Worst Restaurant Experiences?

KYHeirloomer · #1 03-07-2007, 12:15 PM

The most expensive restaurant thread got me to thinking---always a bad habit.

Me, I don't look at cost so much as value recieved. With that in mind, I'm curious what your worst restaurant experiences were. Or maybe we should just call it worst dining out experiences?

For me, no contest, it was the five days spent as a prisoner on a Holland-America cruise ship. I didn't get a hot meal one night; which, apparently, didn't matter much as the food, overall, was no great shakes based on what other people had to say.

And, of course, nobody on the food service end speaks English, so you can't even find out who to complain to.

shel · #2 03-07-2007, 12:51 PM

A few years ago on Thanksgiving day I was working my tail off as one of my staff was out, feeling alone as most of my friends were out of town, and just wanting something warm and at least somewhat "holliday-ish" to eat. Every restaurant I checked was closed for the holiday. Finally, I came across a Sizzler restaurant, not known for fine dining to begin with, but I didn't care. They had a Thansgiving platter and the place was convenient and warm.

I ordered the platter, grabbed a seat, and waited for dinner. When it came the plate was piled with veggies, potatoes, corn bread, stuffing .... but no turkey. WTF! I called the waitress over and asked about the omission. Her response: We're out of turkey, sir."

You can use your imagination to figure out the rest of the scenario ...

Shel

Ishbel · #3 03-07-2007, 04:46 PM

We have a tradition in our family. When we go out to dine, everyone else waits until I choose what I want to eat. THEN they make sure they choose something else. Tradition says that anything that can go wrong with a dish, will go wrong with the dish I choose.... hence their caution.

The stories are too numerous to tell here - but the worst... the very worst was a restaurant in Lille. I chose a beef dish with marrowbones... You could have scooped the fat off the top of the dish with a trowel. It hadn't been 'skimmed' at all during the cooking process. It had been cooked so long that the carrots in the dish were transparent and almost brown in colour....!

BLECH... I shudder when I think of it - and it happened about 10 years ago!

kuan · #4 03-07-2007, 04:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by shel

I ordered the platter, grabbed a seat, and waited for dinner. When it came the plate was piled with veggies, potatoes, corn bread, stuffing .... but no turkey. WTF! I called the waitress over and asked about the omission. Her response: We're out of turkey, sir."

There you go. You said you ordered the platter, not the TURKEY platter!

even stephen · #5 03-07-2007, 05:07 PM

I was on a roadtrip with my little sister. We were in the middle
of nowhere in Alabama. We found a Wafflehouse and walked inside
and sat down. It looked as if they missed the end of shift sweep and
hadn't mopped in a week. After a few minutes the waitress came
over. The first thing I noticed was her dirty fingernails. I smiled
and looked up when she asked what we wanted. As I looked up
I notice the whites of her eyes were as yellow as a canary. Oh my
god! Can you say hepatitus. I stammered out y-y-yes, coffee please.
My little sister said water....no not water, ... do you have coke in a
can? The waitress said, "no, we ain't, but we got it at the fountain".
She smiled real wide and walked away. Could it have gotten any worse.
Yep! When she smiled her gums were bleeding. As soon as she turned her
back behind the counter, I said, "lets go". My sister busted out laughing
as soon as we got into the car. Pretty scary as far as near dining experiences go.

shel · #6 03-07-2007, 07:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kuan

There you go. You said you ordered the platter, not the TURKEY platter!

What part of the turkey is the platter?

KYHeirloomer · #7 03-07-2007, 08:21 PM

Thanksgiving is the worst time to be on the road, Shel. There are more places open on Christmas eve/day then there are on Thanksgiving. I used to work at a motel, and making dinner recommendations was always hard on Thanksgiving. In our town the only things open were the Waffle House and a Chinese buffet---neither of which is known for turkey and trimmings.

Just realized my first post was ambiguous. It wasn't that one night the meal wasn't hot. It was cold every night, by the time they brought it out. And Holland America has, imo, a total lack of class.

Picture this. It's "formal" night. Women are in gowns and jewels. Men are at least in suits & ties, with tuxes preferred. You order a soft drink....and they slap the can on the table!

shel · #8 03-07-2007, 08:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by KYHeirloomer

In our town the only things open were the Waffle House and a Chinese buffet---neither of which is known for turkey and trimmings.

Picture this. It's "formal" night. Women are in gowns and jewels. Men are at least in suits & ties, with tuxes preferred. You order a soft drink....and they slap the can on the table!

At least now i know of a couple of Chinese buffets in the area. At one of them the foods not at all good, but the other is acceptable, and a couple of the dishes, if you get 'em soon after they come out and are hot, are pretty good. This one place even has one of those setups where you pick your own ingredients and they cook it up for you.

At least you got your soft drink ...

Shel

shroomgirl · #9 04-06-2007, 06:10 PM

lolol......sad, really really sad.......oh i'm having a hard time coming up with one, seems as if I blank them out of my memory.....sorta like child birth. Versed with coffee please.

