Not to be too gross....

[David Jones]

I just saw this on the Chicago Reader website.
http://www.chicagoreader.com/rrr/grapevine/2000/02.html

I'm sure there are some real doozies out there. Anyone care to go first?

[Nicko]

This runs along the same lines as a similar topic we had going called Most Disgusting Foods. Well I have to say both of my stories involve roaches. They were at two different restaurants one being a dinner, and the other a well known restaurant in the city. Funny thing is on both occassions I was with the same person. Anyway, I was having some casual conversation when I looked past the person who was talking to me, and notice a roach on the wall about an inch and a half long. Had to be the biggest one I have ever seen. The other incident was at the diner and a roach crawled out of the sugar packet holder onto the table. Very nasty, I was itching and scratching all the way home.

------------------
Thanks,

Nicko
nicko@cheftalk.com

[shroomgirl]

I can tell you've not experienced Southern Louisiana.....HUGE cockroaches....pets to some. they fly and travel en masse....something to behold.....not unlike the fire ants......we don't have those critters in MO>

[nutcakes]

Once I saw a roach here grossly twitching to death in the potted plant at the entrance to my favorite Japanese place (now closed). It was huge, about two inches long and 1/2 inch wide--I have never seen roaches like this in Calif! They nonchalantly shrugged it off, told me not to worry, the bug man had just sprayed. I still went there to eat all the time.

Here is a story I've been dying to tell someone. It happened recently at a casual brewpub. I was sitting alone at the end of the bar having a beer and thinking about ordering some food. I could see a cook standing in the service window in the tiny kitchen. He was a young guy, but that's not what caught my attention. Thing was, he was ferociously picking his nose, then withdrawing his finger and sprinkling it in fromt of him (in the food?), before digging in again--sprinkle, repeat. I was staring with my mouth open when he noticed me and started smiling. I didn't blink and just stared him down, but he was smiling and nodding. Then he moved into the doorway, leaning there and giving me goo-goo eyes. Finally I beckoned him over and he walked to my side with a big grin. I said "I saw what you did", but he just kept grinning and was trying to introduce himself. Finally he said "no speak englaise".

Ack. I have always made fun of my daughter's concern about restaurants recycling unconsumed food (i.e., taking an unconsumed food item from an already-used plate and moving it to a plate going out to an unsuspecting customer). When she was done, she'd always break her uneaten food down to sub-atomic particles, while I teased her. Silly (naive) moi.

About two years ago, we went out to lunch at a chain restaurant (you'd know the name); we both ordered salads that came with garlic bread and, sure enough, there was a big honkin' bite out of her piece of garlic bread. With toothmarks yet. Eeeyuk. The manager was called but we both had lost our appetites by then.

Needless to say, I don't make fun of her any more and I'll take the time to molecularize my left-overs as well.

[David Jones]

Okay, okay. I remember working at an incredibly popular Chicago restaurant that had a FOUR legged pest problem. They would scurry around the dark dining room and bar when the last tables were just finishing up. One server used to build a "fence" out of glass racks to keep them in the kitchen and out of the dining room.

Nice.

Well my story is at a very famous Cuban restaurant where President Reagan ate.
Great food.
Anyway I had my last Miamian Cuban meal before moving to OR last Summer.
I was enjoying my pork chops with rice black beans and plantains, when I saw something moving under the table of two guys in the corner.
To my surprise there was a rat under their table.
My friend who I was having lunch with started to freak out.
I called the server over and in spanish I told her that there was a rat under the customers table.
She said very nonchalantly that the rats came from next door and that they spray evey month.
How dare we say anything.
Yummy.
Danielle


[This message has been edited by chefteldanielle (edited 12-17-2000).]

[Live_to_cook]

... and you wondered why the "rabbit" stew was so cheap...

beware the coleslaw!

[Isa]

In Toronto, restaurants will now have to post the result of their inspections in the front window. The city will have 3 different sticker, green, orange and red.

Green means all is well, orange that there was some minor infractions to the code and red well good luck if you decide to eat there. Restaurants given the red sticker will have a certain number of days to correct the situation, if not they'll get closed down.

[shroomgirl]

I had BBQ from Memphis and coleslaw for dinner....what's up with slaw?????or do I really not want to know.

So many rats...so few recipes.

Crudeau:
You've got to stop this... or are you trying to convince people that they should never eat out?

Mike

[Robertito]

I spent nine years in the deli end of the biz in Chicago. You want gross?

First place had a late shift of large rats (not to mention legions of roaches). They'd commence activity at about 10 minutes prior to closing (8 PM). Cleanup was very very quick here. Had one puppy scoot between my legs one dark night. I still get chills.

One Sunday afternoon, we had a sick (poisoned) specimen crawling around
on the shelves up front behind the crackers and mustard display. We managed to distract the couple of customers for a few minutes while we corralled it to the rear, where our psychotic porter took the garden hoe (don't ask) and bearing down with all his strength (ex-boxer with mangled paw)
on the back of the neck of the little guy for about five minutes, was able to end everybody's suffering.

Every night, we made sure to leave a 2" deep stainless half pan on the counter right by the front door so that whoever was opening was able to grab the pan and drop it on the floor in order to let the "night shift" know that they could go home and kick back.

My next position in downtown Chicago was a very busy shop that HAD NO WASHROOMS. The owners (quite blatantly) bribed the inspector with cash and product. This enabled them to stay open despite the myriad violations.
As a matter of fact, they probably would have scored less than 2 out of 100.
Mice and roaches were rampant. The mice ate through the deli cases up front, and every morning the pre-slice guy would open up the cryovac-sealed 8 lb. roast beef or the brisket or turkey or salami, trim away the area that had been gnawed upon, and slice up the rest for the day's fare. Remember the old butter pats and cardboard squares topped with waxed paper, that were lined up on end, three or four rows of 100 per box? Well, we'd come in in the morning and have to brush the mouse droppings off of them before use.

Oh, and the part about no washrooms? In the basement, two feet from the door of the five and a half-foot high walk-in storage (really) was a 12" solid brass sewer cover which was left open tilted on a 45-degree angle to allow for male urinary functions. The day's produce delivery would be stacked within eighteen inches of this sewer.

Woman had to leave the restaurant, go outside in all weather and walk to the main building entrance and go up to the third floor washroom.

They would store the egg cases (gross cartons) on the floor of the kitchen. One day, someone most have punctured the bottom edge of the lowest case with a two-wheeler, because a couple of mornings later, the rotten egg smell at 6AM was amazing, only to be topped by the discovery of the actual egg problem which was a mass of crawling white maggots. I tell ya, it's good to have a coal shovel in your restaurant. Because in addition to using it to cart out that mess, later the same morning they carried out the dead mouser (yes, they had a f---ing cat living the placeÑoh, didn't I mention the "spraying" problem?) which was found dead in the basement at 10AM, swollen to twice it's size.

That was my last day.