KENWOOD — A Kenwood man claims he bit into a baby rat in his egg fu yung at Fung’s Chop Suey in Kenwood and then got food poisoning so bad he ended up in the hospital.
Now Kevin Bradley, 35, is threatening to sue. He filed a complaint with the city's Department of Public Health and hired a lawyer.
Bradley said he went to Fung’s Chop Suey, 1400 E. 47th St., for the first time on June 5 and during his first few bites of his meal he bit down on a rat tail.
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“I took a bite and I felt this crunch and thought I had broken my tooth,” Bailey said Wednesday. “I started pulling at it and found a rat’s tail.”
He said he pulled out a chunk of cooked meat from his egg fu yung that he said was a baby rat.
Bradley is now seeking payment from the restaurant for the resulting food poisoning that landed him in Provident Hospital, 500 E. 51st St.
“We want to work this out with the restaurant so this never happens again,” said Nick Kreitman, Bradley’s attorney.
Bradley has filed a complaint with the Department of Public Health, which found no evidence of rats or vermin during a June 12 inspection in response to the complaint.
The owner of the restaurant, Yu Ying Chen, declined to comment when reached by phone Wednesday.
On Monday, the owner's daughter, Connie Liu, denied Bradley's claims and said he was just trying to get money out of the restaurant. She said video surveillance cameras at the store recorded Bradley trying to get a refund for his order on June 5 because his girlfriend thought the egg fu yung was burnt and made no mention of anything else wrong with his food.
“I don’t know if he has other reasons, but I think he’s just mad and he wants money,” Liu said.
Photos provided by Bradley’s attorney appear to show some sort of small animal, though it’s not obvious what it was because it clearly has been cooked.
Bradley said he took the order up to the counter to complain, but snapped a photo before the clerk refunded him his $8.27. He said he thought that would be the end of it — until he woke up in the middle of the night.
He said he woke up at 2 a.m. June 6 with intense vomiting and diarrhea.
“It felt like someone was stabbing me in my stomach,” Bradley said.
By June 8, the illness had not passed and Bradley said it was so bad he had to go to the hospital.
Medical records provided by Kreitman show Bradley was prescribed the equivalent of Pepcid at Provident's emergency room.
“I haven’t eaten any meat since then, only pasta,” Bradley said.
Kreitman said Bradley has not yet filed suit and is in negotiations with the restaurant to pay for his medical expenses and compensation for the distress he experienced.
