“Hey waiter, there is a cockroach in my Paneer Biryani?,” shirked a horrified customer at the RS Puram outlet of the famous vegetarian hotel chain – Annapoorna – on Friday afternoon and to his horror found that it was not an isolated incident.

Few of his friends have had this experience before and there have been complaints galore with the management – which it of course denies.

Fact of the matter is that this customer took out his smartphone, clicked the picture of the dead body of the cockroach, staring at him from his well-done Panneer Biryani that he had ordered so expectantly. And promptly posted it on his facebook page, only to notice quick responses from his facebook pals of similar experiences, at the same branch of the hotel chain.

This vegetarian hotel chain – Annapoorna – has been the landmark of Coimbatore and its many outlets have been doing a roaring business dishing out piping hot idlis, ven pongal and an assortment of south Indian tiffins and meals – for about a good one and half decades now.

Complaints brought the waiter and the manager to the table and, to be fair to the hotel, they changed the dish and brought a new one, this time making sure there was no offending material along with the dish.

The customer, T.Hari , said that the comments on his post – picture of Panneer Biryani with cockroach proved that Friday’s incident was not a one off one.

“I was shocked to find the cockroach in the first place and immediately filed a formal complaint with the branch manager and the dish was immediately changed,” he told the Covai Post.

“I was first hesitant in posting the picture on facebook. But once I did, the responses shocked me even more as the hotel failed to take care of this problem, as pointed out by few others in the past,” he said.

Jegan Damodarasamy, Director of the Annapoorna chain, blandly denied all allegations and claimed that “no complaints were ever filed by customers.”

The food safety department officials on the other hand pleaded helplessness as no one filed complaints with them.

Dr. O.L.S. Vijay, Designated Officer of the Food Safety Department, Coimbatore said “had the customer informed us immediately, we would have checked the place immediately. Customers should inform us as soon as possible, if we are to make any difference,” the official said.