Texas woman Courtney Aguilar was disgusted when she found what she thought were teeth inside of her barbacoa taco.
Her Facebook post quickly made the rounds on the internet:
"When you order Barbacoa tacos but get teeth instead. I asked the server if this was teeth. She said, ‘baby teeth.’”
(From Courtney Aguilar's Facebook)
It turns out there were not any teeth in her taco and the restaurant, El Rincon, responded to Aguilar's post:
“Barbacoa is one the few items that we buy pre-made from an approved FDA vendor and we are no longer going to buy from that vendor. Barbacoa is cooked with different parts of the cow but mostly from the head or cheek of cattle.”
The meat vendor, Laxson, explained that the "teeth" were actually "beef lips,":
“We admit cow lips are not the most attractive food item and can resemble teeth. Unfortunately, it made its way into this customer’s dish.”
But, the negative publicity was enough for El Rincon to pull barbacoa from their menu:
“As you can imagine, this has been a tough time for the El Rincon family as this issue with the contents of the barbacoa taco has been mostly negative until the explanation was provided. Our restaurant depends on our customers and our restaurant has been in business 26 years because of them so we do not take this lightly and hope to have barbacoa back on the menu soon.”
Even though the food was totally safe to eat, the restaurant has taken "full responsibility" for the incident.
Meanwhile Aguilar says she won't be returning to El Rincon anytime soon.