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TikTok food critic Keith Lee eating sushi in Seattle during his viral post this month. (Image via @keith_lee125)
A TikTok star who reviews restaurants around the country did a swing through Seattle this month to critique a variety of food, and a popular sushi spot has closed in the wake of one of his videos.
Keith Lee, a Texas-based social media personality with more than 16 million followers on TikTok, posted a review of FOB Sushi Bar on Nov. 9. The self-serve restaurant has locations in Seattle’s Belltown neighborhood and in Bellevue, Wash.
The video shows Lee picking about 10 pieces of sushi before he proceeds to eat them all and rate them on a 1-10 scale. Around the 1:50 mark of the video, there’s a closeup of one piece of sushi held in Lee’s chopsticks. Other TikTok users seized on this segment to make their own videos, contending they spotted movement of a possible worm in the fish.
The viral nature of Lee’s initial video, which now has more than 19 million views, and the worm conspiracy videos, caused FOB Sushi to put out a statement on Instagram over the weekend thanking Lee for his visit and stating that claims about worms in the sashimi are “entirely false.”
“The movement in the video is due to natural elasticity in the fish — not worms,” FOB Sushi said. “Rumors like this can harm small businesses, so we’re addressing it head-on. Thank you for trusting us and supporting FOB Sushi.”
By Monday, FOB Sushi had closed both of its locations until further notice, issuing a new Instagram statement in which it said, “Your health and safety are our highest priorities. We are conducting a thorough investigation to address the situation and will take all necessary measures to prevent it from happening again.”
In the meantime, another TikTok user named Joshua Rivera posted a video in which he said his girlfriend had been hospitalized after eating at FOB Sushi Bar after Lee’s visit. In the caption, Rivera asked Lee, “how ur stomach feeling?” In a second video, he offers time-stamped images and text messages to back up his story.
KING5 reported that the King County Department of Health confirmed it had received and was looking into complaints related to the videos.
On Monday, Lee posted a follow-up video addressing all that transpired since his visit, saying that he didn’t believe in tearing down any business, but if someone has been hospitalized and there is “something moving in food, I actually think there is accountability that should be taken.”
Lee said he has had sushi a thousand times and held sushi with a thousand different ways, and “not once have I seen sushi behave in that way. … Again, that’s not me saying it was a worm or that it was a parasite. I’m just saying, it was nothing that I did on my end. I was literally just eating it as a customer.”
During his visit to Seattle, Lee also reviewed King’s BBQ House in the Chinatown International District; an organic apple cider stand at Pike Place Market; Senait Ethiopian Restaurant in Lake City; several teriyaki restaurants; and Hood Famous Bakeshop, also in the ID.
