A horrified woman has recalled the sickening moment she found live maggots wriggling in her meal at a popular restaurant chain.
The Blue Mountains woman visited the Lone Star Rib House Penrith in Sydney’s west for a ‘nice meal’ with her husband and son on November 10.
But after the woman’s steak arrived, which can cost up $65 at Lone Star, she knew ‘within seconds’ something didn’t look right,
‘I sort of zoomed in, looking at the piece of steak and thought, ‘That’s really odd, there are things moving’,’ she told ABC reported.
Her husband initially suspected it was seasoning on the steak seasoning until he took a closer inspection.
The customer, who doesn’t want to be named, alerted a staff member, who told her about the restaurant’s high star food and health safety ratings.
Despite being offered a replacement meal, the woman declined because she was ‘grossed out’.
‘I just said, ‘No, I can’t eat here … I just want to leave’,’ she said.
The waiter took the meal back to the kitchen and the diner was later told the staff didn’t ‘know how the maggots came about on the steak’.
The family was also informed that the maggots didn’t come from the steak and were instead on the salad, which they refuted.
‘[The maggots] were having the time of their life on that piece of steak, and there was not one maggot on the salad,’ she said.
The diner added that it didn’t matter what food the live maggots were on – they should never have been on her plate.
The customer is also curious as to why no one noticed the maggots because ‘at least two, maybe three people’ had been handling and preparing the meat before arriving at the table.
The woman claimed she was yet to receive an apology from the restaurant for the ‘disgusting’ incident which left her feeling ‘uncomfortable and fearful’.
The customer said she can no longer eat steak and she is cooking her food for longer ‘just to make sure’ she kills anything that could be lurking in her food.
Lone Star Rib House told the ABC it would not comment on the woman’s video or ‘personal views’ about the restaurant’s hygiene.
A spokesperson confirmed that an independent environmental health officer inspected the restaurant the morning after the family’s visit.
They said the inspection was because of the complaint about the maggots.
But no ‘areas of concern’ were found and there were no flies on the premises or any other evidence of maggots.
The report also showed that meat at the restaurant was stored in sealed bags and salad was also in a sealed box, with no ‘possibility of contamination’.
Penrith Council spokesperson has since launched an investigation and is working with the restaurant, and the NSW Food Authority.
Daily Mail contacted Lone Star Rib House Penrith for comment.