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A woman, who was nearly through with her mala xiang guo, found an unexpected extra ingredient in her bowl recently.

Unwanted extra ingredient

Sharing her experience in a Facebook post, Neo Pei Yi wrote that she had gone to her favourite hawker stall in Chinatown to get her fix of the hot and spicy stir fried meat and vegetables dish.

Speaking to Mothership, Neo said she visited the stall at the People's Park Food Centre at about 2pm on Dec. 26, 2022.

All was good until she reached the bottom of her bowl.

She saw a peculiar item nestled amongst the dark red pieces of dried chilli – a cigarette butt.

It's safe to say that whatever good mood that the food had put her in vanished immediately, and Neo approached the staff from the hawker stall to show them her discovery.

But the tipping point was when one of the female staff reportedly brushed the matter off, saying the cigarette butt was part of the dried chilli.

She added that none of the staff tried to make amends or apologise to her before she left the food centre.

Neo not only swore that she will never patronise the stall again, but also tagged the Singapore Food Agency in her Facebook post.

A commenter suggested that Neo could have mistaken a bone as a cigarette butt, but Neo disagreed and added that the object also had Chinese characters and a gold line.

Responding to another comment, Neo said a SFA representative that contacted her has told her that the object looks like a cigarette butt.

In response to Mothership's queries, an SFA spokesperson said the agency is investigating the matter.

The spokesperson added that individuals who come across any potentially errant food establishment can report their experience to SFA via the online feedback form.

"SFA will not hesitate to take enforcement action if we have obtained sufficient evidence."

Top image courtesy of Neo Pei Yi