An NYC couple claims they found a dead rodent in soup they ordered from a popular Koreatown restaurant over the weekend, but the eatery is dismissing that allegation as “nonsense.”
Eunice Lucero-Lee posted a series of photos and videos of what appears to be a dead black rat floating in the soup she said she and her husband had delivered Saturday from Gammeeok in Manhattan.
“We ordered sogogi gukbap, which is a kind of hearty Korean beef soup,” Lucero-Lee told NewsBreak by email.
The Post contacted Lucero-Lee, a senior editor at Hearst, for comment.
She reported filing a lawsuit against the restaurant, which also has a location in Fort Lee, NJ.
“After seeking legal counsel, my husband and I now feel free to share something that happened to us over the weekend,” Lucero-Lee wrote this week on Instagram.
“We ordered in from a well-known restaurant called Gammeeok in K-Town and found the most disgusting thing in our food.”
She continued: “We have been going to this restaurant for a decade and are otherwise proud supporters of Asian cuisine and culture. This incident is in no way to fuel race-based hate or prejudice, and I will have an issue with anyone who uses these posts to fit that narrative.”
Lucero-Lee said the couple are sharing their claims to “spread awareness and hopefully make sure the right people are held accountable.”
She also stated she contacted the NYC health department. On its website, the agency denotes a “C” rating for the Manhattan location.
A Jan. 18 inspection revealed several alleged sanitary violations, including a food contact surface not properly washed, rinsed and sanitized after each use; and food, supplies, and equipment not protected from a potential source of contamination.
The Post reached out to the health department and Gammeeok for comment.
In a set of Instagram posts Wednesday, the restaurant said the couple’s claims don’t “make sense.”
“We are open 24 hours, and there are at least 3 or 4 people in the kitchen at all times,” the restaurant wrote. “As you can see in the video, it doesn’t make sense for a rat to avoid people and enter a pot on a hot fire.”
Gammeeok added: “When we transferred the soup, we served it four times with a ladle while the staff watched it with their eyes. If there was a mouse that big, there’s no way I wouldn’t have missed it. There is also a video recording of the recording process. We checked the whole process of making the soup, but we couldn’t find any problems.”
The restaurant alleges the couple wrote a Yelp review six years ago about finding “a large bug” in takeout soup.
“It’s a rare experience to most people in their whole life,” Gammeeok wrote. “They remove the review now. Why?”
