A strictly vegetarian Indian-origin man has spoken of his shock and anger after he ended up taking a bite out of a beef pizza in a restaurant mix-up in the Midlands region of England.
Abhishek Bhartiya was at a Pizza Hut in Nottingham with wife Prerna Goel when they opted for the buffet option, which included vegetarian and non-vegetarian options. The staff assured them that all pizzas with a green spatula were vegetarian, which turned out not to be the case.
“I had never eaten meat in my life until this moment and it has left me very upset. It is shocking that this could have happened,” Bhartiya, a software engineer, told the local ‘Nottingham Post’ newspaper on Wednesday.
“I am very troubled by the fact I ate beef. It is the very sentiment of my religion not to eat beef as we worship cows,” said the devout Hindu.
The couple told a member of staff straight away and felt so upset by the incident that they decided they could not eat there anymore and had to leave, despite paying for their meal.
Bhartiya said: “I can see that the handles must have been switched accidentally but they told me so convincingly that the green handles were all vegetables.
“I want other people to know that they should be more aware as this system clearly isn’t 100 per cent perfect. I wouldn’t want this to happen to anyone else.”
A Pizza Hut Restaurants spokesperson said they were aware of the incident and apologised for the inconvenience caused.
“On our buffet station, we separate our vegetarian pizzas and meat pizzas and also use colour-coded spatulas to make it as clear as possible. Our staff regularly checks our buffet station, but in this instance a green spatula indicating a vegetarian pizza had been moved,” the spokesperson said.