Lizard in steamboat but restaurant uncle says "it's nothing"

Student Rella, 19, and seven friends were enjoying steamboat at a restaurant in Marina South when this lizard showed up in the soup (Sorry that's site all close already).

"One of its feet was gone and its tail was semi-detached!" she said in an email today (21 Nov).

They had dinner at the restaurant on 17 Nov, persuaded by a "friendly uncle" at the entrance.

"Happily chitchatting and having fun cooking. Eight of us, two steamboat sets," she said.

"At about 8pm, just as a guy was about to empty the rest of the raw sotongs (half of these sotongs were already cooked and eaten) into the steamboat, we realised there was a dead lizard in the plate!

They called for the staff who asked his niece to talk to them.

"A lady came. We showed her the plate of lizard. She immediately took the plate away. When she came back, I asked her what's to be done. She replied in a rather rude tone 'you want I change the soup for you la'."

They called a friend for advice. "He told us to ask for compensation as we hadn't had our fill of the food, and that the disgusting sight had made our stomach spin," she said.

"What can be done on your side? How would you compensate?" I asked.

"The lady stared into my eyes and said 'Compensation? NO WAY! You want, I will change the soup for you. That's all'.

"People from the other table came to me and told us we should get compensation, and that the lady looked really aggressive," she said.

"We decided to get the uncle who first invited us in since he was so friendly and assured us of the best food we can get (I hope the best food he referred to wasn't that lizard).

"The uncle came and heard our explanation. His attitude changed too. He stuttered. He said we might have been the ones who put that lizard into the food. (What a thing to say!)

"He even added that 'Lizard is nothing. We used to have cockroaches and even rats too. Nobody complained what'.

"A lady from the table next to us came up to me and told us to report the case, saying that the lizard might be poisonous if eaten. We tried contacting Ministry of Health that night, but it was already closed."

The manager refused to budge, and said "you all got food poisoning then come find me la".

The STOMPer asked for her namecard and got her to sign on it, below the words "There was a dead lizard in the plate of raw sotongs".

"She thought for awhile and signed. We thought we needed some witnesses in case she denies everything. We got the contact numbers of people sitting at the tables next to us who saw everything."

The stiff action should be taken against the restaurant. "We certainly do not want to know what lizard's tail tastes like with sotong," she said.