Maybe I’m just lucky, but no one restaurant meal stands out to me as truly dreadful. Or maybe I’m just blocking.
I’ve had many “meh” meals in restaurants (no, I didn’t say meth). Especially when driving across the country (as I often do), I just want to eat something and then get to sleep. Often lowest common denominator food is what’s available near chain motels in small towns late at night.
How about you? Any truly disastrous and/or disgusting restaurant meals?
I hope SugarFree weighs in on this, because his story is hilarious. Of course.
Twice in restaurants I ordered rare steak and got burnt as fuck ‘well done’ steak. (One was an actual steak a Ponderosa, the other was for steak and eggs at truckstop). Those are the only two that stand out in my mind.
too many to choose from,
Went to a bar in Old Town Alexandria that had raw oysters on the menu. These fucking oysters. They were milky white and smelled like old whore’s cooch. It was a travesty and a waste of perfectly good seafood.
It was Light Horse Tavern in case you ever go there and have a hankering for old whore’s cooch.
Well, maybe come back later when they aren’t being intimate?
Kristen must have extensive experience in what old whore’s cooch smells like.
It smells smarter than Krugman.
I thought most people went nose-blind to their own smell *runs away before KK can smack me*
Yeah, you guys don’t get with many chicks, do ya?
LOL
Oh, snap!
I heard that ribbing was for her pleasure; maybe I got my sex ed all wrong…
Was it summer? One of the reasons to avoid oysters in the summer is that it is spawning time (so yeah they were fucking oysters in a sense). That is what gives them that milky taste. The old hoor’s smell is generally not a desired nose for your seafood.
Absolutely not! Even though most oysters are cultivated these days, so spawning season is not really relevant anymore, I still only eat them in “season”. They looked milky.I have no idea how they tasted. I would have not put one of those things in my mouth if you had offered to pay for my resulting medical bills.
Yeah, if they look milky they are not good to eat. That was a bad shucker.
I’m 100% certain they were shucked in the morning when the kitchen opened. (I was eating at about 7pm).
I’ve had some damn fine oysters up your direction, KSuellington. Heck, I’ve had some damn good seafood just down the street from KK’s geezer whore snatch place, too, come to think of it.
I love me some seafood.
I now only go to places that have “Oyster” in their name. My favorite is the Walrus over at National Harbor. I like Hank’s, too, but their menu is smaller.
I had a really good time at Quarterdeck over in Arlington one time.
There’s a seafood place over in Gainesville (technically I think it’s in Warrenton) that I really enjoyed going to, but that’s quite a hike for you unless you’re out at the range.
Yeah, one of the good things of living here is the seafood, of which I am also a huge fan. I’ve shucked hundreds of oysters in my time from the local places up in Tomales Bay. Last Friday night I caught a couple Dungeness crabs from the beach down the street. So damn good.
Dungeness crab – yum. One of the things I miss most about the Bay Area.
No truly horrible meals for me that I can remember, but a few years ago at Christmas we were going to a fast casual place for dinner and the waiter mixed up Dad’s Riesling and my Pinot Noir.
OMFG! Did you have a fainting couch at your disposal!?
He just posted some lame song to their trip advisor page.
Hateful®, the lot of you.
Lamer than this?
https://youtu.be/7iM5nFNUG4U
Westernsloper is my new hero.
That’s easy to do because the boxes look about the same.
We talking fast food restaurants, or legit sit down and actually have someone wait on you place with cloth chin wipers and stuff sort of restaurants?
Go for any place you ever ate, if it’s a good story.
Ok, some of these stories are snapping a brain cell or two into action. In this country, the best maga country, I know when I go eat somewhere I can make what ever I am ordering better than I am going to be served so I have certain expectations and is why I rarely eat out unless it is lunch with the folks done for other reasons, that reason being just having lunch with my folks, than fine dining and that is usually at some new taco stand and then I suspect I can’t make it better but usually change my mind when I eat it. This one time,
at band campI had a few days to burn in Australia on my way off the wrong side of the planet. I had breaded and fried Barramundi out in the bush working for some suspect people and I really liked it. It is like perch but bigger fillets. All the wrong side of the planetiers raved about this fish so I decided to go get a fish sandwich out on the docks. Granted it was a tourist town and my expectations were low but this was the worst fish sandwich I have ever had. The fish was about the size of the smallest sprocket on a ten speed and tasted as oily as a sprocket but much mushier and served on stale bread with no tarter sauce. (hell we had tartar sauce in the bush) The wait people were assholes and the whole experience just reinforced my feeling Aussies hate Americans. I got that a lot over there though but it might just be I am an asshole and has nothing to do with my passport or accent. I always questioned that. The questionable people I worked with on the wrong side of the planet accepted me and we were friends but it took awhile, but someone who does not know what a wonderful person I am might have served me the worst fish sandwich on the wrong side of the planet on purpose.And served to you with that fucking horrible penal colony accent. Aussies absofrickinlutely have a chip on their shoulders against Americans. I met many in my travels (and some very good ones) but whenever their anti-American attitudes would come out I would ask them why they could never get rid of the Brits like we did, they didn’t even have their own proper flag. They loved that.
It was the Russians.
No Russians there, all Aussies all the way to the top.
Food always tastes better when I don’t have expend any effort.
Fish, can be touch and go depending on the variety when eating out. I’ve had some really good catfish at restaurants, and I’ve also had some that tasted like dirt. But that’s the Gambol when ordering,
The one I’m getting more upset about as I get older is Smelt. Every spring every place around here has a smelt fry. It used to be all locally caught, locally cooked and you could taste the difference in recipes, but in the last 10 years or so they all started buying all the same flash frozen pre-breaded stuff. Sure, it’s more consistent, and the commercial stuff tends to be smaller so no uncomfortable bones being swallowed, but it loses any real meaning outside of tradition.
You eat smelt? I thought that was bait.
Smeltin USA.
As a proud Minnesodan, I have never had smelt. I aim to remedy that this spring.
Olive Garden, Toronto. I was teaching a week-long class. Worst food poisoning I’ve ever had, ruined the night and the next day. I was able to stumble through the material the next morning, skipping the ‘hands on’ exercises for them to do in the afternoon while I tried to sleep. They managed, we got through, but it was a long long time before I ate at an OG again.
Two come to mind:
Against our better judgement, squeeze and I ate at an off-Broadway hole in the wall that thought it was a tourist trap. Expensive, complete garbage food. Like $15 or $20 for a chicken parm sandwich that an average toddler could have done a better job at.
Different squeeze took me to a Filipino joint in Queens once. In that case, I don’t know if it was supposed to be “good” or not. It sure wasn’t for me. I don’t like most seafood so I went for a “steak” that could only have been the end result of a lab experiment to see how much salt can be forced into a piece of meat and then cooking the ever-loving shit out of it.
Pro-tip. Don’t go to a Filipino restaurant for a steak.
You would think the massive cattle herds roaming their land would give them expertise in preparing steak.
I just recently had Marie Calender uber’d over here. I usually get the turkey dinner, which is decent. This time I thought I’d try the beef stroganoff. It was terrible! Like extra thick fettucini with hospital grade beef gravy and super chewy cuts of beef with canned mushrooms and sour cream. It was bad, only made worse by the crazy costs of having delivered on top of it all.
There is a Marie Calender restaurant? Do they just microwave the TV dinners for you?
Back in the late 90s there was some Sara Lee restaurant that opened up around here. It was terrible, as expected, and closed very quickly.
You still have MC near you?
I remember their burgers that dripped Thousand Island dressing. “Messy but good”, read the menu.
I make a pretty mean venison stroganoff for the first night at deer camp. It’s the butter and cream what make it good.
Not sure how a fella could screw it up, but I suppose hospital grade beef is a start.
Do have some memorable stories from the trip to Germany when we went away for a week or so and spent a bunch of nights at Gasthaus like places, with the attendant kitchens. The one night we spent in France my German relatives had the good sense to get the prix fixe meal, and they got to point at a giant cheese platter for what they wanted for dessert.
I can think of a few times that the food sucked or the service sucked, but nothing sticks out as a uniquely bad experience.
No, I take it back. The time I went to Uncle Julio’s in Gainesville, VA. I ordered the steak fajitas after the waitress did her best impression of ignoring us, and the steak was inedible. Literally could not eat it for being so damn chewy. I’ve had jerky more tender. Sent it back and got another rawhide out from the kitchen. The manager ended up comping the meal after I asked him whether he’d like to try gnawing on the meat, and I got some fast food burger on the way home.
Ended up going back a couple years later, and the service was still awful, but at least the food was literally edible. I don’t remember it knocking my socks off, though.
This time witha tha special juice, eh? You lika da juice?
Good civil war article. That checklist seemed about right.
