A restaurant in China has caused controversy online after it was caught serving slices of mutton to customers by covering a plastic doll with the meat.

If a customer wishes to eat a slice of the mutton then they have to peel it off the doll, completely exposing her.

Some Chinese web users have voiced concerns over the hygiene of the food while others were discussing where they would start if they had been offered the dish.

Weird: Customers at a hot pot restaurant in Beijing were served their sliced mutton on a doll, report said

The norm: Usually in hotpot restaurants, the slices are served on plates and then placed into pots to boil

The meat was being served at an unnamed hot pot restaurant in Beijing, where customers put the raw meat into a pot to boil.

A picture of the dish was first uploaded onto Weibo, a Chinese social media platform, before being widely shared by web users as well as media, reports Huanqiu, affiliated with the People's Daily Online.

Hot pot restaurants in China serve customers plates of raw meat that they then boil in a big dish full of spices and flavourings.

This restaurant chose to use a doll instead of a plate to serve the sliced mutton to its patrons.

Once the customers have peeled off the meet, the doll is exposed.

Although the doll in the picture is not a Barbie doll, the restaurant has named the dish 'Barbie mutton dress', according to the report.

What is hotpot? Slices of meat are usually cooked in hot spicy broth by the customer

Chinese media have compared the doll to Lady Gaga's meat dress which she wore in 2010

Some other users have started a heated discussion on how they would like to enjoy the dish, in particular where to start peeling the slices.

People took to China's Twitter-like Weibo to share their opinions.

One user said: 'I will start from the top.'

Another one commented: 'Of course, the chest.'

A third one said: 'I would plug out the doll and dump the whole plate into the broth.'

While a fourth user noted: ' I would eat from the skirt out of fear the top would collapse.'

This has led the Chinese media to call the mutton slices 'a dish that tests humanity'.

Some other internet users, however, have voiced their concerns about the restaurant's hygiene.

One user wrote: 'I would not want to eat that.'

Another user commented: 'Have they sterlised the doll? Will they recycle her?'

Meanwhile, the doll's 'mutton outfit' has been widely compared to Lady Gaga's meat dress by Chinese media.