AstroBoy Online Forums

Just as the topic title says.

I don't remember having a rude waiter, but when I was 10, I accidentally ate one of those really hot peppers at a Chinese restaurant. Supposedly, the pepper was only there to add flavor to my meal. I drank A LOT of water and milk to subdue the heat, but I was hurting for a day or two.

What about you guys? What terrible dining experiences have you had?

I went to a restaurant once where they took TWO HOURS to bring out the food. It was even worse because it was around eleven at night (when the food arrived) and I hadn't eaten since lunch.

I was at a restaurant this one time, and the guy at the next table was complaining to the waiter about a dirty fork.

Well there was this Vietnamese restaurant near where I used to work that was rumored to have an infestation with roaches. Someone had claimed they had a little extra protein in their spring roll.

I once ate in a Sichuan Chinese restaurant, and I didn't realize how spicy the food was. (I wondered if my beef was really filet of dragon!).

Once I had eaten a good part of my meal when I found what looked like it could be a pubic hair among my french fries. For some reason, I didn't feel like telling the restaurant, and simply hoped very hard it really was rather a hair...

One time I ordered a glass of milk with my meal. The waitress brought a glass of white liquid and put it down in front of me. Turns out that was creamer for everyone else's coffee. Still not sure why it was in a glass in the first place, and why she put it right in front of me. Unless she meant it to be milk and saying she meant for it to be creamer was a CYA move on her part.

MrsEclipse, you remind me of something that happened to me, even though that's by no means a horrible experience. I ordered a meal with milk in a fast food restaurant. The cashier replied, "Milk? A small one?" I answered yes, since a 200mL carton of milk certainly wasn't big.

As she retrieved my order, she put a super small sealed plastic container, something like this, which was actually a very small portion of milk to put in a coffee, on my tray, then looked at me, unsure. That was strange!

I haven't really had a lot of bad food experiences away from home, and this wasn't at a restaurant, but it came to mind. Some of the local elementary schools serve free lunches to kids during certain days of the week during the summer in their cafeteria. My sister and I used to go there for lunch every day they did that. One day they were serving pizza, and I ate the other food items on my tray first because I was saving the pizza for last. When I picked up the pizza, it immediately flopped down and hung straight down from my fingers. I came to realise the pizza had been baked only long enouh for the cheese to melt and a thin layer on the outside of the dough to dry out... this was because I took a bite since I thouht it may have just been moist, but uncooked pizza dough just doesn't taste the same.
Of course, at home, I've lost count of the number of times I've found moth larvae in various grain products, whether before or after cooking and eating some of it.
I've also found worms when biting into apples and some sort of beetle cooked into some canned soup. I can't decide if it's a good or bad thing that I'm as observant of what I put into my mouth as I am...

I was once in an Indian Restaurant with my best friend's parents, and the the whole restaurant lost power for around 15 minutes, we where sitting and talking in the dark, it was funny.

Although, the food was some of the best Indian food I had ever had - and that is telling you something! Considering many people have told me my food is top restaurant quality - I have been training myself for around 8 years to create the finest food I possibly can. If my Photography career fails, I am going to try and become a Chief.

The worst experience I ever experienced was at a fairly popular diner in my area about 10 years ago. I never particularly liked the food at this establishment (they serve FROZEN vegetables and insist they are fresh ) and there had been discrimination claims against them in the very recent past. Still I had ended up there, being out voted during a party meant we were going there because they had the best milkshakes (they really didn't :whistling .

Anyway, this was the LAST time I was ever there and the last time my friends ever went there too.

This diner is a 24/7 establishment, we arrived at about 9 pm and were the only customers in at that time before the bar closing rush came and were seated by a really surly waitress. She obviously did NOT want to be there, in the slightest. She was stomping around, sighing, and after we were seated it took her 15 minutes to get back to us to get our drink order. By that time we had already decided exactly what we wanted and just gave her our full orders.

This completely undid her. She asked us this, I am not joking here; "Have any of you ever eaten out before? You are served DRINKS first, tell me your DRINK order."

At this point in time we finally noticed another waitress who was staring at our waitress moon-eyed from behind the bar. She slipped out into the kitchens and another woman whom I assume was the manager on duty stuck her head out an bellowed our waitress's name.

Surly waitress disappears.

We wait.

And wait...

... and wait.

At least 20 minutes pass, no one comes in to check on us, we have been there for long enough that we all are starving, half of my friends just want to ditch, the other half want to wait it out, I just want to go but right when we decide to finally leave the surly waitress comes back.

She had no apology, just went back into surly work mode and took our orders and fluttered back into the kitchen. Where the manager and other waitress were I have no idea. It was like everyone in the diner just disappeared into the kitchen and never came back out.

We wait 20 more minutes... no drinks, no food, no waitress. I want to leave as well as two others, the rest want to wait it out "She could be having a rough day!" (no kidding?) and once again am out voted.

We wait a little bit longer, stomach is trying to eat itself, no one else has come in to the diner, it's probably about 10:30 now, we should be LEAVING at this point when the waitress comes back with our orders.

Food is cold, milkshakes wrong flavors, I am pretty sure she spit in them, she also didn't serve us our drinks. She flees after setting down our food and just BOLTS out the front door.

That is the last time we see ANY staff.

We pick at our food, I don't even touch anything, one of my friends try flagging down someone by walking into the kitchens... they are empty.

No one else is around.

We finally left around 11, we did not pay for anything because no one gave us a bill. A couple other people came in and waited for a few minutes to be seated before they gave up and left after asking us if anyone was around.

Never got an explanation for that one.