If you’ve ever gone to Sembawang Hot Spring Park, taken a look at the DIY egg boiling area, and wondered if you could use it to whip up a meal that’s a little more substantial… you now have the answer. But it's best not to replicate the experiment.

Last month, a Singapore-based Taiwanese YouTuber named Angel Hsu uploaded a vlog of herself visiting the park one morning. She headed straight for the egg cooking station and attempted to boil raw chicken in a steel kettle with the hot water from the pipe, which measures a steaming 70 degrees Celsius.

She then left the chicken, an egg, and a packet of ready-to-eat claypot rice to be cooked for about an hour while going on to explore the rest of the park’s amenities.

As it turns out, the water was hot enough to cook the chicken quite thoroughly, and Angel and her companion enjoyed their hot spring-cooked breakfast while gushing over how good it supposedly tastes.

The clip didn’t draw much attention at first (the channel only has around 11,000 subscribers at the time of writing), but that changed after a columnist from a local Chinese paper published an article criticising Angel for her actions.

According to the columnist, cooking chicken like that will cause its juices and fat to scatter into the water and air, leading to contamination and potential hygiene problems.

The columnist also stated that it should be necessary for the National Parks Board to set up a clear notice at the entrance urging the public not to engage in such unsanitary behaviour. As Angel mentioned in her video, there are currently no such signs that explicitly prohibit the boiling of anything other than eggs.

Many netizens seemed to agree with the columnist and admonished Angel with comments such as: “It clearly states that it’s an egg boiling station, yet she still wants to cook meat”, “This kind of thinking is so embarrassing”, and “She has no hygiene awareness or public spirit”.

On the other hand, there were those who came to her defense, with one pointing out that the area where she cooked the chicken is separate from the hot springs where people soak, and that the water that’s used for boiling food goes straight down the drain.

“If you tell me that the water in the drain will be used for soaking people’s feet or boiling eggs, then that’s really a problem, and it’s not her problem,” the user wrote.

This comment was pinned to the top by Angel herself, which was taken as her way of subtly responding to the controversy.

Photos: Angel Hsu/YouTube