The unusual video shows a man dropping his phone in a hot pot while having dinner at a restaurant with his friends.

Surveillance camera footage recorded at the restaurant in the city of Jinan in Shandong, China, shows the man enjoying a meal on January 30.

But just seconds later he dropped the device in the pot of boiling soup on the table while trying to show his friends something on the screen.

Puzzled over the incident, he tried to dip his hand in the pot of soup for the smartphone but backed away after realising it was boiling.

A waitress who reached the man's table helped him to fish the phone out with a ladle.

In a second video, the man is seen sitting on a sofa, and typing on the device after he managed to dry it off with a blow drier.