Man Sues Olive Garden, Alleging He Found a Rat’s Foot in His Minestrone

That's not the secret ingredient we were expecting.

We often talk of the secret ingredients that make a dish have that certain je ne sais quoi; from the tame (onion soup mix in burgers) to the wild (soda in apple dumplings). Some, we don't want to know about, like whatever it is that grandma's putting in her food to make it taste so darn good. But one addition we would want to know about? Rodents.

That's what one man in Michigan claims he found in his soup at an Olive Garden back in March. In a lawsuit filed in Macomb County last month, the plaintiff, Thomas Howie, alleges that he was out to dinner with friends at an Olive Garden in Warren, Michigan when he experienced a “stabbing pain” while eating minestrone soup. According to the complaint, “He tried to swallow, but an object was hooked into the right side of his cheek,” and when he spat out the bite into a napkin, Howie was shocked to see a hairy, clawed rodent foot amongst the other vegetables. He even threw up.

The lawsuit claims that employees in the Olive Garden didn't take the complaint seriously, joking, “That’s funny. We don’t even put meat in minestrone.”

Howie is suing Olive Garden and an LLC in Michigan called Olive Garden Holdings, seeking damages of upwards of $25,000 for both the physical injury and “mental anguish and emotional distress,” according to the lawsuit.

Olive Garden's parent company, Darden Restaurants, vehemently denies the merit of the lawsuit, telling "Today," “We have no reason to believe there is any validity to this claim.” (Side note: you can view a graphic photo of the alleged foot in question on Today.com, but we have decided to spare you that experience here.)

Olive Garden says that based on a photo provided by the plaintiff of said rat foot, it does not appear to have been cooked, nor had it taken on any coloring of the soup (which has a reddish tint due to a tomato base). Representatives for the chain also provided "Today" with the official Food Service Establishment Inspection Report that was completed by the Macomb County Health Department two days after the alleged incident.

Said report includes the minestrone's full list of ingredients as well as the preparation process, which includes cooking the soup to a minimum of 165 degrees F. The report adds that this Olive Garden's pest control provider has actually serviced the restaurant (as part of a regular preventative visit) the same day as the alleged incident, and noted that “there were no pests observed in their report.”

Additionally, they added that the foot appears to be larger than the restaurant's soup spoons, therefore it would have been near impossible to miss, even if absentmindedly consuming the soup.

The two parties have yet to reach a settlement, so only time will tell what comes of this frankly repulsive claim (although it's not the wildest lawsuit we've seen—even this week). All I know is 1. I lost my appetite while writing this and 2. I won't be watching "Ratatouille" any time soon.

Read the original article on All Recipes.