Bleurgh: Customer finds lizard at the bottom of Gong Cha drink

A Facebook user said her son was nearing the end of his peppermint chocolate drink when he felt an odd taste in his mouth. Photos: Facebook/Tszping Yim (left) and Openrice (right)
A Facebook user said her son was nearing the end of his peppermint chocolate drink when he felt an odd taste in his mouth. Photos: Facebook/Tszping Yim (left) and Openrice (right)

A customer found himself the unwitting receiver of a slimy surprise when he ordered a drink from an outlet of Taiwanese chain Gong Cha Monday.

In a Facebook post in the “Sha Tin Friends” group, a user said his son purchased a peppermint chocolate drink with tapioca pearls at a street level Gong Cha branch in Tai Wai’s Grandeur Garden Shopping Arcade. As he neared the bottom of his drink, he felt something strange in his month and instantly spit it out.

The offending ingredient, it turned out, was a dead lizard.

“[My son] immediately called me and I went with him to the shop… the boss said it’s not their problem!” The mother wrote.

Read more: Dark, shriveled lump found in Saizeriya restaurant’s takeaway confirmed to be rat’s head

She said in a later comment that she reported the case to the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department (FEHD), who had come to collect the evidence. She attached a picture of a ziplock bag with the lizard and its severed tail.

The FEHD said it has sent representatives to the Gong Cha outlet to access the hygiene situation there. Coconuts has reached out to Gong Cha for comment.

“My son keeps saying he’ll never have this kind of drink again,” the mother wrote.




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