Chicken noodle seller in South Sulawesi is suing netizen over video alleging her dish contained rat head and tail

A street food seller in Palopo city, South Sulawesi has filed a police report over a video where her noodle dish was shown to have allegedly contained the head and tail of a rat. 

A clip of at least two women examining their bowl of mie ayam (literal translation: chicken noodles) circulated widely recently, in which they showed a rat’s head in the bowl and a mutilated rodent, which appears to have been fished out from the dish. Copies of the video have been uploaded and reshared many times, and the version below has the rat’s head blurred:

 

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“You must have often eaten there in the past. Oh my God, that [mie ayam stall] is the most famous, university students often eat there,” one of the women said to the other.

According to reports, the original uploader wrote in the caption that they found a rat’s tail in their takeaway noodles, and claimed that another customer found a rat’s head while dining in at the stall.

Since the video went viral, police have questioned the mie ayam stall owner, identified as Dahlia, while also inspecting her place of business last week. Palopo Police Chief Alfian Nurnas said authorities have not received any formal complaints from her customers so far.

To be completely fair to Dahlia, the viral video did not completely negate the possibility of the rat body parts being planted on the dish to besmirch her business.

Alfian said today that Dahlia has filed a report over the weekend, claiming to have suffered financial loss in the aftermath of the video. She told police that customers have not been coming to her stall since the emergence of the viral clip, even though she earned around IDR2 million (US$138.77) daily previously. 

“She feels wronged. Because she feels she’s not guilty, that she didn’t use rats for [her noodles’] ingredients, so she feels that her reputation and her stall have been tarnished,” Alfian said today. 

Police said they have identified the video’s original uploader, who is set to undergo questioning as an investigation into the matter continues.

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