Ordering pav bhaji online usually comes with a fairly predictable list of things: buttery pav, spicy bhaji, onions, chutney and maybe a little extra butter if you’re lucky.One Bengaluru man, however, got something that definitely wasn’t on the menu.Priyam Tahabilder, a LinkedIn user, said he found a beedi tucked among the chopped onions that came with his pav bhaji order from Zomato. Yes, an actual beedi.Sharing a picture of the order online, he wrote, “Ordered pav bhaji from Zomato and got a beedi for free. It was fully smoked though. Not the kind of freebie I’d have wanted honestly.”The photograph showed the beedi lying among the onions, turning what should have been a routine food delivery into a rather unpleasant hygiene concern.
Zomato responds
The post quickly caught attention, and Zomato responded in the comments.The company asked Tahabilder to share his order details so it could look into what had happened.“Hi Priyam, please DM us your order ID so we can look into this,” Zomato wrote.Tahabilder later posted another update, saying that Zomato had offered him a ₹100 coupon for his next order.“Update: Zomato offered a ₹100 coupon for my next order,” he wrote.That response, unsurprisingly, didn’t stop people from talking about the incident.
Social media couldn’t resist the jokes
Some commenters immediately turned the bizarre discovery into a joke.
One person wrote, “Restaurants knew your habit I guess.”Another joked, “Extra smoke flavour added.”Someone else called it a “seasonal offer” and congratulated him on getting it.One commenter said they had initially thought the object was some kind of personalised note before realising what it actually was. The person described it as a “highly unhygienic surprise instead.”And then there were people who weren’t laughing at all.For them, the bigger issue was how something like this could end up inside food packaging in the first place.One user simply wrote, “It’s time to eat home cooked food. Peace.”
Who is responsible – the restaurant or Zomato?
That question also came up in the comments.One user pointed out that food is generally packed by the restaurant, while Zomato’s role is primarily to facilitate delivery. “Not the fault of Zomato, the packaging is done by restaurant itself, Zomato is only a delivery partner,” the commenter wrote.Another person tried to imagine how the beedi might have ended up there, suggesting that someone could have been smoking while packing the order and accidentally placed it alongside the food.Of course, that’s only speculation. There’s no confirmation of how the beedi got into the order.And that’s really the part that remains unclear.
An unusual food-delivery complaint
Food delivery has made getting a meal as simple as tapping a few buttons. But incidents like this also show why basic food-handling and packaging standards matter.A stray beedi among onions isn’t just an odd freebie. It’s something that shouldn’t be anywhere near food meant for a customer.For now, Zomato has said it would look into the matter after receiving the order details, while the restaurant involved hasn’t been publicly identified in the post.As for the Bengaluru man’s next pav bhaji order, let’s just say he’ll probably be checking the onions a little more carefully.
