A popular Koreatown restaurant accused of leaving a dead rat in a couple’s soup has hit back at the claims in a series of posts to social media that included video of the meal being made and a seven-year-old since-deleted Yelp review.
The response from Gammeeok in Midtown Manhattan comes on the heels of a freshly filed lawsuit from Eunice Lucero-Lee and husband Jason Lee, who posted shocking video and photos of the meal on Monday.
The post quickly went viral – and the 24-hour eatery located on 32nd Street between Fifth and Sixth avenues was promptly closed by the Health Department pending an investigation. The eatery maintains they’ve been shuttered due to ‘maintenance.’
Lucero-Lee, 40, and her husband have ordered from the Manhattan restaurant for over a decade and haven’t had a run-in with unwanted ingredients until this weekend.
In a stream of posts Wednesday, the restaurant hit back at the couple’s claims, saying they don’t ‘make sense’. The restaurant further alleged the couple wrote a review for another Korean restaurant six years ago alleging they found ‘a large bug’ in their takeout soup, but deleted it after their post went viral.
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Gammeeok, a popular Korean restaurant in Midtown Manhattan, is accused of leaving a dead rat in a couple’s soup. The restaurant, after being closed earlier this week, hit back at the claims in a series of posts to social media that included video of the meal being made
A series of viral photos showed the rodent floating at the top of the container while entangled in what appeared to be vegetables from Gammeeok restaurant
The response from Gammeeok in Midtown Manhattan comes on the heels of a freshly filed lawsuit from Eunice Lucero-Lee and her husband, Jason Lee, who posted the shocking video and photos of the meal on Monday
‘It’s a rare experience to most people in their whole life,’ Gammeeok wrote in one post that included the since-deleted review, which they claimed was penned by the couple about another, unnamed Korean restaurant in K-Town.
‘They remove the review now. Why?’ the restaurant asked, not specifying the eatery.
The post included a photo of a meal similar to the one that the Lees’ order with a fly floating at the top. The couple, who filed the lawsuit on Wednesday, has not responded to the claim.
A later comment added: ‘They hide their previous yelp review. After taking out at another Korean restaurant, they wrote a review on yelp saying a fly came out, but when we mentioned it, they hastily deleted it.’
In another post, Gammeeok, which currently has a C grade from the Department of Health, disputed the possibility a rat could have made it into their sogogi gukbap, a kind of hearty stew due to the process used to prepare it.
They included video of that alleged process to get their point across. The clip shows line cooks preparing the same meal the Lees’ ordered, in a seemingly clean kitchen with no rat in sight.
It is not clear if the soup being prepared was for the couple’s Saturday UberEats order, but Gammeeok offered an accompanying caption that claimed that was the case.
In a stream of posts, the restaurant hit back at the couple’s claims, saying they don’t ‘make sense’. The restaurant also alleged the couple wrote a review for another Korean restaurant six years ago saying they found ‘a large bug’ in their soup, but deleted it after their post went viral
The restaurant also made a point to include a clip of staffers placing chopsticks in the bag of the competed order, after the Lees’ alleged in their post that the restaurant neglected to include them.
‘This is Gammaeok,’ the post begins, before addressing the recently filed suit and reiterating the previously aired Yelp review allegations. ‘It is understandable but regrettable that public opinion has deteriorated.
‘Once, the person ordered food with ubereats. If a ‘rat’ came out, it could be argued as evidence saying ‘Look at this’ when they came to our store, but we didn’t see any real thing,’ the post continues.
‘If you look at the other party’s yelp account, there is a review in the past saying that flies came out of that person’s house because they “take out” in the same way as we did at another restaurant in k-town. It’s a once in a lifetime thing for most people.’
The restaurant went on to address allegations that they offered the couple a $5,000 bribe to keep quiet about the mishap when they called to complain about the order, to avoid any disruptions to their business.
The restaurant said this never transpired, and that a manager only offered the Lees’ a $100 gift card ‘in the spirit of always treating customer complaints in keeping a low profile.’
Records from the New York City Health Department showed that Gammeeok received 15 violations in the latest January 18 inspection
‘At the time of the first call, foreign substances came out of the food due to poor call quality, so the manager said he would give an ubereats refund guide and $100 gift card,’ the restaurant recalled of the alleged call with Jason, Eunice’s husband.
‘But he immediately asked for $5000,’ the restaurant alleged, adding that the man then demanded more money, to the tune of $25,000, after getting checked out at a local hospital.
‘After going to the hospital, he asked for the hospital bill,’ the restaurant wrote. ‘Right away he called and demanded $25,000. After that, we said we couldn’t afford it, so we said we are going to hire a lawyer to take action.
‘At the time of the incident, it was a weekend, so it was difficult to contact, and it was difficult to judge arbitrarily without the advice of a lawyer,’ Gammeeok went on to allege.
Gammeeok proceeded to decry local and national media outlets for their treatment of the story, writing that ‘the media that reported this incident for the first time with the person’s report made a biased broadcast without confirming any facts to us.’
‘We have not received any contact from the press. Until now,’ Gammeeok wrote on Wednesday, days after the Lees aired their now widely seen complaint.
‘Are they really right who just listened to one side of the story and made an article without checking any facts? If they were really proud, they would have asked us. But they didn’t want to hear anything from us.’
The restaurant added that ‘food industry people say [the suit] is nonsense,’ before referencing the attached video.
Despite Gammeeok’s pushback, Lucero-Lee urged people to avoid the restaurant at all costs
‘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. 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.
‘We took the time to check all of these things, but none of them tried to ‘fact-check’ them.’
The series of posts were published hours after amNY penned a report the couple planned on suing over the stomach-churning discovery, a speculation that was later confirmed by Lucero-Lee in a series of statements to the press and an edit to to the caption of her initial post.
The series of viral photos showed the rodent floating at the top of the container while entangled in what appeared to be vegetables from Gammeeok restaurant.
‘Lawsuit has officially been filed,’ Lucero-Lee wrote on Tuesday, adding that she was disabling comments on the post as the suit proceeds.
The suit lists Gammeeok’s parent company, Hanpool Inc, as a plaintiff, and has been reported to the NYC Health Dept, the New Yorker claimed.
Gammeeok, meanwhile, calls the allegations ‘nonsense’, continuing to pushback on the couple.
Despite the pushback, Lucero-Lee has urged people to avoid the restaurant at all costs.
‘Please don’t ever go there for your own safety,’ she warned on Instagram.
Records from the New York City Health Department showed that Gammeeok received 15 violations in the latest January 18 inspection.
Several of the violations showed the restaurant lacked proper protocols for sanitation, food safety and cleanliness.
One violation listed a sanitary concern of ‘Filth flies or food/refuse/sewage associated with (FRSA) flies or other nuisance pests in establishment’s food and/or non-food areas.’
‘FRSA flies include house flies, blow flies, bottle flies, flesh flies, drain flies, Phorid flies and fruit flies,’ the violation read.
Aside from the poor ‘C’ review rating, the restaurant appears to have several fans on Yelp, who rave their food is perfect on a ‘late night.’
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