BS: Your worst restaurant experience

Subject: RE: BS: Your worst restaurant experience
From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 08 Mar 25 - 05:30 PM

I had a friend who was allergic to even the smallest imaginable amount of mango. He ended up in casualty a couple of times.

We did go to an indian place once where there seemed to be some sort of row going on in the kitchen. after 40 minutes our order had still not arrived and apparently the chef had left the building. We handed over a couple of pounds to cover the cost of the drinks and left ourselves.

Robin

Subject: RE: BS: Your worst restaurant experience
From: Helen
Date: 08 Mar 25 - 02:05 PM

SRS, when I said we would pick out the raw red onion we thought it would be just a few pieces of onion rings. We didn't think it would be half of the salad. If he was allergic he wouldn't be able to eat the salad if the raw onion had touched it but picking them out is ok for him.

Mrrzy, oh yum! Cilantro aka coriander. My favourite Thai dish is green chicken curry. It wouldn't be the same without the cilantro.

Cilantro is definitely love-it-or-hate-it/can-or-can't-eat-it food but I'm not sure why. It might be a DNA thing.

I like watching the real-life hospital Emergency medical shows and people with peanut allergies can be in life threatening situations. One patient ordered fish cakes from a take away shop, had an allergic reaction, went into anaphylactic shock and found out at the hospital that she is also allergic to pine nuts which were in the fish cakes but not declared on the menu. I assume it is somehow related to peanut allergy. That would limit the use of pine nuts in yummy basil & parmesan pesto sauce.

Subject: RE: BS: Your worst restaurant experience
From: Mrrzy
Date: 08 Mar 25 - 01:32 PM

Witnessed - hugely pregnant woman comes in, says Name is Brown, I have a reservation. Host looks terrified: The party they had just seated said They were the Browns! Pregnant woman turns to companion and says, that's the last time we use YOUR name! I had to ask. Hers was Slavic, long, and vowel-less.

My own tend to involve closet cilantro: I recall once ordering something and asking to have it without cilantro, got my food, took a bite, and had to spit that mouthful into my napkin. Called waitress over, she said I told them no cilantro! Goes to kitchen, reports back that the cilantro is an integral part of the dish, not a garnish, so the kitchen just ignored her as it would have meant tuna, lettuce, and absolutely none of the seventeen other ingredients in my dish, because they were all already mixed. I say OK, no biggie, but I don't want any food now, too grossed out to eat anything. (There were a bunch of us. I stayed for the camaraderie.) I mean, really.

Subject: RE: BS: Your worst restaurant experience
From: Donuel
Date: 08 Mar 25 - 01:28 PM

In Virginia they have a Golden Corral that was superb so I went to one in Ohio. You have to pay first so when we got in there was a 500 lb. man surrounded by a motley entourage. There was not a single entre in the buffet since they were trying to avoid feeding the obese monster any longer.
The great one was waiting them out and the restaurant was in Mexican standoff mode. We left hungry and without dinner money leaving the siege of the Golden Corral behind us.

Subject: RE: BS: Your worst restaurant experience
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 08 Mar 25 - 12:42 PM

If they ask if he's allergic and will only remove it if is he is, then tell them yes, he's allergic to onion. It doesn't matter if his adverse reaction is uncomfortable or deadly, he can't eat it and that's all they need to know. You clearly got a salad scooped out of a big bin so it wasn't the freshest.

On occasion I've been surprised by how a menu item was prepared. One time in Idaho on a road trip I ordered French toast - pretty safe bet it's going to be bread, egg, and syrup. But no, they had a humongous piece of bread, dipped in an egg batter, then deep fried. I asked what on earth this was when it arrived and was told it's their own recipe. I should have sent it back. I tried eating it but it was quite greasy.

The weird surprise when I first moved to the South is that when eating breakfast out here if you order tea, they'll bring you iced tea unless you specify hot tea.

Subject: RE: BS: Your worst restaurant experience
From: Helen
Date: 08 Mar 25 - 12:26 PM

Funny, not funny, SRS!

I have only refused to pay for a meal once. It was a work dinner for my Hubby. The place was so crowded and the chairs so tightly packed together that we couldn't lift our arms to use our knife and fork properly. It was extremely noisy with so many people talking loudly.

