off
And despite the obvious health concerns that rodents such as rats can bring to a restaurant establishment, Sarah claims that restaurant staff chose not to do anything even when she pointed out that the creatures were infesting the kitchen.
In speaking with Wau Post, Sarah adds that members of the staff did not appeared to be at all bothered by the presence of rats in their kitchen.
“The staffs just laughed and said that the rats haven’t eaten yet.”
“They didn’t apologise, they continued their work and walked away.” she says.
Her post, which has since spread across local social media, eventually caught the attention of the food court operator who has released a statement over the matter and assured diners that sanitisation works are now being carried out in the affected food outlet. They have also stressed that ‘hygiene standards are of utmost importance’ to them.
For more stories like this, follow us on Facebook!
Also read: M’sian netizen allegedly winds up in hospital after consuming super spicy ayam goreng