Thanks! Much appreciated. As always, you gotta take that series with a grain of salt. Waaaaay too many moving pieces to play prognosticator in more than a half serious way.
When your first one posted that was one of the rare times I checked the site at work. Unbeknownst to me, that computer had remote access enabled and just at that time the son of the guy who owned the radio station logged on to check something. I then had to answer what ‘that terrorist shit’ was.
*puts on turban, declares jihad*
I’m with you. Lots of ‘meh’, but nothing that stands out as horrible.
On the other end of the spectrum, I had dinner at a lovely place in Venice that I will never forget. Seppie al Nero alla Veneziana (cuttlefish in ink, served over polenta).
Looked disgusting, tasted like heaven. The nice lady who ran the place was so sweet (reminded me of my grandma), she didn’t even criticize my shitty Italian. She made my wife and I feel like we were regulars.
I hope I can go back some day.
Thanks, SP! I haven’t dredged that wonderful memory up in a long time!
Cockroach soup, but I’m not sure if that counts because the cockroach was not actually supposed to be in there.
In the US: We went to a restaurant in Spotsylvania for breakfast. It was awful, not bad, it was inedible. The sausage smelled rancid when cut and you couldn’t get them near your mouth. My friend ordered fried eggs and they were barely white and most of the whites were running. One yolk even was obviously fertilized with a bloody mess in it. I got scrambled eggs and they were grey, but at least the portions were small. The waiter smirked at us and asked how we liked being “down south”. I replied we were enjoying VA but had driven north from NC to get here- his reply was “You boys aren’t southern.” My friend looked at him and asked if he heard of the “Mule Shoe” “Of coursen I have.” He then pointed at both of us and announced we were Army officers and “Well, our predecessors had killed the last non ignorant Southerners there.” We threw our money on the table and left. Later we had a perfectly acceptable meal at a Waffle House.
Overseas: I have had some weird meals in my last profession. Cobra Blood in Thailand, goat eye balls with the Kuwaiti Army preparing to head back north into Kuwait, bush meat in Zaire, who knows what it was in Chad. But the worst meal was funny. On a trip south to climb the three great Mexican volcanos we stopped overnight in Puebla and went to eat near the central plaza. I ordered spaghetti and get my meal. I took a sniff, then a bite. I offered a taste to my girl friend and she looked at me. We both said “It’s Chef Boyardee.”
One yolk even was obviously fertilized with a bloody mess in it.
“It’s fertilized? You pay for chicken!”
My favorite Chicken Shawarma place in a certain town in N Iraq pulled the chicken fillets to stab onto the vertical broiler out of a bloody chicken meat bucket. When I saw that I was ……Whoaaaa hold the fuck on. I shut my mouth and ate them almost every day. Delicious.
Chef Boy-ar-dee or Chef Boi-yardee?
My brother served his LDS mission in Puebla. Came back with a seriously messed up digestive system. I think one of his not-so-favorite dishes was chicken feet.
Cher Boy-ar-dee. They just opened up a can and warmed it up. Their flan for dessert was muy bueno.
I bet that is seriously someone’s drag name.
Do You Believe in Life After Lunch?
Hooters in Saugus, MA. I used to stop in there every now and then, for the scenery since the food was so-so. That stopped when I got food poisoning after a trip there.
There used to be a crappy Mexican place nearby (which was nevertheless popular because of the margaritas and large patio and margaritas). My wife got the Chicken Flautas there and was pretty sure they were the frozen chicken flautas from costco, just plated and marked up 1000%.
Living and traveling around LatAm for several years I ate my share of questionable street food and dicey restaurants. Once in a Peruvian ghetto I went into a hole in the wall chicken and chips place. A quarter way through I noticed the chicken tasted like trout. I stopped eating it but too late. A few hours later the salmonella hit me and it was frigging brutal. Two days on the can with a garbage can in front on me. Zero stars, would not go back.
Crappy service: Bikini’s on Fredericksburg Road, San Antonio. It’s no longer there, which doesn’t surprise me.
I came close to walking out, and then the bartender noticed me. She got my beer and took my food order. The place was not busy at all. I came close to walking out again while waiting for my food as it took quite a long time. I left a shitty tip.
The wife and I once went to one of her favorite restaurants in the Bay Area, with a name that sounds/looks like Cheese Penis. Now, I am not a food person at all, and generally don’t get what all the fuss is about. But this place has a reputation that far exceeds most places on the west coast. And the food was just… meh. The beer selection was worse than an Applebees, but the service was pretty much the shittiest I have experienced. The waitress was disinterested, bitchy, and slow.
The capper was, as it is a tip-free restaurant (we pay a living wage!), and when the check took forever getting to the table, I just wanted to get out of here, so I just left cash on the table to cover the tab. As I was walking out, the waitress calls to me across a fine dining establishment that I had left my change so I called back to her “Its a tip, you know, what normal people do” and kept walking.
I once tried to patronize the casual no-reservations level and I was stared at as if I had lobsters crawling out of my ears.
Yeah, the place exudes Berkeley snobbery to a T. Which is too bad, as I come from an old Berkeley family.
WAIT!
I went on a trip to NYC with my pornstar girlfriend around 1990 or so. The club owner (where she was “dancing” that week) got us into some high faluting restaurant. They sent a black car for us. We rode through town to some strange area.
It was entirely various shades of grey. Literally everything for miles in every direction was either dark or light grey, EXCEPT the prostitutes. They were spaced about every 50 feet or so and they all wore different dayglo colors. It was a massive contrast. There was nothing else but the grey stuff and the whores. This went on for maybe 20 blocks or so. Finally, the livery car pulled down one of the grey alleys and stopped at a grey door. How he found it, I’ll never know.
The door had a speakeasy style port. The driver made us stay in the car and went and talked through the speakeasy port. Then, He motioned us out of the car and we went inside. The interior was fucking massive, with a circular central open space that was 5 floors high, like an atrium. In the center was a 30 foot high, full color statue of a green dragon. People ate at circular balconies on the various floors. It was really wild that suck a spectacle was present in such a shell shocked area.
I looked at the menu and everything was weird. Like ostrich livers and baked seal spleens. I found the mildest thing I could, BBQ duck and papaya tacos. They were greasy and incredibly gamy. I hated them. I just wish they’d have had a fucking steak dinner or something. Those tacos were terrible. We had a lot really good Italian food and some excellent cheese cake, mostly all brought to the door by people riding bicycles.
Why isn’t this story a Glibs article?
^This. Report to second level meditation, er editing, immediately.
With…pictures of said girlfriend, please!
It’s pretty easy to find pics. She was a, eighties porn star with a stage name taken from a Steely Dan song.
Aja?
Toldja it was easy.
How isn’t this an Agile poem.
Sounds like this place (never been), which makes L’Idiot sound like Hometown Buffet. https://foodtalkcentral.com/t/vespertine-the-gaffe-of-kahn/6273
Shoulda ordered the seal spleen.
IDK, they aren’t very good if the seal wasn’t clubbed in the previous 12 hours.
Daggum luck, I feel like I’m in that sweet spot of drunk that I could do a good pilot episode of the new iteration of the Hat and Hair, but also I’m too over-tired to actually do it since I’m coming up on 24hrs of being awake. A whole year of ‘two weeks to bend the curve’ and ‘help out on third shift for a couple weeks and then you’ll be back on 2nd shift’ is starting to get me burned out.
Take notes!
The whole point of the new incarnation is less work though.
I went to some cafeteria joint in NC along I40 and pulled a strand of hair 18” in length out of the salad.
At a small truck stop in the middle of nowhere Brazil I ate capivara, which was truly fucking vile.
Is that the same as capybara? As in, the giant rodent?
*shudder*
Yes. Same.
It tasted like river muck.
R.O.U.S.
Nice! “The Princess Bride” is one of my favorite movies.
From a Frank Zappa interview. “I never ate shit on stage during a show. The closest I have ever come to eating shit was at a Holiday Day buffet in Fayetteville.”
Having been assigned to nearby Ft Bragg I believe Frank was not exaggerating.
I probably shouldn’t be reading this thread while eating dinner.
Thanks for the topic SP. I now have to go eat leftover Jambalaya/Gumbo (can’t remember which one has rice but this one now has rice) which is better than what I have been served in any restaurant I have been too. Have a great night everyone!
I had 5 spice cow’s stomach in a slum in Dongguan, China. It was served hotpot style and I was eating with a merry band of itinerant brick layers. We were all building a glass melting furnace. It was…not good. I never got sick, but I left hungry.
I went out with them again the next day. We had Schezuan style spicy donkey. Now THAT was very tasty.
One of the best meals I have ever had was at a Muslim Hand Pulled Noodle shop in another slum in China. I watched the guy pull the noodles. Two of us ate until bursting for $4.
