The footage has been widely shared on social media since Oct. 2.
While preparing a pot of fish soup, one of the duo says: “This fish has been dead for a week, and has a greenish slime layer, but it’ll be fine; once cooked, customers can still eat it.”
The two then laugh, saying, “Customers can eat it, but employees can’t,” while mimicking how customers would eat the meal.
The Korean Broadcasting System later reported on the incident under the headline, “Video mocking Koreans causes outrage.”
On Oct 4, the two issued an apology, stating that they made the video just for fun and there was no such thing as spoiled fish with green mucus, Maeil Business Newspaper reported.
Both promised that they would never do it again and deleted the video.
Many Koreans have called on authorities to step in, saying it is a matter of food safety and hygiene.
“I won’t dare step into restaurants where foreign workers are employed anymore,” one person wrote on social media.
“Health is not a joke, there must be strict penalties for these people,” another commented on KBS.
Some pointed out that consuming dead fish is normal because the time from catching to bringing them ashore can range from a week to half a month, though this does not apply to raw dishes like sashimi.
But it is impossible to determine the actual condition of the fish from the video or whether the duo actually served spoiled fish to customers.