A Sydney couple celebrating 1000 days together have called out a "horrible experience" at a North Ryde restaurant on social media, publishing a video of a cooked steak that appeared to be crawling with live maggots.
Stella Kim and her partner Sushil Lamichhane were dining with two friends at The Ranch Hotel bistro on Wednesday evening when one of the three steaks they ordered arrived infested with what appeared to be small white worms or fly larvae.
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Couple served steak full of worms
Couple served steak full of worms
Stella Kim and her partner Sushil Lamichhane? were dining with friends at The Ranch Hotel bistro when they were served a steak with what appeared to be small white worms or fly larvae.
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Couple served steak full of worms
Stella Kim and her partner Sushil Lamichhane? were dining with friends at The Ranch Hotel bistro when they were served a steak with what appeared to be small white worms or fly larvae.
"We ordered steaks and one of our steaks was full of worms. Live worms coming out of the steak. We couldn't believe this was happening at one of the big restaurant [sic] in Australia," Ms Kim said in the Facebook post, which has been viewed more than 140,000 times.
"I wish no one has to go through this horrible experience. We have lost our appetite."
She told Fairfax Media she had contacted the NSW Food Authority and the City of Ryde Council to report the incident.
While the restaurant issued a refund for all four meals ordered by the couple and their friends, Mr Lamichhane said the night was "ruined".
"Once the manager saw the video, he asked me to send it to his mobile and he said he would bring us something wormless," he said.
Fairfax Media has contacted Trevor Smith, national food manager of the ALH Group, which owns The Ranch.
An unnamed spokesman for the restaurant told SBS: "Our investigation revealed that the incident was due to blowfly larva laid after the meal was cooked, as it is not possible for larva to survive the cooking process.
"The Ranch Hotel served 262 steak meals on the day with no similar instances or concerns raised by any other customer. All our kitchen staff are experienced and accredited in food safety and The Ranch stands by its food safety record and processes."
Ms Kim and Mr Lamichhane claimed that, since their meal, The Ranch offered them $500 to be used at the restaurant "in good faith".
However, Mr Lamichhane said they did not want to accept the offer, and claimed the restaurant deleted their online review from its Google profile.
"We just want to let people know," he said. "The thing that most annoys us is they removed our review. They are not wanting their mistake to be known by the public."
Ms Kim's Facebook post has been shared 1800 times and attracted more than 2300 comments.
A number of commentators questioned how the creatures could have survived the cooking process and noted there was no evidence the video was actually shot at The Ranch.
Maggots are the larvae of flies and are able to survive temperatures of up to 50 degrees.
Flies will lay their eggs in a good food source, which is why they are commonly found in old or rotting food.
Cases of life maggots being found in cooked meat are isolated, although there have been a few allegations of unpleasant discoveries this year, such as a man who found one of the creatures in his sausage and a Victorian family who found maggots in their beef dinner.
Hi everyone, I would like to share my horrible experience at The Ranch Hotel, North Ryde on Wednesday night 27th Sep. 2017. We ordered steaks and one of our steak was full of worms. Live worms coming out of the steak. We couldn’t believe this was happening at one of the big restaurant in Australia. Don’t know how many people are affected by this. Here’s a video. Sorry you have to see this. On top of that the Ranch has been deleting our reviews also their whole tab for reviews at their Facebook page has been disappeared recently. I hope NSW Food Authority City of Ryde take some actions to deal with this offensive and disgusting service, as they are putting a lot of diners at risk. I wish no one has to go through this horrible experience. We have lost our appetite. Also Ranch has been saying this happened instantaneously and worm bursted out somewhat like the Big Bang that created our universe. If someone is expert in biology and thermodynamics please review the video so that they are educated on food handling.
Posted by Stella Kim on Friday, September 29, 2017