‘I hope you’re suing’: Chicago woman orders pho at favorite restaurant. Then she sees something swimming in it

There are few things that are more enjoyable than a steaming bowl of pho once the weather starts to cool. But one Chicago woman got more than she bargained for when she found something unexpected in her broth.

In a video that received more than 600,000 views, Nissa (@nissa0621) shares close-up footage of a bowl of pho. Sitting atop the rice noodles is a soup spoon holding a little bit of broth. The broth appears to have a small, dark insect in it.

The little insect isn't alone. As she pans the camera around the bowl, she counts “two, three, four, five,” more bugs.

“Ugh nooo not my fav pho spot,” she writes in the video's caption. She adds that she'd been enjoying her food before she realized what was in it. “The way I was [expletive] that [expletive] up too!” she adds.

It is unclear what sort of insects were in the pho or how they got there. In a response to a TikTok comment asking how the restaurant responded, the creator wrote, “All they said was sorry & asked if I wanted a new bowl. I said no so they walked away. That's it.”

‘What the Pho?'

Several of the commenters under Nissa's video joked that if they were in her position, they probably wouldn't notice the bugs.

“I would've been eating away thinking it was seasoning,” one viewer wrote.

“I'm ngl I wouldn't have notice that unless the food tasted nasty,” joked another.

Other commenters had some theories about where the bugs originated. 

“THOSE ARE PANTRY BUGS. THOSE NOODLES ARE OLD,” hypothesized one commenter.

“Those are bugs from old chili flakes,” wrote another, adding that “It's super common depending on the ingredient.”

According to entomologist Jody M. Green, spices are especially susceptible to “insect filth” because of their high mineral and vitamin composition.

She told the Huffington Post that “insects are particularly fond of products derived from dried sweet peppers/chiles/red pepper products like red pepper flakes, paprika, chili powder and cayenne” because “the pepper family appears to contain the nutritional requirements necessary for multiple generations of stored product beetles to successfully sustain life.”

While pho broth itself does not traditionally contain chili, it is nearly always served with some form of chili on the side.

Of course, there's no way of knowing how these bugs got into Nissa's food. According to University of Connecticut, many different kinds of insects infest dry foods.

In another comment response under the TikTok, the creator suggested the insects might have come from the sauces sitting on the table. “I do understand those sit out a lot,” she wrote, “but either way that is not OK … Restaurants are supposed to be swapping containers for sauces.”

What Should You Do if You Find a Bug?

Finding bugs in restaurant food doesn't necessarily translate to a pest problem in the establishment.

Still, finding five in a single dish does raise questions about the restaurant's food-handling practices. If a diner finds bugs in their food, the common sense move would be to document what they found and speak to management about it.

If there are broader concerns about the restaurant's practices, they can also file a complaint with their state or local health department. In Chicago, food safety complaints can be filed through the city's 311 service.

Can You Get Sick From Eating a Bug?

According to Dr. Bobbi Pritt, eating a bug is usually nothing to worry about. Scientific American says that “an individual probably ingests about one to two pounds of flies, maggots and other bugs each year without even knowing it.”

This does not include fleas, roaches, or generally any insects that can sting or bite.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) actually allows for a certain amount of “insect fragments” in food because it's essentially unavoidable. As entomologist Matan Shelomi wrote on a Forbes-syndicated Quora post, “Because crops are almost always infested with insects, the harvests will usually have pieces of insect too.”

Of course there's an obvious difference between microscopic insect pieces in a box of dried noodles and five bugs straight-up floating around in pho. They might not be dangerous, but they're certainly not appetizing.

@nissa0621

Can You Sue a Restaurant Over Infested Food?

Though some commenters urged Nissa to take legal action, finding an insect in a restaurant meal does not necessarily entitle her to compensation.

In fact, legalmatch.com puts the odds of winning cases like this at “pretty low” and “more trouble than they're worth,” especially if Nissa did not become physically ill. 

Subplot reached out to Nissa via TikTok direct message.

The post ‘I hope you're suing': Chicago woman orders pho at favorite restaurant. Then she sees something swimming in it appeared first on Subplot News.