Ordering food online has become our way of life; it’s easy, practical, and you are spoilt for choice in delivery apps. However, one Indonesian man seems to have missed some crucial descriptions about the restaurant he ordered from, causing him to consume a dish that is not halal (permissible for consumption in Islam) before making a huge fuss online about what is widely seen as his own mistake.
A video uploaded by a Twitter user has gone hugely viral in Indonesia, showing the man finding out that he had been eating pork halfway through the meal.
“Astagfirullahaladzim (I ask Allah for forgiveness). I just ate half of the portion [of the] food I ordered through Grab. Then when I browsed the restaurant [on internet], [turns out the restaurant] is non-halal… I just had pork,” the man, who sounded like he was on the verge of tears, said in the video.
The man said he ordered two portions of nasi campur from a restaurant called Nasi Campur Kencana 99 in West Java. While the dish’s direct translation is “mixed rice,” nasi campur is widely known as a rice dish served with pork in many parts of Indonesia, including in Java.
The man claimed that he didn’t know if the restaurant specializes in pork, which is haram or forbidden for consumption by Muslims. He said it only occurred to him to look up the dish online after helping himself to some mouthfuls, when his wife asked where he bought the meal. The nasi campur sets he ordered consisted of Hainanese rice, lapciong (pork sausage), and bakso goreng (fried meatballs).
“After I googled the restaurant, [I found out] it actually sells non-halal food, however Grabfood didn’t put any description that it’s non-halal,” the man said, adding that he ordered the dish based on a past experience of having Hainanese rice at a halal restaurant.
“Well, I’m sorry, I’m just a layman, and maybe there are people out there who don’t know the names of pork products. I thought it’s just like any other dish out there that is named with quirky names.”
He concluded his video with a suggestion for food delivery apps to add non-halal tags on restaurants that sell such dishes.
The video has been viewed more than 642,000 times after it was uploaded on Sunday, though it gained further traction earlier this morning. Several terms related to the video such as “babi,” (Indonesian for pork) and “lapciong” trended on Twitter this afternoon.
Grab Indonesia replied to the video with an apology, though most Twitter users responding to the controversy thought the blame was purely on the guy, as illustrated by the reply below:
Alah kak Fahmi, bisa ae basa basinyaa.. bilang aja emang pengen nyobain babi. Bentar lagi dikirimin porsi sebulan ama Grab nih. pic.twitter.com/gX1rqFa9nk
— Hapean teros (@indomie_mantab) July 13, 2021
To feed our curiosity, we tried searching for nasi campur via the Grab app. While many restaurants come with the pork label, there are a few that didn’t but instead clearly featured the word “pork” or its variants in the name of their dishes.
For what it’s worth, maybe this viral video is what would finally put nasi campur on the map across Indonesia as a dish containing pork, while also serving as a reminder that a little research about food you’re unfamiliar with won’t hurt. Just ask Google.
Keep up with the latest F&B trends in Jakarta on Coconuts Jakarta
