Woman alleges Chinatown restaurant’s fiery drink burned her
A Chinatown restaurant has drawn the ire of city officials after a bridesmaid attending a bachelorette party in May said she was scorched by a towering flaming drink that exploded.
But the eatery’s manager is pushing back on the woman’s claim, likening her injuries to “a really bad sunburn.”
Representatives of Crave Mad for Chicken will appear before the Licensing Board on Tuesday after being issued a citation for unsafe serving of alcohol and having an open flame without a permit.
The restaurant used to serve a cocktail called the Crave on Fire — a Blue Hawaiian-like beverage that customers would drink from a bowl with straws as stiff whiskey is lit on fire and poured down a stack of glasses.
Although the Crave on Fire is still listed on the Kneeland Street business’ online menu — under a section labeled “Bombs Away” — it hasn’t been served since the woman was allegedly burned, manager Cassidy Lu told the Herald yesterday.
“It is no longer on the menu,” she said. “We took it off the menu that same night.”
Police say the woman and her friends ordered the Crave on Fire May 20, but when Lu used a grill lighter to ignite the drink, the woman’s face and chest caught on fire, forcing her to roll on the floor to put out the flames. She was later taken to Massachusetts General Hospital.
According to a lawsuit filed in Suffolk Superior Court last month, the woman claims the drink apparatus exploded and struck her with glass. The woman suffered “severe burns to head, neck, face, earlobes, shoulders and chest” as well as singed hair and eyebrows, according to the suit, and is seeking at least $74,000 in damages.
Lu said police called her after the woman was taken to the hospital and said doctors compared the burn to “a really bad sunburn.”
The drink mixture, she said, did not blow up as the woman claims.
“There was no glass explosion at any point,” Lu said.
Ryan Paine, the woman’s attorney, said medical records would show the severity of his client’s injuries, and the explosion was captured on video.
“Businesses should not be putting their patrons’ lives at risk in exchange for parlor tricks meant to justify the inflated cost of alcoholic drinks,” Paine said.
State law does not prevent restaurants from lighting drinks on fire. Boston Fire Department spokesman Steve MacDonald said restaurants need an open flame permit for candles and other fires, and the department was investigating how that applied to drinks.
In a statement, Mayor Martin J. Walsh spokeswoman Audrey Coulter said: “A restaurant’s top priority should be the health and safety of its patrons. The mayor urges all restaurants to observe only the highest safety precautions if engaging with open flames and, above all, to use common sense.”