Very rarely do you have stories about cockroaches spotted in meals that take weeks to settle, the case usually follows the template of 1) find cockroach in food 2) Complain about the cockroach 3) Restaurant apologises profusely for it.

Not this incident though.

The incident

Eugenia Koh was having dinner on Thursday (Jul 14) at Ippudo Ramen with her boyfriend, when she spotted what she thought was a cockroach in her soft shelled fried crab bun.

She understandably freaked out, and her boyfriend for some reason, after hearing her exclamations on the presence of a cockroach, took said cockroach bun and ate it, mentioned that it tasted weird before going on with dinner, and eventually paid $124 for the meal.

Koh, the person who was convinced she had found a cockroach fried into her crab, went along with it.

4 days later

Fast forward 4 days, Koh, while browsing pictures on her phone saw the pictures she had taken on Thursday, she "zoomed into the bun", and she confirmed her own earlier suspicions.

She hurriedly messaged Ippudo, informing them of the events we covered earlier.

No response

After 6 days without a reply, Koh took to Facebook to pursue the issue, this is her post.

Note to self and others to never ever ever dine at EVER at IPPUDO!!!!!! SUPER UNHYGIENIC RESTAURANT. Got served a fried cockroach in the batter of their soft shell crab bun which you can barely see until you reach home and view and zoom into the picture lol. Super duper gross and I complained to the management on Monday till now 6 days and not a reply. What kind of service is that. Omg

She circled the suspicious parts this time.

Ippudo's response

Ippudo quickly issued a response on her Facebook page.

Hi Eugenia, we apologize for the experience. We showed the pictures to our chef and kitchen staff and we believe the part where you circled "head" is the eye of the crab. Did you cut open the crab to see what's inside?

Which wasn't the response Koh was looking for, and she replied to the comment as such.

If the apology was even sincere, you would have read my msg from fb 6 days back and replied me then instead of now when I just set the matter on my Facebook. And then you guys can double comment on it to make it seem like I'm the one who didn't check when I already stated everything down. Please at least read before trying to "apologize"

Ippudo responds again

Ippudo put out a statement on the whole incident on their Facebook page as well.

Dear valued customers, It has come to our attention that a food blogger has accused our restaurant of being unhygienic and that she found a little something 'extra' in her soft-shell crab. We would like to take this opportunity to say that our kitchen has strict protocols and practices put in place to ensure that food is stored and prepared safely for consumption. Rest assured the picture you see is the eyes and the whiskers of the soft-shell crab. We have proudly served our customers for years and we take pride in what we do, and while we do make mistakes from time to time, we will take a stand when food bloggers try to blackmail us with false accusations.

They then posted a picture of what a soft shell crab looks like before being fried.

With the caption emphasising the fact that 'the whiskers that may vary in length and size'.

Koh story bro

Koh took offence with the accusation of blackmail, and being a food blogger line. She hit back on her blog:

"I don't even call myself a food blogger for goodness sake. I pay for most of my meals because I am a consumer who enjoys food just like any other regular customer and diner."

She also came up with this line:

I didn't even make much of a commotion by even blogging or slamming shit about (them).

Which isn't exactly true since she did share a post, to her over 2,000 Facebook friends, that started off with the sentence "Note to self and others to never ever ever dine at EVER at IPPUDO!!!!!!".

6 exclamation marks.

But we digress.

Moral of the story

Get yourself a man who will eat an alleged cockroach infested fried crab and just shrug it off. Well done William Tan (Boyfriend's name) you the real MVP.

Top image from Eugenia Koh's Facebook

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