A reporter from a CBS affiliate in Minnesota walks into a Chinatown butcher. No, this isn't the start of the joke, but what happened was unintentionally hilarious. The owner of the butcher shop isn't laughing, because he just had to fend off charges he was selling dog meat.

Apparently this Land-o-Lakes reporter was running down a story about a Long Island puppy mill that sold sick puppies to stores in Minnesota. The mill in question also shipped some animals to 36 East Broadway in Manhattan, the address of Dak Cheong Meat Market. The reporter immediately assumed that the puppies were used for meat. When she went in and asked the owner, Chao Fang, if he sold "dog meat," he thought she said "duck meat," so he said yes, because as anyone who has strolled the alleys of Chinatown knows, many of the windows have ducks strung up right in them. Oh, when cultural insensitivity meets a language barrier, comedy always ensues.

The disgusted and outraged reporter then called the state agriculture department who sent inspectors to the shop, though they didn't find any dog meat. It turns out that the operator of the puppy mill sent the animals to the wrong address. She meant to send them to a pet store owner who lives on the same street.

Fang's response to a NY Post reporter after he was cleared of any wrongdoing is just as amazing. ""How could we sell dog meat? This isn't China. This isn't Korea," he said. Oh, so now he's admitting that Chinese people and Koreans eat dog. That's not going to go over well, especially in Minnesota.

[NYP, image of duck meat from an unrelated store via Shutterstock.com]