“Um ... So Those Are Not Mints” — Man Accidentally Eats Expanding Towels at Fancy Restaurant

One TikToker's viral video is being highlighted as a prime example of why it's so important to follow directions.

Pouya Hashemi (@heypouya) uploaded a viral clip where he was presented with a plate of small, white discs that looked like hockey pucks at a hoity-toity restaurant. He must've either thought they were mints or he has a strange addiction to eating traditionally inedible objects.

Because they were a plate of "magic" towels. And despite a server informing him that they weren't meant to be eaten, Hashemi kept happily chewing away.

"So right here, we have the new hot towels when guests order wings," the restaurant worker tells Pouya as he takes one of the small rolled up towels and then pops it into his mouth. The food service worker suppresses a smile and then begins to clarify to the patron what he just ingested.

"Um, so those are not mints ... those are the hot towels. So we're going to add hot water on top and they're going to expand. So that's going to help you to clean your hands."

The employee then gets the small container of hot water and begins pouring it over the small plate of rolled up, tiny hot towels. As he does this, the miniature towels then begin to expand on the plate. Slowly, they rise up as Pouya continues to chew. Perhaps from seeing the towels expand before him, Pouya then takes a sip of water and extricates the small towel from his mouth.

The TikToker defends his actions in a caption for the video, writing that even though he chewed on a towel meant for guests to wipe their hands that they indeed looked exactly like mints, which is what prompted him to eat one of them in the first place. "They totally looked like mints."

While this type of face/hands wiping solution is probably most closely associated with eating establishments that'll make your eyes bulge out of your head once you're presented with your bill, they're actually not all that expensive.

In fact, large bags of these "portable compressed towels" can be purchased at Temu for $1.47 for 25 a pop. They also come in 50- and 100-count packs as well.

Amazon also sells a 100 pack of "compressed magic towel" tablets for $12.99. The description of the product indicates that they're best suited for camping and travel. And that all folks will need to do to enjoy seeing they're magically expanding capabilities is to "just add water."

Again, water-expanding towels in restaurants isn't exactly a new phenomena: This YouTube video posted 17 years ago also shows off the towel-expanding technology in action:

Some people may argue that it's little touches like this that folks experience when they go out to eat that is a prime example of the ways diners are being hoodwinked into paying exorbitant prices at fine dining establishments.

A Redditor who uploaded a post to the site's r/unpopularopinion page shared their thoughts on eating out at fancy restaurants. They penned that patrons who drop tons of money on grub in these places are ultimately just wasting their money as they can more than likely purchase the same ingredients and make better food at home for a fraction of the cost.

They write in the video: "When I see people spending hundreds of dollars on a meal, it blows my mind. It’s usually something you can cook yourself for 10 percent of the money you just spent on the meal. And, you’ll be hungry again in a few hours. Spending exorbitant amounts of money on something with no lasting value literally makes no sense."

And as for Hashemi's video, TikTokers seemed less interested with engaging in the polemics of whether or not going out to eat was worth it, and moreso with his inability to follow directions along with utter shock that he tried eating a small towel.

One user on the app wrote: "The waiter: OK so they aren’t mints. Again these are towels. OK so they are hot towels. Him: 😋🤤."

While someone else said: "I feel like the waiter should have simply said: 'Sir please spit out our towel.'"

"He’s nodding and chewing like he completely didn’t understand a single thing the guy said," another penned.