Worst experiences eating at restaurants?

Most of my experiences have been fairly good. There was one time where the chicken schnitzel I ordered was served raw more than once though. Nobody wants to get salmonella.

Whether he's lying or not, a buddy of mine reckons he once saw a chef peeling prawns into a bucket while doing a number two at a hole in the wall Chinese takeout joint. (Guy went to the extent of using the public bathroom too.) Pretty sure that place would have been very short-lived.

Worst experience is constantly paying for a meal that you know you can cook better for yourself at home. Between a few members of my family and myself, I am generally disappointed in about 90% of the restaurants I go to haha.

You know that statistic where they're like "Surgeons don't trust 80% of other surgeons to perform surgery on them"? It's kind of like that except with food for me.

I've learned to just enjoy the service and experience. Food is generally fine, don't get me wrong, just not as good as I hope for. And I can't afford the really mind-blowing shit like French Laundry, Craft Steak, Nobu, etc. lol

First-world problems, amirite!?

Lots. I'll give three and save the best for last.

1. Once at a Chinese Buffet I saw an old man ladel too much soup to handle for his aged hands. The soup was running over on to his hands and back into the cauldron, as he looked on helplessly. So was I, an onlooker.

2. This was one of those cases of when you see no-one in the restaurant, best to stay away. We were the only customers. The waiter neglected to give me a straw. So I went to the counter and reached for a straw. I failed to notice the cook had placed her purse in the same vicinity. Well the cook must have thought I was trying to steal something because she glared at me and shared angry words with her fellow employees. The result was a trip to the porcelain gods, if you catch my... drift.

3. Lastly, back to the same Chinese buffet as the first story. Around about Christmas time, there was a man who looked like Santa, except in street clothes eating nothing but crab legs. Jolly old Saint Nick, was gorging himself on them. He went by for seconds and thirds. And did however find the time to go goo goo ga ga with a nearby toddler as the parents warily looked on. Cut to us as we just exit the restaurant. Santa had left a messy pile of Christmas crab leg cheer for us to negotiate, right at the front door.

Num num!

@speeny:

I went to a Dennys place once that was so understaffed that they only had 1 cook at the kitchen and he was really bad. We were sitting at the table for an hour and a half and we didn't even get our drinks yet! A few other tables had the same problems and the one table that DID get their food kept complaining that it was undercooked. We ended up leaving with empty stomachs.

Worst experience was at a wing place. The server tried to give herself a tip. My wife pulled her card.

@mrbojangles25: Yep true. Nothing beats a home cooked meal in my opinion.

@shellcase86: Tips aren't expected here. We do give them occasionally though. But I know it's a big thing in the states.

Don't think I've had one.

Most bad experiences from Italian takeaways. Get charged £10 and they can't even make a smoke sausage properly.

@DEVILinIRON: I don't mind Chinese buffets. A lot of people find them gross but they ain't too bad in my opinion. Lol

I had a date one time at this fancy Indian restaurant. The food was excellent so can't fault that, I think I had a pretty spicy tikka masala and some onion bajhis. Everything was going great from what I can remember, even paid the bill like a true gentlewoman.

Anyway, I was stuffed and we were heading off when she unexpectedly hugged me (pretty tight), and I let out quite a loud fart. Very weird as I'm one of those people who normally never ever fart, but I swear she recoiled back in disgust haha. Basically, that killed the mood right there, and the date went down in flames. ?

@mandzilla: Oh man, that's rough. That's just being human though. Lol

I worked in a restaurant for over 10 years at a point in my life and saw a customer bring back his takeout order,one was a club sandwich and one was a submarine. Both meals had a big moth in each meal. I was in the dining room at the time to fill up my Coke. The situation made me sick to my stomach. Oh,by the way it was in the summer time as most of you would have guessed.

Not at a restaurant but with takeout. Bought a cheeseburger from this food stand that some Filipino lady ran outside of a doctor’s office. They usually made good ones, but one day I began to eat one after taking it home and gagged. The lettuce looked (and tasted) like it had been taken out of the previous day’s trash. It was like rotten spinach.

I think this was deliberately done as many locals in Hawaii don’t like Haoles (white people). She had to have known. Never ate there again, but wished I had seen it right then and there so I could’ve confronted her about it.

Had a plate of food served with a cigarette ash on it in France, and after I initially laughed with shock, the waiter came back, didn't apologize and tried to brush the ash off. We walked out, with the waiter threatening to call the police.

When I was in the Air Force, ten of us went out to Chillis for drinks and appetizers. It was a slow night and most of the waiters and waitresses were standing around, especially ours. It took 20 minutes to get our first round of drinks and another 30 mins for our appetizers. She only checked our table a total of 3 times in 1.5 hours.

She could have made a killing in tips from us but she didn't get a dime.

@speeny: Good point. Like you stated, tipping is a bigger deal/more widely practiced in the states. The thing is, the service wasn't even good. I'm thinking the type of establishment played a factor in the server's decision-making.