In an act of greed at a Tsuen Wan all-you-can-eat hot pot restaurant, a pair of diners were caught red-handed stuffing uncooked ingredients into a bag to take home.
A video circulating online on Saturday (Sep 27), believed to be from a staff member's body camera, captured the couple attempting to conceal and "smuggle" a significant quantity of raw food in a shopping bag.
The approximately 2-minute video shows a restaurant employee politely addressing the couple after their act being captured by CCTV. "Please take them out (from the bag) for hygiene reasons. You can enjoy all the food here," the staff said.
Initially denying the act, the man pulled out a plastic bag filled with seafood from his bag, insisting another bag of beef did not belong to the restaurant.
However, the employee pressed further to retrieve all food, saying "Please take all the items out, you can take your time to enjoy the food as much as you like, but we cannot let you take them home."
The confrontation ended with the shocked employee exclaiming, "The whole bag?" as the customer handed over a bag overloaded with raw seafood, beef, and even instant noodles.
The footage quickly went viral online, with commenters condemning the diners' actions as "embarrassing" and "disgusting," while praising the staff's professionalism.
"The quantity of ingredients they attempted to take could potentially serve as sufficient provisions for two additional meals," one netizen noted.
According to reports, the restaurant is believed to be The Aquatic Market in Tsuen Wan Plaza, known for its fresh array of seafood.
It is understood that the duo had visited the restaurant two to three times and did not apologize for their actions when they checked out.
Although the restaurant chose not to report the incident to the police, Barrister Albert Luk Wai-hung noted that attempting to remove ingredients from an all-you-can-eat buffet could be classified as theft, potentially resulting in a prison sentence of up to ten years.
Luk added that while the couple did not successfully take the food outside the restaurant, their actions could still be interpreted as "attempted theft."
He emphasized that their effort to remove high-value ingredients, rather than merely leftovers, distinguishes their actions from the acceptable practice of taking home leftover food from restaurants.