Pro-tip: Don’t order a “steak” at a cowboy-themed restaurant in Beijing no matter how cute the Chinese cowgirl-hat-wearing waitress is. You will be disappointed with the 1/4″ thick piece of shoe leather they bring you. But damn the waitresses were cute in their short-shorts.
I think the absolute worst meal I have ever had was when I was 10. We were butchering chickens on my uncle’s dad’s farm. Chop the heads off, scald them, pluck them, disembowel them, bag them, freeze them.
What did he serve for lunch? Boiled chicken.
Jesus.
No grill, ffs?
NO (shudders at the memory)
LOL
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzTX8SVJtis
Since you put in the “restaurant” qualifier, I have nothing.
A Hardees near the Ohio Pennsylvania border, around 10:00 at night in the middle of winter. I know, you don’t expect much out of a Hardee’s, but holy jumping gila monsters, this burger was like coarsely ground boot leather pressed into a patty. Good golly, that was a bad sandwich.
I would contend you just weren’t at the optimal level of drunk for enjoying Hardee’s.
Were you in Farrell, Pa?
Heh.
For my birthday a few years ago in Normandy, France, some friends we’d met up with, who knew the local area, recommended a charming country resto, reeking with rural savoir faire. Sadly, that wasn’t all that was reeking.
Linen table service. Refined elegance. Hushed tones from the waitstaff. An impressive visual experience that bode well for the feast to come. Alas, t’was not to be.
I decided to leave my comfort zone and the range of dishes which I recognized on the menu, and instead ordered a “rural, farmhouse style” andouillette sausage, based on my love for Cajun andouille sausage. ”They’re almost the same thing, right?”
WRONG.
Here’s how you make French andouillette sausage:
First, locate an active rural barn. It will have a floor of sorts in it. Grab yourself a shovel. See that floor? It’s got, um, flavourants on it, that desperately need to go inside the casing of andouillette, along with a heapin’ helpin’ of farm animal lower intestine (sorry, perhaps “chitterlings” [pronounced “chitlins'”] will make it more “real” for some of you reading this — and if the chitlins haven’t been washed out first, that’s probably even better).
Grind up the floorins’ and add ’em to the chitlins, and then shove ’em all into the sausage casing. Didn’t wash the casing out first with multiple water changes and a final rinse with high-test ethanol? No problem! It’ll just amp up the authenticity of the andouillette.
Now, steam that sucker until it’s good and, um, fragrant, and plate it exquisitely, perhaps some sautéd witlof, mebbe a lashing of Thai Hom Mali jasmine rice, and voilá!
Gaze upon your clientele as they chow down on the feast to come! What’s that you say? They don’t like it? Certain phrases such as “gag reflex” are being used in your presence? Other customers, sitting at adjacent tables, are desperately trying to find excuses to leave the immediate area, perhaps to get some air?
Philistines, the lot of ’em.
Tant pis pour toi!
Eeeewww.
I made this exact same mistake in Lyon, France. I ate it all, and it was not as horrible as the one you had, but I wasn’t happy.
The only time I’ve eaten head cheese was at a small, country restaurant south of Lyon. We got there after lunch, so we got leftovers. The starter was head cheese two ways. I figured that if I was going to try it, where better than France? That was 2001. Haven’t had it since.
Never eat the bbq pork bun in the Tokyo International Airport. Just sayin’.
Like we’ll ever get to travel again.
Yeah, there’s that, isn’t there . . .
Yeah, there’s that, isn’t there . . .
OK, that’s weird.
Never had a pork bun, but salmon onigiri isn’t really that good at 5am though. Nothing wrong with the food itself.
https://ibb.co/ftPQwPn
Two meals stick out for different reasons.
1st was pizza at a restaurant in Warren PA while I was on a motorcycle trip. I have great pizza in my area and I can take a Domino’s or Pizza Hut while traveling. This place served what had to be whitebread dough with ragu and cheddar cheese. Terribly cooked so it was both dry and soggy depending on where in the pie you ate it.
2nd was my wife and I inadvertently tried to get food from a soul food restaurant that turned out to be a drug front. It became obvious after 5 minutes after walking in. They had to send someone out to I’m guessing KFC for chicken, Mac n cheese, and the grocery store for pumkin pie instead of sweet potato pie.
We thought it was funny after ordering and seeing the eyes of the workers trying to determine if we were cops or not. We kept at it in case we were wrong and it was going to be good. We were wrong. It was cold KFC and a shitty store pie with cool whip on it.
Ah, the ‘French Bread Pizza’ my mom used to make when I was a kid! It always had green olives on it to, because it had to be the most disgusting thing.
Your moms pizza was better. My 8 year old self made better.
You over-estimate. It was retched.
Worst in what way? I have had meals that were tremendously disappointing, meals that were served to me by incompetents, assholes, and really well meaning incompetent assholes, and meals that made me sick.
Years ago, I traveled a lot for work. One year, I spent nearly six months in Texas, some of it in Waco. There was some good food in Waco, but one evening my colleague and I just needed something quick, and both of us being just a few years out of college, decided to walk from our hotel to near the Baylor campus and check out the girls and grab some basic food. We found a little restaurant with a dining area and a walk-up counter, and I ordered a cheesesteak. I love cheesesteaks, and was looking forward to my first one in a few months. What I got was so far from what I expected, I should have just thrown it away, but I was hungry. This thing was on a soggy roll with rubbery meat, and it was covered in the most non-cheesesteak toppings imaginable. It had been billed as a Philly steak, but it had *mustard* on it. Like, French’s yellow mustard! I choked it down, and after I got back to the hotel, my stomach rumbled a bit but I got to sleep.
In the middle of the night, I woke up to gut wrenching nausea. I ran to the toilet and vomited so hard that I also shit myself. Then I turned around and sprayed diarrhea so hard that I vomited again. I spent the next three days lying on the bathroom floor trying to decide which end of my alimentary canal was going to erupt next, and getting it right about a quarter of the time. I couldn’t keep any water down. Eventually, my colleague rescued me, saying I needed to eat something (no, he didn’t take me to the doctor!). He drove me around Waco, saying that I needed to tell him where to stop so I could get something to eat. I vomited bile out the door of the car at least twice during that trip. Finally, I made him stop at a grocery store and bought some Cream of Wheat. I got back to the hotel, made up the cream of wheat in the kitchenette, and got half of it down before I threw it up again. I did get better soon after but that wast the worst cheesesteak I ever had.
I don’t know why bodily function stories make me LOL so hard
It’s because you are awesome. It’s science.
I’ll just tell myself you’re laughing *with* me.
Fun fact: at the Residence Inn where we stayed, the entire floor above us had been rented out by one or more law firms that were involved in the litigation surrounding the Branch Davidian raid. This would have been early summer of 2000. I took the elevator one floor too far and stepped into a flurry of activity–some of the rooms were being used as offices, some as residences, for a ton of legal folks. It was pretty amazingly busy.
Worst Cheese Steak or best night of drinking? Sounds like the same story either way.
See below.
*gales of laughter*
sorry ?
When erupting from both ends, either a shower next to the toilet is necessary, or a garbage can.
I went to my HS best friend’s wedding. This was in 99, in podunk NC.
At the after party I had most of a bottle of goldschlager in a pretty short time. I laid down at about 2am. At 3am I jumped out of bed and vomited heartily. Went back to bed, finding that one spot where I wasn’t completely nauseous. At 7am I jumped out of bed, and threw up heart, at which point I blasted out of the other end. Fortunately the towel rack was there, and a towel absorbed most of that stream.
The rest of the morning was spent sitting in the toilet shitting in it, and retching in the tub. It was awful. Once that was over, it was about 9.30am. I was showering because we had to make the drive back to south Florida to try and beat a hurricane, and I remember thinking to myself “I can’t wait until tomorrow.”
I didn’t feel right again for another 3 days.
Meh, I had a night of drinking where I gorged on Banquet Chicken Nuggets ending with me shitting explosively on the toilet while vomitting up undigested nuggets into the sink beside, which were in chunks too big to go down the sink drain, so I then had to scoop them into the toilet for disposal (after I had finally stopped the explosive diarrhea). Like I said, I good night of drinking.
What you wanted was a tub. I’ve had the bodily fluids issue you describe, just from drinking, not food.
Greenwald laying the smack down:
Then the slice and dice begins, exposing the fucks for the assholes they are.
He may well be red pilled any day.
The thing that boggles my mind, is the idea they are pushing that Donald can’t be guilty of inciting anything, because the FBI says this was preplanned. The evidence that anything was pre-planned is thinner than the 9-11 WAS AN INSIDE JOB nuts. An idiot tried to rally supporters, even more idiot supporters acted out, with some just plain crazies mixed in like the Royal Order of the Water Buffalo guy. There doesn’t need to be some grand plot. This is where both sides lose me. No, George Soros was not handing out personally autographed bricks to BLM protesters either.