I ordered a steak, medium not rare. It came out and it had been seared very briefly on both sides and was red raw on the inside, like buying a raw steak from the butcher. I showed it to the waitress and she took it back to the kitchen and did not charge me for the meal. She was very helpful, friendly and apologetic. We never went back to that restaurant.

Subject: RE: BS: Your worst restaurant experience
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 08 Mar 25 - 12:15 PM

A friend and I stopped at a little Chinese restaurant after a volunteer event and we were too tired to cook when we got home. We ordered the pu pu platter (an array of things, kind of a small buffet at your table) that came with a strangely animated can of sterno in the bottom keeping everything warm. The can started sputtering, and the food was oddly seasoned. At one point I jumped up and put out a burning spot on my friend's jacket after a bit of the burning alcohol jumped out of the can onto the booth.

We sent the tray back and asked for food without all of the blue specks of sterno and when they brought it back it still had specks - they hadn't sent out something new, they simply picked off most of the sterno on our now-cold food.

That is the first time I ever refused to pay for a meal, and I suggested that if they made a fuss I'd call the fire department and complain about the fire hazard and showed them the burn on the jacket.

That place closed fairly soon after.

Subject: RE: BS: Your worst restaurant experience
From: Helen
Date: 08 Mar 25 - 12:12 PM

Mr Red, my Hubby can't eat raw onion, although he is ok if it is cooked or marinated.

We ordered a meal at a place where the food is not the greatest ever, but it is usually ok for the price. I can't remember what the feature item in the dish was, but it came with an Asian inspired salad. I requested no onion when I ordered it, but then a few minutes later I was called back to find out if my Hubby had an allergy to onions. I said he didn't but that he can't eat raw onion because it upsets his stomach. She said the salad comes with raw red onion so I said we would just pick it out and eat the rest.

When the meal arrived there was a fairly big salad and - I am not exaggerating - *half* of the salad was raw red onion which was not marinated in oil with lemon or lime juice or vinegar. We picked it out and left it on the plate because I'm not fond of raw onion either. A third of the whole meal was raw red onion.

What is the fascination with raw unmarinated red onions? I don't get it at all.

Subject: RE: BS: Your worst restaurant experience
From: Bill D
Date: 08 Mar 25 - 11:47 AM

Driving back from Kansas City to Wichita with a friend, we came to a smallish town with 2 restaurants on the main street. One said "Good Eats", so in we went. Nice little homey place with wooden booths and a menu with familiar stuff.
   He ordered the fried chicken and I opted for meat loaf. Looked fine when it arrived... then we tasted it!
   He said his chicken was not only over cooked, but tough and bland.
My meatloaf came with mashed potatoes and gravy... and somehow the gravy tasted odd. After several bites, I recognized the flavor. It tasted like it had set overnight in a refrigerator under some dripping watermelon. In fact, everything seemed to be yesterday's reheated stuff.
   That meal became our classic "never again" location.

Subject: RE: BS: Your worst restaurant experience
From: Mr Red
Date: 08 Mar 25 - 07:29 AM

At a company Xmas dinner in a pub. We all specified our preferences in advance, I went with "Ploughmans'" & "No Onions". As simple as it gets to comply.

It came with a pickled onion on top of the cheese. When I pointed-out the error the waitress (cook?) replied "You never said anything about a pickle!"

The reason I don't eat at restaurants is for that kind of reason. They don't know what food is what, or "it's only got a bit of garlic", as if I wouldn't notice.

You get what they sell, and eating out is for pleasure, and it's no pleasure with fodder & attitudes like the above, so I don't buy. Hence I get to see what I eat.

Subject: RE: BS: Your worst restaurant experience
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 08 Mar 25 - 06:17 AM

The burning down of the steak restaurant in the Arcade in Lancaster...... Their 32 ounce steak with all trimmings was the best when really hungry.

Subject: BS: Your worst restaurant experience
From: Donuel
Date: 07 Mar 25 - 08:09 PM

The worst was in Buffalo, NY, when rat tail bones were inside a hot dog.
The second worst was in Columbus Ohio, which is a long story.