Apparently, against New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ best efforts, it would appear the rats still do run the city.
In a series of photos that have now gone viral, one NYC-based diner is accusing a popular Korean restaurant of delivering her soup over the weekend with a dead rat floating inside.
Last weekend, Eunice Lee ordered food from Gammeeok restaurant, located in Manhattan’s Koreatown neighborhood, something she says she and her husband have been doing for “over a decade.”
Upon opening their takeout order, the couple found the “most disgusting thing” — what appeared to be a dead rat head sitting inside a bowl of the couple’s sogogi gukbap, a spicy Korean beef soup.
“We’re doing this to spread awareness and hopefully make sure the right people are held accountable,” Lee wrote on her Instagram post that displayed photos and a video of the soup. “That is a rat in our soup. This place remains open for operation even after we notified them. Please don’t ever go there for your own safety.”
Lee told followers that she and her husband have officially filed a lawsuit against Hanpool Inc (which now operates as Gammeeok) and have contacted the NYC Health Department.
However, Gammeeok refutes the claims on their social media page, saying it was “regrettable that public opinion has deteriorated” about the restaurant’s reputation.
The eatery posted a clip of the soup being transferred through the kitchen multiple times before it was sent out for delivery via Ubereats.
“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,” the restaurant wrote. “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 also claimed that Lee left a negative Yelp review for another restaurant in Koreatown six years ago that alleged there was a fly inside her food. The review has since been removed.
Gammeeok was most recently given a “C” rating by the NYC Health Department during a January 2023 inspection in which 15 sanitary violations were issued, including one stating that the “establishment is not free of harborage or conditions conducive to rodents, insects or other pests.”
In New York City, restaurants are graded on a scale of A, B, C (or a failed inspection, which leads to closure) by the Department of Health based on unannounced inspections of each establishment that take place once a year.
Lee and her husband did not publicly respond to the restaurant’s social media posts.
The investigation remains ongoing.