Yeah, Soros just financed the campaigns of all the DA’s who refuse to prosecute the BLM rioters.
This guy gets it. Too bad most of America does not:
He shreds that bullshit like he was playing fruit ninja.
The one that comes to mind was when I was in St Louis for a tournament, and we had St Louis style pizza. No real cheese, just velveeta or cheez whiz or something. We may argue about pizza here, but I think we can all agree that shit is terrible.
Dear Jeebus. I’d rather have NY style with pineapple.
Provel
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provel_cheese
That’s Imo’s. Can confirm terribility. When in St. L, it’s toasted ravs or GTFO.
I once ate at a no-shit neo-Nazi establishment. At least, that’s what the Yelp brigaders said. I found out years later, I’m still literally shaking.
So, you had Chic-Fil-e?
Wow. After db’s story, I’m not going to whine about the mediocre steak I got at Duffy’s in Ft. Lauderdale.
No shit.
Literally.
So, y’all seen Beta yet? I hear he’s coming soon. So what will you do when Beta shows up at your door?
a. OK, take em, there they are, I’m sorry!
b. OK, here they are, but you have to buy em back, like you said.
c. There was a boating accident, honorable gun Czar, Beta.
d.
I hear there’s a fine for D and then your door gets broken down in the middle of the night.
I can’t remember the name, but it was in Toronto. Fuck Canadians, is all I can think of at the moment.
I’m going to give this a go, because I’ve never recounted this story before.
I cannot remember the name of the place, but it had great online reviews.
So we arrived at this place in Toronto near our hotel. It looked really nice and I liked their menu.
I ordered the Steak Diane Marsala, looked really good. And I ordered a beer.
After a while the waitress comes back and puts our food on the table. After she walked off, I looked at my plate. What I saw was what looked like ribs with barbecue sauce and some mashed potatoes on the side.
So, I looked up and said ‘excuse me, can you come back here?’?
So, she walked back over and I said ‘This isn’t what I ordered’, thinking it was just a mistake.
So, she says ‘You ordered the steak.’.
I said ‘Steak Diane Marsala, this looks liker ribs’.
Then it gets really good.
She says ‘Our steak is a rib steak’.
That’s when I noticed she’s missing most of her teeth and had the complexion of a crack addict.
I said ‘What? No, got get me a menu’.
So, she leaves and comes back and hands me the menu and I said ‘This is what I ordered, pointing it out’.
She says ‘We’re out of Marsala’.
I said ‘You didn’t tell me that, and this is not even New York Strip Steak, it’s ribs!’.
She says ‘We’re out of steak’.
At this point my wife looks at me and says ‘calm down’.
I just got up and went to the front desk and explained the situation. The said ‘We’ll send over the manager’.
After about 15 minutes or so, the ‘manager’ appears. She says ‘what’s the problem?’.
I said ‘get me another beer and then we’ll talk’.
My wife looks at me and says ‘OMG, calm down!’.
I said ‘Don’t worry’.
The ‘manger comes back with my beer’.
I told her the story and she says ‘Oh, you got the wrong server’.
WTF? That didn’t help. I said ‘So, when I come to your restaurant, how do I go about getting the ‘right sever’? You’re employing someone who is obviously a sociopathic liar, what are you going to so about it?’.
This went on for a while, and I said ‘Get me 2 more beers, and then I ordered a bunch more appetizers, and said ‘By the way, I’m not paying for any of this’.
After we left and went back to our hotel room, I wrote a scathing review on YELP and sent several emails to the restaurant and they never replied.
You cannot even make up any shit like that.
I
You’re a stubborn SOB. Me? *Walks out immediately*.
Geez, I really with I would have done that. It was my wife’s first time in Canada and I really wanted her to have a good time.
Don’t steal The Hat’s schtick!
LOLTH!
I also had a 10$ lobster from a place in Philly that was on Kitchen Nightmares. It was pretty gross, but after seeing the kitchen on TV I’m glad I made it out alive.
Correction it was bar rescue not kitchen nightmares. Downy’s Pub.
At a conference in Germany, a couple Germans suggested a ‘Mexican’ restaurant because they wanted margaritas. I knew it wouldn’t be good, but I had no idea just how terrible it would be. First of all, margaritas should not taste like 7-11 slushies. Second, ketchup is NOT salsa. I felt kind of bad for the German guys as they apparently liked it.
So, you’ve never been to the Vegas strip?
A British pen-pal visited while passing through and described New Mexican cuisine as “tex-mex,” and I knew I’d lost a friend forever.
It’s “lax-mex”, am I right? (I really don’t get that whole ‘X places food makes me shit’ schtick, everybody poops, so I’m told)
I mean I’ve eaten here just about all my life and, well
Reminds me of my wife’s Boise coworkers heartily endorsing Joes Crab Shack. Frozen Gortons Fisherman level quality.
On one visit to Korea my wife’s friends brought us out to …. TGI Friday’s!
It was sort of in the boonies near Daegu and my wife said it was because they wanted to eat “authentic” American food with an American. I really wowed everyone by being able to order Awesome Blossoms in English with no accent.
Bullshit, I’ve heard your accent.
Yeah but the rube Koreans don’t know any better. Just like I don’t get why all the big city Seoul folks we know laugh at my wife’s Daegu accent.
My best friend married a Japanese woman, whose sister had been a foreign exchange student in Alabama.
She often said the Pigry Wigry was the place to hang out.
I’m fairly certain that at least once in your life a disgruntled employee has jacked off in your tartar sauce.
Not my tartar sauce, that’s sacred for the Friday Fish Fry, but on my Big Mac? I’m sure.
Catholic and that’s artinsal alter boy sauce.
But, I was an altar boy, and that’s not how ‘the sauce’ tastes…
I’m fairly certain that more than 0 McDonald’s cheeseburgers you’ve eaten have been dropped in the floor.
10 second rule wouldn’t be a rule if it only applied at home.
Reason #2 I don’t eat tartar sauce.
Reason #1 being that it’s nasty as fuck.
What the hell? I always have to pay the fry boy extra to jack off in my cup of tartar sauce. And you are telling me you get it for free?
A few come to mind.
A place called Le Senateur in Old Montreal. I had the lobster dinner. Not sure how to get lobster as tough as shoe leather, but there it was.
I was in San Bernardino with my Dad trying to find a place for lunch. I had no idea where to go. I had heard of Chuck E. Cheese but had no idea what it was.
In Vancouver the wife and I went to an Asian place (aren’t they all?) We were the only customers there. We got our drinks and ordered. After about an hour they brought us the bill. Without bringing our food in the interim.
Not a proper meal, but one of the only foods I’ve nearly regurgitated: grilled oyster at the Santa Barbara pier. Smoked, they’re delicious. Grilled, good god, Lemon.
I tried an Asian-style smoked oyster omelette a month or so ago. It was not great. It was probably because it was the first time the chef had tried to make one.
But at Spanky’s Clam Shack in Hyannis, the fried oysters are great.
I love grilled oysters. Not quite sure what went wrong for you.
Went to a birthday party at the French Laundry in November. No masks, no social distancing, good sized group – it was like the before-times. Then some peasant posted pictures on the internet and now I might lose my job.
Food was good, though.
Heh.
Lol!
Had to eat at the school cafeteria today. Natto soup, grilled minnows (?) with green tea powder as spice, slimy seaweed salad with tiny fish (?!) and pickled vegetables of some kind. Gross, but I ate it all.
Cafeteria food can be gross. I had some kind of sweet sauced hamburger in the Philippines that was pretty crappy.
There was recipe from the local lunch ladies when I grew up that I hated, and everyone else seemed to love, though we all made fun of the name, ‘Saucy Weeners’. It was fucking disgusting, it was egg noodles with like a turkey hot dog sliced up and some kind of terrible tomato based sauce. It was one of the reasons I started bringing lunch to school in my brand new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles lunch box. (That’s the lunch box I take to work now, and I get compliments, people ask me where I got it, and I say 1987)
Mad respect for your TMNT lunch box.
My work lunchbox is Rocket from Guardians of the Galaxy. I don’t have the box I used in my tender elementary years; it was Empire Strikes Back.
I never had a lunch box – always got the “free” lunch.
Hey, at least you got the free lunch before Michelle Obama extracted all taste and texture from school meals.
I was tired of getting verbally bullied by our resident bully in 5th grade, so one time when he managed to lay a hand on me I turned and swung my tin lunch box in a mean uppercut to his jaw.
The incident had many witnesses, and he was the one who got punished, not me. I was the meek kid. Until I wasn’t.
Nice.
Who the fuck feeds children natto soup? Is it a character building exercise in stoicism?
BBQ ribs in Sumter, SC. Doing an internal audit; lunchtime, the accounting manager says he knows this place with the best ribs in South Carolina.
