Uh, excuse me waiter...

Last night L, C, and I decided to try a new restaurant in town, Merlion. The restaurant is fronted by a large statue of, you guessed it, a merlion- evidently patterned after this famous symbol of Singapore.


See how much you've learned already, just by reading this blog... You didn't even know that the Merlion is Singapore's icon- did you? That's OK neither did I- once again, "Thank you Google"!

Anyway, after much discussion as to what to order (we were all starving and there were lots of choices), we settled on chicken Thai basil with jasmine rice, chicken and lamb satay, samosas, and the soup of the day- spicy and sour soup. We were enjoying our meal when C found a hair in her serving of chicken Thai basil. Unfortunately, this seems to happen to C a lot. It never fails, if there is something weird in someone's food- it will be in C's plate. Since C is a brunette, and this was a short platinum blond hair, we were pretty sure that it wasn't hers. It actually looked a lot like a rat hair, which was even more gross...

Upon closer inspection, L and I discovered the little hairs in our servings as well. After much speculation, we decided that, unless there was a sudden onset of rodent alopecia in the kitchen, they couldn't possibly all be hair. When the waitress came by to check on us, we showed her and asked what they were. She took a sample to the kitchen to inquire and returned to our table with a sample of the offending ingredient- lemon grass.


We closely inspected the piece of lemon grass and discovered that it shreds into little pieces that look exactly like little blond hairs...

So keep in mind, next time you eat out- those might be little hairs in your food, but they're probably just lemon grass.

Better yet, just assume it is lemon grass and enjoy your meal.