Man Allegedly Finds Maggots in Sushi Zanmai’s Soy Sauce

One of the go-to cuisines that Malaysians enjoy is Japanese, and a famous conveyor-belt sushi restaurant that diners frequent is Sushi Zanmai. However, one man’s meal at one of their outlets at the Suria Sabah shopping mall came with more ‘ingredients’ than he bargained for as he allegedly consumed their soy sauce which contained maggots.

In a Facebook post from 24 May, he detailed his alleged unfortunate experience that caused him to be ill for two days. His long explanation came with videos and images of his meal at the restaurant, where tiny maggots could clearly be seen squirming around the side of the shoyu sauce bottle.

According to the man, he was excited to enjoy his favourite sushi dishes on 20 May, but after eating it, he saw something moving out of the corner of his eye. Upon close inspection, he realised that there were maggots in the sauce that he had just dipped his sushi in.

After complaining to the waiter, the man called over his supervisor to have a look. Without saying anything, the supervisor just took the sauce away and threw it. After the man asked the supervisor to check the other bottles in the restaurant, the supervisor merely remarked that there was nothing wrong with the rest without even checking.

After the man called the supervisor over again, he acted like nothing had happened so the man asked him to call over the manager. The man said that the manager couldn’t come over as the manager was at the Imago Shopping Mall and left without a word.

The man went up to the counter again and asked him to call the manager and change all the sauce bottles but his requests were ignored. Utterly fed up at this point, the man showed him the calling card of a health worker, saying that he would bring the matter up to Jabatan Kesihatan Negeri Sabah (Sabah Public Health Department) and the Dewan Bandaraya Kota Kinabalu (Kota Kinabalu City Hall). Only at this point did the worker panic and call his manager, but the man decided to just leave his phone number and left. There was not a single word of apology from them.

As the man and his wife were walking around the mall, they suddenly got a call from Sushi Zanmai’s manager. He apologised and wanted to know if the man really had taken videos and images of the maggots. The man questioned the manager about the restaurant's Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) and why he couldn’t come but he received no replies to his queries. They told him that they would be making a formal complaint to the authorities as the matter was taken lightly. As soon as the man got home, he sent a message to Sushi Zanmai’s official Instagram page and he says that he has not received a reply to this day.

As soon as he got home that night, he experienced diarrhoea, causing him to wake up several times during the night to rush to the toilet until morning.

The next day, he received a call from the Sushi Zanmai Kota Kinabalu team, who apologised over the incident. The man’s wife reprimanded them, saying that her husband was too weak to answer the phone.

According to the man, what aggravated him further was that the representative asked, “Do you really have a video?” This proved that they had really taken the bottle of sauce with the maggots and cleaned it without checking it properly. The representative then explained their SOP to the man and said that it was not Sushi Zanmai’s fault as it could be the fault of the sauce’s supplier. He then found out that their practice was to wash and change the sauce bottles only twice a week.

The man chastised the representative thoroughly, saying that no one from the company seemed to know the proper procedures to be carried out in the case of such an incident such as the possibilities of requesting medical compensation. He pointed out that their staff seemed to lack training, while the act of apologising should be common sense, without needing to be trained.

He ended by saying that he has made a formal complaint to a health inspector, and that investigations were being carried out. He elaborated that he was unsure if action would be taken as he has no other proof besides the videos. He urged others who had gone through similar experiences as him at the same outlet to bring it up to the authorities.

Bleaurgh! What a horrible sushi horror story! We feel queasy after writing this story and looking at the photos, so we’ll definitely inspect our food closely before eating it the next time we dine out!

Image credit: facebook.com/azrul.razak.3, Derek Duran on Unsplash