We drive maybe 10 miles out into the country and pull into an abandoned gas station. We sit at a picnic bench and he orders some bbq ribs from
an old black dude who looked like he may have been born during the Civil War. Dude goes over to some grill made out of half a 55 gal. drum, smoke pouring up to the sky, etc. etc. Frigging ribs were inedible and sauce tasted like diesel oil smells. I acted polite as I could, but went straight to the company cafeteria upon return and had some delicious, saran wrapped ham and cheese sandwich out of the vending machine. Never did learn if this was just some joke pulled on the Yankee, or if he really thought it was the best ribs in South Carolina.
Dinner tonight, NOT at a restaurant, was really good. I made a sirloin cap roast (https://www.beefitswhatsfordinner.com/recipes/recipe/55655/red-eye-rubbed-beef-sirloin-cap-roast-with-roasted-garlic-and-caramelized-onion-jam) and cauliflower cheese. The onion/garlic jam is really good and went well with the red-eye rub. I’d make it again, but probably add more chili powder.
The worst was a pizza in Italy. But to be fair it was in the German speaking part of Italy near the border with Austria and Slovenia.
To top it off, my girlfriend’s mother complained that her pizza had too much cheese. She had ordered the Quatro fromagio.
Some of the best pizza I’ve had was in Lyon.
The worst tacos I ever had was at the Y in Lahore.
You should have brought a box lunch.
Brown bagged it.
I ordered a taco in Thailand, but was surprised to find a wiener when I unwrapped it.
Real story or clever phrasing?
What he’s saying is he enjoyed himself a ladyboy.
After wandering around all day in Florence (over 12 miles of walking, as I recall), we were starving but there was a massive wait everywhere. We find one decent looking steak place with no wait.
There was no wait for a reason – the low-light a near-raw, tough and chewy “steak” that I should have just left.
Given how hungry we were, that had to be the most disappointing single meal I’ve had.
Pro Tip: if the menu has pictures of the food, or if there’s a sandwich board outside with pictures of the food, go somewhere else.
Hard-laminated menus are a red-flag.
i.e., you guys _never_ vary your menu.
(exceptions for specialty places, e.g., 101 kinds of hot dogs or some shit like that)
I love Japan where they have replicas of the meals everywhere. You can point at what you want to eat and don’t have to even know the name of the dish.
For the meal service on JAL they bring a card with pictures of the meal options.
I just remembered a story my wife told me. She was out to dinner with a friend, her friend got some sort of fish IIRC, then after they were done the waiter came over
Waiter: How was the fish?
Friend: Umm… it was good, I guess.
Waiter: Oh, that’s good to hear, we’ve been getting a lot of complaints about people getting sick from it.
Friend: … wut …
Nice tableside manner, dude! LOL
The worst meal I ever attended was at a hippie-fancy restaurant on Bardstown Road, in Louisville, all farm-to-table and local cheese. I have no idea what I ordered, but my wife got microgreens salad, organic, seeds and nuts and other rabbit foods. Eventually, she gasped and I was what? what? and she lifted back a leaf and there was a dead frog, a very small little frog. It was quite peaceful-looking, curled up in some sort of salad death tragedy.
I said, “Maybe it’s just a green crouton?” I got no laugh.
We pointed our little dead frog to the waitress the next time she swung by. Meal comped, no big deal. But the thought of how close she came to crunching down on his little bones, organs bursting into her mouth like a murdered grape, put her off salads for quite a while.
She really wouldn’t like their “spring surprise”.
Well, if they took the bones out, it wouldn’t be crunchy, would it?
This has really got me contemplating on how I must be an even more vile person than you, thanks for the depression.
If it makes you feel better, we’re divorced.
Does it make you feel better too?
I was always pretty successful dating. Not too replusive-looking when I was younger and I have none of the autisms and can talk to ladies.
I bet you got all the bobs and vegana
I look forward to your PUA book.
Talk about buried lede.
(But still no reason for depression! Nor are you vile.)
Close your eyes
And open your mouth
And you will get a green surprise
Pickled eel, Sweden. The texture is worse than whatever you’re imagining. Surstroemming is worse, but it’s not restaurant fare. In fact, it’s illegal to open a can of it in Stockholm city limits. Here it features in an episode of “Irish People Try…” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJZYieU6Cgw&ab_channel=Facts.
Stateside, I had frogs’ legs in a swank restaurant in Florida in 99. I didn’t like them one bit. They were so garlicky it was obvious that the garlic was there to cover up the taste of the frogs. The texture and availability of the meat was meh. So what’s the freaking point of cooking, serving, and eating them??
On the other hand, i had a random celebrity sighting there. I had been sent inside to hold the table while the rest of my party of 10 arrived. I looked over and saw Hulk Hogan alone at a table in the corner, also apparently waiting for others. When our eyes met, he had a slight look of dread like he’d been “made” and wouldn’t be left alone. I just lifted my glass and inclined my head in acknowledgement. He was relieved, did the same, and smiled.
An even better surstroemming video: Opening the can.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDCy9x9qxMk&ab_channel=Zarkow
Apparently you have to open the can in a bucket of water to contain the smell.
But WHYYYYYY?
Is this the real reason Sweden beat Covid without lockdowns?
They should just mark it as a biohazard.
Damned straight.
Hair in a club sandwich at a Perkins after bar. The waitress held them up to her head and said, too short to be mine. I suggested they were probably too curly to have come from a scalp. We got up, left and went to a White Castle down the road.
Wait.
White Castle was the step UP?
At what appeared to be a favorite restaurant in Silver City NM I made the mistake of ordering the “all you can eat prime rib” special. The guy at the next table over had one that looked decent. So naturally mine turns out to be well done, WTF? I managed to eat most of it, not a real big steak fortunately, told the waitress that I would like the next one to be rare. So 10 minutes later she brings out one even more overcooked than the first one. So now I’m getting agravatted and had her take it back. Next one she brought me was definitely rare, in fact it was still frozen in the middle. Folks I was with had a good laugh, I cut my loses and ordered dessert.
If you ever get the chance to go to Bill’s Fish House in Waurika OK, take it. Best catfish evar. They even have a little airstrip for private planes of those who don’t want to drive there. http://www.billsfh.com/
Has the charming bonus feature of serving Rocky Mountain Oysters (good ones) so you can prank your city friends.
I was once served a salty heated golf pencil in my (complimentary) chips and salsa at Border Cafe in Harvard Square. I’m guessing it fell out of someone’s front pocket and into the fryer.
You make take solace in the fact is shut down permanently.
London. Lunch at a pub where the upstairs was more of a restaurant that was supposedly the place wher DeGaulle hung out.
I had a sandwich with tough bread and tough meat and a weird sweet/sour pickle. Gross.
The worst I’ve had was disappointing.
Most disappointing?
Cleveland Wyndham
Still better than the horror stories you lot are sharing.
Though I have to say it’s a matter of expectations. If I’m not expecting much and don’t get much, I’m not as disappointed.
Very much this – some of my more “disappointing” meals were, in fact, perfectly good – but the price kept me from thinking they were truly great.
(I’m pretty price insensitive, but I have my limits).
Dennys. Niagara Falls NY. 1997.
Hands-down the worst breakfast ever.
Cashier: “Well how was everything?”
Me: “Where do I start? Runny eggs, burnt toast, cold coffee…”
Haven’t gone to a Denney’s since.
Reading thru the comments, I guess we didn’t have it that bad.
I know people who deliberately order runny eggs,
burnt toastand cold coffee.the yolk should be runny and the whites set if we are talking boiled/fried/poached eggs. Otherwise should be illegal
No part of a cooked egg should be runny.
A runny yolk is one of the most vile combinations of flavor and texture ever devised.
A hot yolk running into anything makes it better.
While it might improve the yolk, it spoils the item thus contaminated.
What the deuce?
Are you quite mad??
Hmmm. How about SugarFree’s ass?
It would be better than SugarFree’s ass without a runny egg yolk. As for enjoyable? I leave that for your own personal kink.
This guy gets it.
You don’t go to Denny’s, you end up at Denny’s.
Have we gone drinking together?
One time I had mussels at the French place I just love, but picked one up and this jet black liquid just ran out into the rest of the mussels. I stopped eating at that point but the damage had been done – that one bad mussel kept my on the john for hours.
Barf. I’ve gotten a mudder before, but nothing like that.
I think I’ve gotten food poisoning at least 4 of the last 5 times I’ve visited the in-laws in Korea. They are farm folks who don’t follow big city ways of hygiene, my guts are sissified from too many years of eating well refrigerated foods.
It also doesn’t help that my visits draw all the locals because they want to see what they can trick me into eating and drinking. Someday they will visit and I’ll make them eat lutefisk as revenge for all the “traditional” things they’ve made me eat.
