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Hotpot Culture management comes clean about dead rat in food

SINGAPORE — In a statement released today (Jan 15), the management of Hotpot Culture restaurant in Marina Square apologised for an incident where a customer found a dead rat in a dish that was part of its porridge buffet spread.

A rat carcass was found in a vegetable dish at a buffet at Hotpot Culture, a restaurant in Marina Square. Photo: Facebok/Caron Chan

A rat carcass was found in a vegetable dish at a buffet at Hotpot Culture, a restaurant in Marina Square. Photo: Facebok/Caron Chan

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SINGAPORE — In a statement released today (Jan 15), the management of Hotpot Culture restaurant in Marina Square apologised for an incident where a customer found a dead rat in a dish that was part of its porridge buffet spread.

Their response comes almost a week after images of the rat in the vegetable dish went viral on social media.

Hotpot Culture said the incident was “due to a lapse” in their handling of food. The management also apologised for the manner in which the situation was handled.

Their statement said: “We have not communicated with the public or the press till now as we wanted to investigate and take immediate action before coming forward to explain the entire issue.”

The restaurant explained that the preparation of the salted vegetable dish required it to be cooked the day before and left overnight. But it could not be covered completely as the vegetables would “turn sour”, hence a small gap left in the covering to let the dish “breathe”.

“A rat entered from the gap and our staff did not check before heating and serving the dish,” the statement added.

“This incident happened not because of poor hygiene level in our kitchen but because of the preparation method of the dish and the negligence of our staff. Hygiene has always been the priority of our restaurant. After guests leave, our staff clean the table and then wipes with a disinfectant. We sweep and mop our floor twice a day with detergent and disinfectant, once after lunch operation and once after dinner operation. We also flush our drains and gullies weekly with bleach and hot water,” Hotpot Culture said.

The restaurant’s operations were suspended by the National Environment Agency (NEA) on Jan 10. Since then, two other rats as well as dried rat droppings were found on the floor of the restaurant’s storeroom as well as the kitchen’s false ceiling.

The restaurant brought in a pest control company to conduct a “thorough” cleaning of its premises.The statement also said that the NEA is conducting daily inspections of the restaurant. 

Hotpot Culture is offering refunds to customers who dined at the restaurant on Jan 9.

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