A CHINESE restaurant owner who dished up a prawn cocktail containing insects has been fined £650.

Philip Lau admitted that he hadn’t washed the lettuce he used as the base for his seafood starter.

He was charged after a shocked couple found the unidentified insects which were not identified, in a meal they ordered at the Mei Hua Platform restaurant at West Calder railway station.

They alerted called West Lothian Council’s environmental health department to report their unsavoury discovery.

When inspectors visited the restaurant in March this year, 65-year-old Lau showed them the lettuce he had used – still infested with bugs.

Lau admitted pleaded guilty to serving food that was “not of the quality demanded by the purchaser”, as well as failing to maintain a suitable decontamination process.

Sheriff Douglas Kinloch said he would have imposed a £1,000 fine but discounted the amount to £650 because Lau had admitted his guilt at an early stage in the proceedings.