They think it is awesome that I am not a picky eater and like telling me about how the special dish will fix up some malady. In addition to the food, there are lots of different boozes that they make me try.
The downside though is that my guts are knocked for a loop for 3-4 days. After that I’m good though.
Makes you wonder if they’re pranking you or if they’ve managed to cultivate appropriate gut flora for digestion of those foods that are exotic to you.
I’d go with the gut flora.
I had no idea until the past 15 years how important that is to digestion and overall health.
When docs prescribe antibiotics, they should also tell their patients to take probiotics so that they can restore normal function.
They wanted to cut out 8 inches of large intestine from my husband because of diverticulitis, but I had noticed he always got worse after eating dairy, so I bought him some “acidophilus” probiotics.
Literally a life changer. He used to miss 2-3 work days a month with diverticulitis agony.
Since probiotics, he’s only had maybe 3 flare ups altogether.
You can’t do a wholesale diet change overnight and not expect it to rile things up for a couple of days. If your dog is on a specific diet, you don’t change it in one day. Humans aren’t a whole lot different.
I’m sure I’m repressing memories of vile restaurant meals I’ve had (I’ll probably have nightmares about them tonight. I DID get a mild case of food poisoning once at a Red Lobster in Muncie, IN, but probably from the produce, not the seafood, based on comparing notes with my mealmates. It had tasted OK, though.)
The incident that comes to mind is when we went to a brand new nouvelle cuisine/tiny food place in one of Dayton’s Fashionable Southern Suburbs to hear a favorite local musical ensemble (too artsy to really think of them as just a “band.”) After a “full” (and hideously expensive) meal there enjoying a set or two of the music, we were so hungry on the way home that we stopped at a convenience store to get something to eat.
Speaking of which: favorite c-store road food/guilty pleasure.
Fun fact – there are no Red Lobsters in New England.
(There are some in CT, but south of the Red Sox line).
Woodman’s of Essex >> Red Lobster
Red Lobster is food poisoning.
It was the height of sophistication in 1980s landlocked prairie towns.
Hard to believe it once you’ve had real seafood.
Growing up close to the New England seacoast spoiled me for seafood.
I can imagine.
One of my favorite Maryland dining experiences was during peak crab season.
The crew had been out working at Aberdeen Proving Ground, eating Wawa packed lunches all week.
One night we went to a locally loved crab place. They covered the table with butcher paper, equipped us all with mallets and forks, and kept the beer buckets and the crab buckets well filled.
Messy but delicious. And fun.
Now that I’m in the Pacific Northwest, I can visit a friend near Bellingham, go out on his boat, and catch and eat fresh Dungeness crab.
That sound fabu.
Both the eating and the catching.
First off I have no real refinement when it comes to food. I eat it, I like it, but I really don’t get that much more excited about eating a $75 steak than a $10 steak.
1) Pohang, Korea on a fishing trip with my brother in law. We stopped at a dirty roadside soju tent and ate sea urchins. The sea urchins looked and had the same consistency as orange snot. Unfortunately did not taste as good as orange snot.
2) Kobe, Japan. My wife brought me to her favorite 100 yen/plate sushi stand. We sat in this tiny nook of a shop. The sushi chef had a heater in the corner of his mouth and you got to watch as more and more ash hung from it while he made sushi. I got a plate of something that was so rancid that I had to stumble out of the shop and spit it into the gutter. There were no napkins inside and it was so cramped that you couldn’t spit it out anywhere inside without hitting another diner.
3) Cambden, TN. After a day fishing on the Tennessee river in the cold and getting drunk we went to the Wismer Motel, Bar and Supper Club. The special that night was an all chitlin buffet. I broke out in hysterical laughter when told about it and insisted on ordering it. They had boiled, fried, deep fried and some soups and other stuff. It was hazy because of how drunk I was. To this day I am still amazed the other diners didn’t beat my yankee ass for my rude behavior. Still all chitlins? You can’t get more country than that.
it seems fishing is the source of your problems
Dammit. After being kept up overnight by illness, I fell asleep in the middle of the day, now I’m wide awake when I need to get sleep for work.
I’m the opposite right now.
drink some whiskey? helps with both sickness and sleep
Half a bottle of codeine cough syrup?
Sweet dreams .
Maybe play a thunderstorm loop on your phone?
Had a meeting cancel so I’m killing an hour sitting on a bench in the park. An old lady is sitting on the bench across from me and staring at the trees like she had recently lost her husband of 50 years to cancer. Wonder if I should rub it in.
go to an erotic massage parlor like a normal person instead of tormenting old ladies in the park. Also if there are flying rats in Japanese parks don;t feed the fuckers.
Sure, now you tell me. *Regrets doing the Nelson Ha Ha! Point and laugh*
Flying rat? As in bat?
eh no not a bad. No one feeds bats in big European cities
Then what’s a flying rat?
I was thinking of German Fledermaus. Seemed logical.
pigeons are rats with wings. It is known.
Ah. Thank you.
Does that make Canada Geese capybaras with wings?
I have had a lot of bad meals but none that particularly stand out
I got some coffee for 130 lei/250g bag and while good it is not that much better than my usual of 50 per 250g.
Ethiopia Chal Naannoo
stone fruits, strawberry, spices
2100 m altitude, natural processing
Cup of Excellence winner, 2020 whatever the hell that means
Did it ever pass through the digestive tract of a civet?
it did not. and the ones that do are no where near worth the money
I might pay extra for the guarantee that it was not predigested by anything. Or anyone.
As uncivilservant and slumbrew observed, expectations have a lot to do with it.
I was at a nice (expensive) place and my food was great, but they brought my companion a dish that was not what he ordered. The waiter totally owned the mistake and whisked away his plate to replace it with his ordered dish, but there was I with my dinner.
If I didn’t eat it, it would be cold. If I did eat it, it would be rude of me. My dinner companion urged me to eat it instead of waiting for his meal, but it was super awkward.
I’ve was at a high-end place where something similar happened (they’re just human) – the remade both the wrong entree as well as the correct one, so they would both come out at the right time.
That’s quality service.
I guess on some level I was expecting that too.
Oh well. My dinner companion was not disappointed with the evening’s eventual outcome.
Hi-yoooo!
Slumbrew doesn’t miss a beat. 🙂
I have had that happen more than once. On each occasion when my wrong meal arrived I simply accepted it and ate it. I would only say something if it were something inedible…avacado with cilantro in it for example. Otherwise I just accept it and eat it.
Whose idea was it to make a feature of having waiters remember everything instead of writing it down?
I am there for a good meal, not parlor tricks. When it’s 6-8 people at the table and guests start customizing (“on the side”, “substitute rice for potato” etc) I’d feel much better if they’d take shorthand.
Maybe I’m cray cray.
You are not. That’s a pet peeve of mine too.
I don’t like how one person takes your order and another person serves it and then has to ask who gets what.
Maybe to a point. I also have a problem with people going to a restaurant with a menu, and expecting them to modify it for several people in a large group.
What, no Wheat Toast?
I thought of this scene.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdFNvE9NID4
Yeah, I fret about the picky eaters too. Just adapt this once, please!
Side note: CS Lewis mentions, in The Screwtape Letters, this as a form of gluttony. Not overeating, but saying things like Oh, no, I’ll just have a piece of toast. But not too crisp, just golden. And spread thin with unsalted butter right after toasting.
I’d never thought of that as gluttony but the point was that it is a food craving that one demands others to accommodate to satisfy one’s selfish personal tastes, instead of being grateful for what the host serves.
Picky eaters annoy me. It’s one thing if the chicken is pink or something, but if you just don’t care for the combination of flavors, why bring down everyone else’s mood by pitching a fit over it? You have to try new things in life – sometimes you’ll like it, sometimes you won’t. Get over it. A sub-par meal should not be a traumatic event.
I try to be Stoic about everything, but I have a hard time being Stoic about people who complain about insignificant things (even though I used to do this plenty). I’m trying.
Me ordering in a restaurant: *shows menu to waiter, pokes finger on menu* ” I will have #27, thank you.”
I also tip very well.
I bit into a rubber band in my Blimpie sandwich in Wenatchee, WA. I went back inside, waited in line (it had become busy), told them where I found it, gave it back to them, and left. Don’t recall if anyone followed me out.
Ham and cheese croissant, Dunkin Donuts, right across the US/Canada border. One thin slice of cheese, one thin slice of ham.
Not bad but a very disappointing attempt at a breakfast that is for sure.
Other than that, well, pretty much any cold MREs will make you change your perspective on what is tolerable.
A special shudder goes to the first generation MRE- “Ham and Chicken Loaf”. Don’t ask.
I’d rather skip a meal.
Dunkin Donuts, when I finally had it after hearing it hyped up for years, was extremely disappointing. Same with Five Guys.
