Hong Kong restaurant fined for serving abalone fried rice with the wrong mollusc to save on costs
Ming Yuen Banquet Hall was using conch instead when it was found out by an undercover customs officer
A Chinese restaurant that sold abalone fried rice without the main ingredient to an undercover customs officer was fined HK$5,000 on Monday.
The West Kowloon Court heard the Ming Yuen Banquet Hall had served up the HK$88 Fukien dish with conch – another type of mollusc – to save on costs, despite stating clearly on its menu that abalone would be used.
On Monday, the Kwai Chung restaurant’s parent company, Fortune Eagle Enterprise, pleaded guilty to one summons of supplying food with a false trade description.
In mitigation, a company representative admitted that the offence was committed to save costs. In the firm’s defence, he said they knew very little about the Trade Descriptions Ordinance and it had since warned other restaurants in its group not to do the same.
