‘Dragon Balls’ at Los Gatos Thai restaurant prompted ‘chemical burns’: lawsuit

A girl is suing a Thai restaurant in Los Gatos, claiming an appetizer referred to as Dragon Balls was so spicy she suffered chemical burns to her vocal cords, esophagus and the within of her proper nostril.

Harjasleen Walia’s throat and voice “have been broken” by the appetizer at Coup de Thai, the lawsuit claimed. “She incurred everlasting accidents and can without end be broken,” the lawsuit alleged.

Walia is suing the downtown Los Gatos restaurant and its proprietor, together with the chef who cooked the merchandise, the waitress who took her order, and anybody on the restaurant that day or earlier than who “in any approach influenced, designed, ready, or participated in creating the Dragon Ball dish,” in accordance with the lawsuit.

Walia went to dinner with a pal in July 2021 on the downtown North Santa Cruz Avenue restaurant they usually ordered appetizers together with Dragon Balls, in accordance with the lawsuit filed earlier this month in Santa Clara County Superior Courtroom. The dish is presently described on the restaurant’s web site as “spicy rooster” balls with mint, shallot, inexperienced onion, cilantro, kaffir lime leaf and chili, for $11.

“The dish was marketed as spicy, so Ms. Walia requested her server to have it made with much less spice as she doesn’t tolerate spicy meals,” the lawsuit claimed. “The server mentioned that they’d have the chef make them much less spicy.”

Walia alleged that just about instantly after she started consuming the Dragon Balls, she “felt her complete mouth, the roof of her mouth, her tongue, her throat and her nostril burn like hearth,” and that her “eyes and nostril watered, and he or she started coughing.”

She began to lose her voice and was recognized later with inner “chemical burns” from the chilis within the Dragon Balls, she claimed within the lawsuit.

A supervisor at Coup de Thai mentioned by cellphone Monday that the restaurant had by no means beforehand had a patron say that they had been burned by a dish and wanted medical consideration. Dragon Balls, mentioned supervisor Luck Pryer, are spicy, however “we don’t use an excessive amount of chili spice in Dragon Balls.” Nevertheless, it isn’t attainable for the appetizer to be made in a “gentle” model because the chili is contained in the balls, Pryer mentioned. If a patron desires to order Dragon Balls however says they can not deal with spicy meals, they’re sometimes inspired to order one thing else, Pryer mentioned.

Pryer mentioned she was working the night time Walia dined at Coup de Thai, and that Walia got here to the restaurant the subsequent day saying her throat had been burned and he or she wanted to go to the physician.

Walia couldn’t be reached to reply questions on her purported prognosis and accidents. State medical data present a Harjasleen Walia with the identical center preliminary is a physician at HeadacheAwayMD Mind & Backbone Heart in San Jose, which lists her on-line as a neurologist on the medical group.

The lawsuit factors a finger at Thai “hen’s eye” chili because the ingredient that made Walia’s Dragon Balls allegedly “unfit for human consumption.” The restaurant’s proprietor, chef, server and others concerned with the appetizer “didn’t take precautions by consulting with well being officers or emergency service personnel relating to the dangers related to serving an excessive amount of Thai chili in an appetizer like Dragon Balls,” the lawsuit claimed.

And the defendants within the case “negligently failed to check the warmth depth” of the batch of Thai chilis “earlier than, throughout and after it was used within the Dragon Balls” served to Walia, the lawsuit alleged.

The chef and waitress are recognized solely by occupation within the lawsuit, which additionally targets an proprietor named as Tanatcha Swangchaeng. Efforts to succeed in Swangchaeng on Monday have been unsuccessful.

Dr. Kelly Johnson-Arbor, a doctor on the Washington, D.C.-based Nationwide Capital Poison Heart, advised this information group Monday that consuming Thai chilis — spicier than cayenne peppers however not as spicy as habaneros — can irritate the mouth and throat and trigger nausea and heartburn. However, Johnson-Arbor mentioned, “they aren’t related to everlasting tissue injury.”

Walia is in search of unspecified damages, plus medical bills and compensation for purportedly misplaced earnings. Her lawsuit additionally accused the defendants of failing to coach Coup de Thai employees “to serve Thai iced tea or another dairy-based product if a buyer had a nasty response to spice depth.”