I’d rather eat MREs cold than heating them. About the only exception was the rice in butter side that was too concealed and hard when cold.
Every meal during winter field training was hot. The MREs froze in the trailer. We threw them on the Yuke to heat them up. Don’t forget to open them first.
While MRE’s aren’t even in the same grid square as “enjoyable” they’re way better than C-rations were. One of the C-Ration entrees was generally known as “beef and muther fuckers”. The fudge cake was usually used to throw at assaulting OPFOR as a simulated grenade. A number of the main meals were worse than going hungry for a lot of people.
When I was stationed in the US, if we were going to the field for only two or three days, I would sometimes bring a few cans of Spam, a loaf of bread, peanut butter and honey – and just skip the C-Rations altogether.
Pogey bait was a necessity for survival on long field deployments. You could also make enough money selling off a few pieces to pay for it all. If there is an OPFOR presence, you better hide it in case you are captured/killed.
beef patty, freeze dried
frankfurter, thermostabalized
ham slice, thermostabalized
…
I have a cast iron stomach and have eaten lots of questionable and crappy food over my lifetime. I have suffered few digestive related consequences but there are two I will never forget and both will remain in perpetuity on my personal boycott list.
.
Wendy’s chili
Penn Station Reuben
I’d have thought Wendy’s chili would be pretty unremarkable, like canned chili.
Not so?
Someone recommended this supposedly Lebanese restaurant to me.
Right when you walk in, there’s a huge rack of cakes. Not traditional Levantine pastries, but just bigass ice cream cakes like what you’d find at Dairy Queen (which is fine, but should have been the first hint that this place was a lot more Midwest than Middle East). I ordered a pita shwarma wrap and a falafel salad. The wrap was pieces of beef and pickled turnip (?) wrapped inside a tortilla, and the salad was like an appetizer from Red Lobster with a couple falafels thrown on top. My friend said his rice and lamb dish tasted like it was seasoned with nothing but cinnamon.
I guess it wasn’t horrible per se, but the fact that I paid $14 for it was galling. If it were a drive-through place and that meal costed me $7, I probably wouldn’t be complaining at all.
I hope we can all agree that journalist Taylor Lorenz is the one that has suffered the most here with her 22$ avocado toasts.
https://www.myrecipes.com/extracrispy/avocado-toast-twitter-fight
A. Avocado toast is an abomination.
B. She was dumb enough to pay that price for a slice of bread with non-human food smeared on it.
Wait, someone actually ordered delivery toast?
I knew she was a shameless, immoral bitch, but it appears she’s bone stupid to boot.
Random musing on restaurants: One of my favorite parts of going to ethnic restaurants is hearing the staff chattering loudly in their own languages. It’s part of the ambiance. We went to our favorite Mexican joint very close to closing time one evening, and the guys in the kitchen were “singing” along with the traditional Mexican music, but just emulating the “ayayayayay!!!” parts. Love it.
I went to this Thai place on my 21st birthday https://yelp.to/FGXCdBYDWdb. My girlfriend took me out to dinner. I ordered whatever, but specifically ordered “mild” spice. They had a scale of 1 to 5 chili peppers. I ordered a 1. Three bites into the dish and my face and mouth are on fire. My throat is swelling and I’m gagging and coughing because snot is gushing out of my nose and down my throat. I’m crying and wheezing. I guess somebody in the kitchen thought it would be funny to make it extra spicy instead. It wasn’t funny.
That was in 1990. I’m surprised the place is still there. I lived in an apartment across the street from that place. That apartment is gone. Memories…
Not sure why that showed up as a reply to Akira. I’m going to blame it on bourbon.
Two Middle Eastern guys in their early 30’s opened a ‘Cajun Seafood’ restaurant in central Louisiana. I got the oyster plate. They were burned, far too salty, the portion much too large and the seasoning was….something. Bitterweed? Cilantro? Additionally they came to our table and insisted that we run our card again because….uh…something about how they didnt print out the receipt properly. I left hungry and never went back. I wasn’t angry at them but it was obvious that they had no clue what they were doing. A shame because I am sure they sunk a ton of money into opening the place.
Keep in mind that restaurants operate on a thin profit margin and are constantly being shaken down by a swarm of officials and inspectors. Some of the bad food stories and experiences I have had are really no surprise.
100K per year for a license to operate a mobile hot dog cart in NYC? 100K, really? Jebus. How many hot dogs do you have to sell and how many corners do you have to cut just to pay that extortion?
OT: I was working on taxes last night on TurboTax and it asked if I’d made any transaction using cryptocurrency,
The answer was no, but it got me thinking; why are they asking? It wasn’t just about gains or losses, it was about any transactions.
I searched it, and this came up: https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2020/02/28/when-irs-asks-about-crypto-on-your-taxes-answer-carefully/
I found nothing reassuring about the statements and speculation in the article.
Right now, crypto is treated as currency for tax purposes.
They really want to change it to an investment.
Hello Glibs, it’s Hump day!
Good morning, Yu! Do you have some degrees we could borrow? We don’t have any down here at the moment.
Tell me about it. 6″ in Louisiana? I can remember 4″ but never like this. The snow is as hard as concrete and slicker than owl shit.
A few miles south of us is a curve in the highway and there was a dozen cars pile up there. Cars in the ditches all over the place.
I have driven in bad conditions many times but going to get cigarettes yesterday was the most harrowing drive of my life. I made it to the store and home but my house is on a hilltop. The car stopped forward motion and started sliding back down the hill 10 feet from my garage door.
I will walk. next time.
Yikes! Luckily, the snow we got was light and powdery. It swept off from my car and blew off the driveway pretty easily – there was just a lot of it.
I think the problem was that it was mostly sleet to start with, snow mixed in, then we had about 3 hours of very slightly above freezing weather yesterday.
Shortly afterwards the temps plummeted again freezing it all back. I just walked out to get a few logs for the fire and my heavy, hard boots didnt make any tracks in the snow/ice. Hard as a rock. Worse, we are expecting more freezing rain and lower temps by noon. I fear today will be a very bad day for a lot of people including the State Police.
Winter wonderland, my ass. I could do without this.
We are hunkered down, lots of firewood and hot soup (vegetable beef tonight) and the dogs are all sleeping and snoring, oblivious to the hell that most dogs lives are. Wife and I will be fine but for a lot of people with no real experience with this kind of weather there are going to be tears.
so, Tuesday, gas went from 2.44/gl to 2.65/gl in 8 hours, last week it was 2.18/gl. here,s a good reason why, oops!
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/bryan-preston/2021/02/16/the-great-texas-valentines-day-freeze-and-the-statewide-blackouts-what-happened-n1425922
Micro: what any one station charges is what the market will bear. There might also be local inventory issues.
Macro: WTI is up 50% in a few weeks. That is driven by an across-the-board maniacal economic optimism: equities and commodities are up all out of proportion to any upside.
I’ve been 100% cash and real estate for a year now: buy high, sell higher is mere speculation, not investing . . . I’m not interested.
I had a terrible Pork Marsala at my regular hangout, they always have great food but this was bad It was the special of the day and they’ve never made it again, so I don’t think it was just me. The pasta was undercooked (which is odd because spaghetti and red sauce is their specialty) the mushrooms were rubbery (reminded me off the slimy canned one we used at Dominos) the pork wasn’t seasoned and I don’t know what they made the sauce with but I offered one of the owners a twenty if they could bring a bottle of marsala out from the kitchen, he didn’t.
I was about to suggest ‘new inexperienced cook’ and it reminded me of another awful experience. Italian place, excellent food. After being seated the waiter explained that he was not a waiter, he was the owner’s nephew and the reason he was waiting tables was that the entire staff of the restaurant were angry at the owner and all walked out at once. There were at least 100 customers seated. The owner was in the kitchen running around like a chicken with his head cut off.
The food took an hour to show up and was terrible.
Mildly amusing restaurant anecdote: We went to Ruby Tuesday to escape the trick-or-treaters, as we do. I ordered a burger, which looked great, but when I went to pick it up out of its basket, it had no bottom bun. I ate my fries until our server reappeared, and I good-naturedly pointed out what my meal lacked. She burst out laughing and said, “Well, that would explain the stray half-bun in the kitchen.”
Morning, Glibs.
Morning, UCS. I hope you’re feeling much better this morning than you were yesterday.
Yes, I am doing better.
Other than frozen, how are things your way?
My commute into work yesterday was nerve-wracking, but without incident. Our reward for dragging our butts in? My employer sprung for pizza, and since I was tasked with ordering it, I had the privilege of picking my favorite purveyor.
By the time I headed home, it was clear and sunny.
Did you get dumped upon?
I haven’t looked outside since I walted my sidewalks yesterday morning.
