A popular restaurant in a county in Taiwan's Taidong City was found to have served mainland tour groups recycled dishes with leftovers from previous guests to save costs, China News Service reported yesterday.

The Taimali Baishawan Restaurant.[File photo]

The report said the boss of the Taimali Baishawan Restaurant confessed to the practice after questioning by the local food health watchdog, which had obtained a 14-minute-long surveillance video from the restaurant's former staff showing how food was handled.

It is the second scandal concerning high-tourist-traffic restaurant serving leftover food in Taiwan after a noodle eatery was found to have done the same thing to mainland tourists last year.

The Taimali Baishawan Restaurant is a major dining spots serving group tourists from the mainland, and it was estimated that more than 10,000 tourists ate there in a month.

A former worker tipped authorities. The director of the restaurant was fired and ordered to make an apology. Local authorities had asked the restaurant's owners, who said they knew nothing of the practice, to make improvements or face a fine.

The incident caused a stir on the Internet.

"The restaurant should be severely punished for its practice," said a microblogger identified as Dahongpaochanglou.

Some Shanghai travel agencies said they had not sent tourist groups to the restaurant and would put it on their blacklist for future tours.

"We have never been to the restaurant and had no plan to visit it after the scandal," said an official surnamed Lu with the Shanghai branch of China Travel International Ltd.

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