An Australian woman has shared what she described as a “disgusting” steak she ordered at a restaurant, with footage showing live maggots crawling inside the meat.
The woman had gone out for dinner with her husband and son on November 10.
He chose to dine at Lone Star Rib House in Penrith, where a piece of steak can cost up to $42, depending on the type ordered.
But when his food arrived on the table, he immediately knew something was “wrong.”
“I zoomed in on the piece of steak and thought, ‘This is really weird, there’s stuff going on in there,'” she told ABC.
The woman claimed that at first her husband thought it might be spices, but upon closer inspection it turned out that he was looking at insects.
When he raised the issue with a staff member, he said, he told him about the restaurant’s optimum food and health safety ratings.
He claimed his plate was taken back to the kitchen but staff said they did not know how the maggots got into the steak.
He said he was also told that the bugs came from the salad, not the steak.
,[The maggots] They were having the time of their lives on that piece of steak, and there wasn’t a single bug on the salad,” she said.
“But either way, there should not have been insects on the plate at all.
“The way I see it there are at least two, maybe three people in that restaurant who are handling that piece of steak… How did one of those people not notice that the steak was moving?
The Blue Mountains woman, who did not want to be identified, also refused to take the replacement meal because she was “tired” and wanted to leave.
Lone Star Rib House would not comment on the video or “personal views on the venue’s cleanliness standards,” but said an independent environmental health officer had conducted an inspection the day after the complaint.
“After a thorough assessment, the inspection revealed no areas of concern,” he said.
Inspection did not find flies on the premises and it was found that the meat was kept in sealed bags.
A spokesperson said the “food safety incident” was being investigated by Penrith City Council, while it was also consulting with the NSW Food Authority.
“Council inspections are covering all aspects – from where the food is received from the supplier, to food storage in the business and the preparation of the food,” he said.
“The council previously completed a routine and unannounced inspection at the business on November 5, which did not identify any concerns.”
But the woman said she is still waiting for an apology because the experience has made her paranoid about cooking beef and she has stopped eating steak.
“We went out for a family meal, we were hungry, something really disgusting and inappropriate happened and no one knew about it,” he said.