The next reason I have for opening that door would be to pick up my food processor from the fromt steps. But it’s delayed in illinois thanks to the weather.
Stay inside, stay warm and safe for days. Food processor arrives. Open door, step out to get it, one foot hits a patch of ice and down y ou go. Broken arm.
^Do not do this^
FUCK THAT SHIT! Sorry to hear.
It’s a toss up between three candidates:
1) The Italian special in Baltimore that left me puking for three days.
2) The undercooked Dim Sum in San Jose, CA that gave me salmonella which kicked in a week later while I was in Shanghai.
3) The Applebee’s steak that was charcoal on one end and bloody cold on the other like it was half hanging off the griddle while cooking.
So, on average, it was a medium steak?
It was actually quite impressive in how badly cooked it was.
oh wait…
4) The French Dip at the Rock-Ola Cafe. Another post meal pukefest.
Not from a restaurant but I got a batch of insufficiently rinsed fried chitlins from a booth at a festival once. At least I assume they weren’t rinsed well, otherwise people wouldn’t eat them at all if they always tasted like that would they?
I think that’s where the expression “Eat Shit and Die!” comes from.
sup’ fam
Mornin’, homey!
Speaking of bad restaurant experiences, did you ever go to The Barnsider? It had been one of THE places to go before Homecoming or Prom when I was in HS. We went a couple of times right after we moved into the ‘hood, but the service was slower than next Christmas. Had to wait a ridiculously long time even to get a menu.
Their medallions of beef were totes bae
Do you remember a place (former) that was near Salem & Gettysburg called “the Keyhole” ? they had the best baked cod
Barnsider, Shuckin Shack, Old Hickory, the Stockyards, Anticoli’s, Dominic’s….we had some really good places to eat
I remember The Keyhole but never went there. Did they also have a carry-out for booze? Never went there either, but probably passed it every day on the way to Meadowdale.
Excerpt from a quick article I just found WRT Dominic’s House dressing:
“Consuming a full house salad guaranteed that the host human organism would exude garlic from his or her pores for at least 24 hours, and the resulting garlic breath would last two days minimum.”
Thats pretty accurate. Damn, I miss that stuff.
Mm, sounds tasty. ?
Worst service – Shanghai, 1988 – Hotel restaurant : We had just arrived by train, which had been delayed, rode the bus to the hotel and checked in late (about 8 PM). As we checked in to the hotel I told them we hadn’t eaten and would like to eat in their restaurant. Hotel staff ushered us into the restaurant and we ordered immediately. It was obvious that the cook staff had expected to be closing soon as they all (about 8 or 9 guys), after bringing us our food, sat at the next table smoking and talking. At the point we had eaten about half our meal one of the cooks got up and told us “You finish” – they took away what was left of our meal and ushered us out. Our protests fell on deaf ears. At least it was cheap – about $5 total – and we did get to eat something.
Worst outcome – Wuhan, 1988 – Chinese dumpling restaurant – Unsanitary* chopsticks gave me amoebic dysentery after 5 days of which I just wanted it to end, either get better or die, and I didn’t care which.
*While paying the bill at the register I saw that all chopsticks were just dropped into a bucket of water then pulled out, dried off, and given to the next customers.
The vast majority of humans on the planet have no clue what germ theory is. They have either never heard of it or do not believe it. After all, we cant see them so we dont really know if they are there (actual words of ex-wife while sticking a cooked chicken with the same fork she stuck the raw one with)
*facepalm*
I thought about this when I was a kid and the restaurant I worked in was very poorly run. The tongs at the grill bothered me: used to handle both cooked and raw meat.
A big downside to the health kick is less frying: hot grease solves every microbe problem ever. When you eat out, for the most part you’re not being handled by professionals, by people who want to cook for a living. Most of the folks behind the wall are touching themselves in all sorts of unsanitary ways while they handle the food. Maybe eating something prepared by a minimum-wage talent is not a good idea.
No way, everyone says they’re following the required sanitary guidelines. That anyone gets sick is proof that hygiene theory doesn’t work.
+1
“Waiting”
Watch and learn, Don. https://youtu.be/okNc-9Txjdk?t=54
Honestly, the stuff I ate in Costa Rica was better prepared than most things I’ve eaten in the States.
China on the other hand….
When I was in Mexico the only time I got sick was when I went to a fancy little restaurant in the town square. Tablecloths and everything! The rest of the time I ate from dodgy food carts and the like.
Good MORNING GLIBERTINOS!
New fresh coat of snow in Tejas! Back to work for me! It’s been interesting hearing all of the frozen pipe & no power for days stories here at work.
Echoing a few of the comments from above, worst by far was some hole-in the-wall Chinese place in the east end of Vancouver. Pretty sure it was a money laundering operation. I was the only white guy and probably the only paying customer. The toughs sitting at the corner booth did not appreciate my presence. I was too ignorant to notice the open hostility. Pretty sure that the calamari was pig asshole. I ate it all and left a tip.
Second place goes to the liver and onions that I ordered in a truck stop on the way to Jasper with the girls, just to gross them out. It was not breaded, undercooked and the onions were both burnt and raw. I choked down mouthfuls off pee and blood just to make the joke land.
“What, and give up show business?”
You know me, Lady Toxteth O’Grady.
“liver and onions that I ordered in a truck stop”
The name is Festus, Festus Dangerously!
Gotta Dance!
Got up early this morning only to find that the maintenance release got canceled an hour after I left work last night. Screw it, going in early anyways and then use it as an excuse to shag out early tonight.
Oyster bar. Ordered stuffed shrimp from the appetizer menu. They came out literally frozen. Called the waitress back over and asked kindly to warm them up a bit more. She kind of sneered at me. I know better than to send food back at a restaurant, but it was FROZEN. Came back 10 mins later and reserved the food. Still frozen. I literally pulled it apart in front of her to show her. She felt really bad and apologized and went to go get us some that weren’t frozen….
….
….
New plate came and the shrimp were again all frozen in the middle.
Best service?
SER Steakhouse in Dallas. Wife and I went for our anniversary. It’s on the 40th floor. None of the elevators were working. We were all dressed up but decided to do the stairs for fun. That was… interesting. We came out right next to the kitchen, that earned us a few weird looks from the staff because the restaurant was empty. Then we found the hostess. She started in with a pleaseant smile and an ‘oh the elevators are working again!’
Long story short, it was a great night with bison steak, seared ahi, black widow martinis and an absolutely gorgeous view. The manager and regional manager came by to talk and then they gave us a tour of the whole floor with conference rooms and really cool hood ornament and art collection. And then… They comped our entire meal. We ended our evening with a nice elevator ride to the bottom floor and some cool art in the lobby, one piece of which was a large section of the berlin wall, bullets holes and graffiti in all it’s glory.
Speaking of bad service, where are my links that I didn’t pay for?
Still in the kitchen getting that ‘little extra something!’
“Tain’t nuthin but a thang!’
We found out yesterday that the links are stored on a server in Dallas.
Chilled and ready to go.
https://www.fox29.com/news/man-terrorizes-east-hollywood-landlord-for-months-recently-breaking-into-her-home-through-ceiling-with-knife
Yikes.
Section 8 and surname duly noted.
Stories like this are not the main reason I don’t go into the landlord business, but they don’t help.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHQngnnHE_0
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That’s a good tune, Friend Sean!
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Good song. Fucking 1998, though.
Where the hell are the years going?!?
I spent most of that year in PT for a shoulder injury. The next year I broke my leg but I got better.
Poor Joe.
He does not have my sympathy.
OMIFUCKINGGOD. This is why we are the Glibnation. What a brain-dead cunte!
https://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/one-texas-storm-exposed-energy-grid-unprepared-climate-change-rcna289
With a title like that, who needs facts?
What? Laying down to the Greenies might have side deletorious side effects? My word!
The whole reason why those plants all swapped to natural gas from coal revolves around price and Obama killing coal.
Yes. Biden is listening to the whispers in his ear but now they are coming from inside the house!
price; nothing else matters; like all technical changes, politicians only notice to take credit for something after engineers have already made it possible; see also: seat belts
I read something about North Lake being NG since 1964, but I’m sure I remember piles of coal there as recently as 2005.
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/jim-treacher/2021/02/16/central-park-karen-amy-cooper-gets-charges-dropped-after-anti-racist-psychoeducation-sessions-n1425884
I’d like to think this is (at least partially) because they’re cracking down on violent crimes, but we all know that’s not the case.
Worst meal I ever had was with ex-wife when she was pregnant. She had a craving for Chinese and we decided to try a local place (Beaverton OR) that we’d never been. We never went there again, and from that experience I forged an Iron Law – never eat in a Chinese restaurant where all the people working there are caucasian.
The demographics have sure changed. Rice, miso, and similar as part of the breakfast buffet at several of the hotels I’ve stayed in there.