The man is suing the restaurant for more than $25,000. (Representational Image)
A Michigan man has claimed that he found a dead rodent in the minestrone soup he ordered from a popular Italian restaurant, Olive Garden. The diner found a hairy rat's foot in his bowl of minestrone during the restaurant's bottomless soup special. The man is suing the restaurant for more than $25,000.
Thomas Howie, 54, stepped out with his friends to dine at his favourite restaurant when the horrifying incident took place.
"I felt something stab me in the mouth, and I wasn't sure the first thought was a needle," Mr. Howie recounted in his complaint, the New York Post reported.
According to the lawsuit, the man felt a sharp pain in his mouth. When he tried to swallow, he realised an object was hooked to the inside of his cheek and said he threw up at the booth.
"Regurgitated and leaned over to the side and found the wall. Yeah, once I realized that that thing was in my mouth and I was chewing," Mr Howie said.
He spit out the object and soon realised it was a rat's hairy and clawed leg. He threw up again in the restaurant after finding the leg.
"It was so gross and disgusting I couldn't control myself," Howie expressed. "My stomach just heaved... I threw up right in the restaurant."
According to the lawsuit, one of Mr. Howie's friends asked for a manager, and when one stopped at the table, he said he didn't know what he could do and tried to take the rat's foot away.
Another employee came to the table and said, "That's funny. We don't even put meat in the minestrone."
Mr Howie immediately called the cops and reported the incident. Once police arrived, he displayed the severed animal foot, which he had spit into a soup bowl.
"I went to the doctors and got a tetanus shot and some antibiotic mouth rise," he said.
The lawsuit says Mr Howie got little sleep that night and in the days following the incident. He said that he felt nauseated, had diarrhoea, and felt like he couldn't eat anything except crackers, CBS News reported.
The lawsuit claims the man suffered extreme anxiety and depression after the incident.
Meanwhile, inspection by the health department did not happen until two days after Mr Howie had found the rat's leg.
Olive Garden's parent company, Darden Restaurants, responded to the allegations and said that they do not believe the claims made by Mr Howie. A spokesperson for the company stated, "We have no reason to believe there is any validity to this claim."