Questionable food-handling hygiene

Friends and family please take note the next time you visit NIAKMATH RESTAURANT PTE LTD: MUSLIM FOOD OF ORIGINAL TASTE at BLK 632 Bedok Reservoir Road. Many of us remember it fondly by the name of the former restaurant occupying the same unit: TMK.

I was having my supper there this morning after a studying session at a nearby McDonald's restaurant at the same block. Craving for some pratas, I settled for this familiar Muslim restaurant that I frequent often with my close friends who live nearby.

Halfway through the meal, which comprised of a glass of bandung, a glass of teh peng, a plaster prata and a mushroom cheese prata, I found myself biting at a peculiar object that had the texture of compressed wet tissue paper. I proceed to spit out the object, which at first sight look perfectly normal as part of the mushroom cheese prata that it came from. Upon closer examination I was dumbfounded to find a fibrous piece of what I can only assume to be a filter of a cigarette.

In disbelief, I approached the staff and highlighted my finding. Feigning ignorance, the restaurant nonetheless offered to remove the item from my bill. I was at a loss as to what I should do in this predicament. In the end I decided to brush it off as the restaurant staff were generally nice and they did not deny wrongdoings.

I then took a cigarette to calm myself and as I finished my cigarette, I removed the filter and compared the 2 items. I could not be sure but it seemed as though my guess was correct, that the thing inside the prata was indeed a cigarette filter.

What puzzled me more was how it got there in the first place. It was mixed and cooked with the ingredients and one would not realise its existence without careful chewing. If it was indeed a cigarette filter, there was no paper present. As is the case normally, for a filter to be wrapped in the paper bearing the brand of the cigarette. Assuming that the person in charge of preparing the food was smoking while cooking, how is it possible that he would drop the filter into the prata, since it was on the inside and not the outside. Would it also meant that I might have ingested paper and ashes together with the prata?

I do not wish to think about it anymore, as more thinking only disgusts me further. I do, however, wish to highlight this to everyone out there, just so that everyone would think twice about patronising this shop again, or at least check the next time, before you eat. I regret not having the pictures to illustrate my concerns.