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A prawn noodle seller is dishing out advice on why prawns should be served with shells intact after a petty complaint from a customer gained attention online. 

Shelled prawns may be tedious to eat, but that’s what makes it flavorful, according to Deanna’s Kitchen owner Denise Deanna Chew today, days after sharing a customer’s complaint and demand for refunds over an order that came with unpeeled prawns. The customer even shared a photo of the meal in question looking like it was already partly eaten. 

“Ya I think it’s quite common to have shells because they preserve the freshness of the prawns. It looks nicer with the prawn shells and some people really like the head so I don’t dare to remove it,” the 37-year-old said. Chew runs four outlets across Toa Payoh, Jurong, Chai Chee and Woodlands. 

She started the business in 2017. At that time, she would deshell the prawns for customers but later decided to leave them as they were for added flavor and freshness. Her staff would still help to deshell the prawns for customers “if time permits,” she said. 

“If they do request and it’s at the stall and I have no queue, we will do it willingly. Because sometimes we get orders from schools and they say the teachers don’t have time to sit down and peel. We understand,” she told ������.

“When we are doing delivery, sometimes the food doesn’t get out to you immediately. There will be a one hour turnaround time so by the time the prawns travel to you, because of the heat in the container, the prawns if peeled may get mushy,” she added.

Chew shared a photo of the bizarre complaint on Sunday, showing the customer’s request for a refund via the Deliveroo food delivery platform. The photo that came with the complaint “clearly” showed that most of the noodles and clams were already gone from the bowl, she said. 

According to Chew, she told Deliveroo that there was “no basis” for the customer to request for a refund since the prawns were delivered to the customer as per the order. In response to queries, Deliveroo told ������ today that they have “resolved” the case without indicating whether the customer was issued a refund. 

“It’s way out of my imagination. I knew that it would gain some attention but the main purpose of posting is actually not to shame the customer […] my intention was actually to highlight that it’s a tough time doing business right now and I really want to show how unreasonable some customers can get and how they should have some compassion during these pandemic times,” she said. 

It wasn’t Chew’s first bizarre customer complaint. During the circuit breaker partial lockdown last year, a customer asked for a S$0.20 refund because the dish that arrived came without vegetables. Chew said she refunded the customer. 

In Sunday’s post, Chew said: “Joke of the month. Our delivery partner Deliveroo emailed us to say that a customer who ordered prawn mee yesterday is asking for a full refund of a bowl of mee because the prawns came with shell.”

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