Having paid $12.50 for his prata, one disgruntled customer of Springleaf Prata Place hit the roof when he discovered that his premium-priced salted egg prawn prata was allegedly missing of all things, prawns.
Taking to TikTok to document his less-than-satisfactory experience on Wednesday (July 13), TikTok user Atrez described his visit to the restaurant as a "disaster yet again".
Showing the prata in the two-minute video, Atrez asked: "Can someone show me where the f*** is the prawn?"
@atrez My last visit to Springleaf Prata Place Rail Mall ,more den a year back was already a disaster.Today after a long ride,decided to stop here n haf some prata in hopeful of an improvement from my last ordeal.BUT NO !!!! DISASTER YET AGAIN. This is TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE given the price of $12.50 for salted egg prawn prata that uses an instant salted egg paste that taste so bad and has NO PRAWNS.NOT EVEN SHRIMPS !!!! #EuSkipSG #sgfypシ #sgfyp #fypsg #fypシ #fyp #RideReelGrill #goheadnostan #wanderwheels #atrezreact #singaporefoodie #springleafprataplace ♬ Oh No - Kreepa
Decided that he had enough of waiting, Atrez walked up to the counter while holding his phone with the video recording function switched on and confronted a staff.
"Where your boss, I asked... 10 minutes already, wait for what?" he asked a staff member.
Referring to the plate of prata in his hand, Atrez, who describes himself as a rapper and music producer on his Instagram, also threatened the staff: "So this one you want me to what, throw at your face ah?"
When another staff member came out of the kitchen, Atrez asked him why his prata only had a prawn tail.
The latter explained that the dish he ordered actually contained 50g of prawn, and even brought out a packet of the said prawns, all blended, to show the perplexed customer.
Filming the bag of prawns up close, Atrez wrote in the video: "What in a culinary disastrous world has become of prawns! That's not even a shrimp. Looks like a f***in' floss!"
At the time of writing, Atrez's video has gained over 87,400 views and almost 300 comments from other users who didn't seem too happy about the way he behaved at the restaurant.
"There was no need to say throw at his face or talk in that tone to the staff," remarked one user.
In a second TikTok posted on Thursday, Atrez revealed that the restaurant had actually reached out to him via Instagram regarding the incident.
The restaurant also posted their statement on their TikTok page pointing out that Atrez had been overly harsh with their staff.
@springleafprataplace Hello everyone. we are aware of the video by @Atrez React ♬ Cooking - Children's Music
"The video exhibits a harsh tone towards our staff which is unacceptable. Therefore, we kindly request that such remarks should not be directed at any employee as they do not deserve it."
The restaurant then showed a snippet of a video by Halalfoodhunt posted in 2020 showing how the dish was made, where prawn bits were used in that salted egg prawn prata.
Springleaf Prata Place also assured Atrez that the salted egg prawn prata was made "according to [their] recipe".
On their end, they also apologised to him for the manager's "failure in service recovery on the ground".
The restaurant's management added: "Our staff has failed to follow up with your feedback on the ground, and the fault lies on us. We have given a verbal warning to our staff for such service gaps and educated the concerned staff on the right procedure."
Last September, a disgruntled customer took to Facebook to shed light on her unpleasant experience at a Springleaf Prata Place outlet at Jalan Tua Kong.
Diner Ericaa Koh had complained then of the outlet not giving her a glass of lime juice as part of a meal set as promised in their promotional poster, among other things.
And when the restaurant invited her back for a free meal she complained that she was dumbfounded by the outlet's manager, who apparently "raised his voice" at her and "made [her] feel like a beggar".
She eventually called the police, who escorted her out of the restaurant.
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