Salliem · #10 04-07-2007, 06:45 PM

My worst restaurant dining experience happened at Steak and Ale, had gone to dinner with my Dad and sister...I always order whatever chicken dish is on the menu because I don't eat beef..so our food comes and I begin to cut into the chicken and it is severly undercooked..I call the waiter over and begin to tell him..and he says.."hon..chicken is supposed to be cooked that way"...and I said "what..raw?"...so I ask him to please take it back and have them recook it but to not put it into the micro-wave..and he begins a long tale of grill cooks and how they do their job, etc..my sister is now rolling her eyes...long story short, I wrote the home office..got a $25 gift certificate from them and have never been back.

shroomgirl · #11 04-08-2007, 07:48 PM

ok, not horrible but was today Easter....I was driving through Mt. Vernon, Ill and decided to stop at Pasta House, it'd been years since I'd been to a PH so figured it'd be OK.....
undercooked roll with prepackaged margarine, italian salad that was really ok but that's about all I can say for the iceberg, red onion, tiny bits of artichoke ( had to discern what exactly they were) lots of small squares of pimento ????, parmesan and then the dressing.....
pasta con broccoli was my entree, I remember it being pasta shells, sauted shrooms, broccoli in a tomato cream sauce...this was a watery mess. Really bad! sent it back to the kitchen, the manager asked what the prob was and then told me they forgot the butter knob to thicken the sauce. I asked if the crew was new, she said nope, been there for a long time......ummmm ok.
just paid the $10 and left. Though it was interesting to see what their pricing and mainstream Italian dishes are......

DC Sunshine · #12 04-29-2007, 11:51 PM

Went to a so-called posh restaurant once, one of us order something called Flaming Squid - which was supposed to be brought out and flambed at the table. Dish arrives - its totally not squid and no sign of flames. We call the waiter back and say - Here, this is supposed to be Flaming Squid - What is it? Waiter says I don't know ifs flaming(as in f***ing) shark it's what you ordered. Aye aye aye!!!! We ate quietly and left - never to return. The dish was actually quite good but the attitude of the waiter stank.

P.S. the place is now out of business a couple of years later

furi_chef · #13 05-03-2007, 04:14 AM

well the worst experience for me by far stood out above any other time. me and my girlfriend went out to a restaurant one night, and it was pretty quiet so we expected fast service, though never dining here befor we did not know what to expect. we sat down and waited for the wait staff to greet us, after 30 secons we realised that you had to go to the counter to order. we then orderd a garlic bread to begin with and then i orderd a rump steak (med rare) and my girlfreind orderd chicken carbonara. 20 minuts later we finnaly got our garlic bread, witch cost $5.50 and was just a cob loaf cut into 4 with a bit of garlic butter, witch was still cold. anothe 15 minuts passed and we got our main meals, i got up and got the 2 of us a glass of coke ($4 for a glass of post mix) my steak was way over cooked, tough and un seasond (this wouldnt have been a problem if we had salt and pepper shakers). after eating onlt 1/4 or my steak we decide to go somewere else for desert

deltadoc · #14 05-03-2007, 09:03 AM

Two experiences come to mind:

1. A Greek restaurant in Fridley, MN. We ordered the combination plate and a Shrimp coctail. The shrimp came and it was large, rubbery, like trying to bit through a piece of soft gristle. I motioned to the waitress that the shrimp didn't seem edible. So she took it away and brought the combo platters.

But not without telling us that the chef tried the shrimp, and she put her two finger up to her mouth and kissed them while saying the chef said "These are perfect". Ok, let the chef eat them I thought. I'm not paying for them.

Then we looked down at the platters. There was all kinds of mushy stuff floating in a sea of liquid. It was totally unedible. We used a buy 1 get 1 free coupon, paid the 1/2 price left the plates and walked out. Her quizzical look was answered by saying we just weren't as hungry as we thought.

2. One time back in the 1980's while I was a food critic I ate at some single owner small cafe. They had lots of stuff, and I could sample anything I wanted. The first plate full tasted so terrible, that when she wasn't looking, I threw the plate of "food" ("food" used lightly) away, and got a plate of something else.

Same thing. Ended up throwing it away. Tried a third time, and this meant I'd now sampled everything in the cafe. Threw it away too.

And the whole time the place was literally packed with farmer's and blue-collar truck driver types chowing down like they were in food heaven. I couldn't believe it!

It was by far the worst review I ever had to write. It didn't get published!

doc

bubbamom · #15 05-03-2007, 11:40 AM

My husband and I were vacationing in Nova Scotia and, as sometimes happens, we were not having a very peaceful day

. It was our 15th anniversary and after driving thru several lovely areas and past several nice-looking restaurants, we stopped at a hotel and went to a local "recommended" restaurant for dinner. As I said, it was not the best day of our relationship and in a hizzie fit, I ordered spaghetti with meat sauce. Hubby ordered his usual beef fillet. After an unusually long wait with non-existant service, the waitress coming thru the kitchen door dropped her tray with, you guessed it, our dinners. She did apologize and said it would only take a few minutes for the kitchen to prepare fresh meals for us. When she finally brought the dinners, my spaghetti sauce was...are you ready for this...KETCHUP. Seems they ran out of sauce and the cook improvised. It was a fine end to the day because the meal was so bad about all you could do was laugh and head to the bar.