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Friday, August 28, 2009

The Special of the Day Is Abomination

Adam and I are frequent diner outers.

We have our local favorite restaurants and then every so often we spiral a new place into the rotation to see if it will be one of our regular stops. This spiraling in of new places usually works out quite well but lately it is going horribly wrong. Now, I am not going to tell you which restaurants these abominations occured at because in each case I sent my meal back and it was handled beautifully by the waitstaff/management. And I will also go back to each of these places because I don't think you can judge a retaurant on one experience alone.

But still. Over the past month I have been subjected to the following:

A Lobster and Goat Cheese Pizza that actually had no goat cheese on it and the lobster was so overdone it was like lobster flavored gum.<--- The lobster actually squeaked when chewed.
A Greek Salad that was chock a block with not feta cheese but bleu cheese <--Isn't the feta what makes it Greek?
Crab Cakes laced with and covered in cinnamon <-- an abomination
A Roasted Vegetable Flatbread in which all of the vegetables were brown and indiscernible from each other and it was dripping wet with balsamic vinegar <-- also an abomination
And now last night, I ordered Bruschetta and got literally Texas Toast with a wilted spinach salad on top of it. <-- It was so soggy I had to eat it with a fork

I actually didn't send the bruschetta back because it would have been more trouble than it was worth. But still.

I do want to give a special shout out to the brand new Ledge in Dorchester. We ate there a few weeks ago and while I was served one of the above meals...the service was impeccable and our waitress could not have been nicer. In addition, the manager came over to speak to us, explained what had gone wrong, comped my meal and bought me a drink! That is how you handle this kind of situation! I will definitely go back to Ledge and if you live in the area you should check it out too!

And to be clear, when I send something back its not because I dont really like it. Or it's kind of gross. It's because I literally can't eat it. Even so, having typed it all out I'm sure I look like a brat to dine with. I'm not though, I promise. I am very entertaining. I swear!

So I put it to you, what's the grossest dinner you ever experienced at a restaurant? AND did you send it back or suffer through it.

12 comments:

Briana Sweeney said...

I once went to a restaurant and ordered pasta. In it, i got broken pieces of plate. I found out that, after complaining to the waitstaff, it was because the chefs were celebrating in the kitchen, and were breaking plates while cooking.
My teeth were not overly happen when I bit into what I thought was pasta.
That was the worst.

Lea said...

When a bug crawled out of my salad. I never ate at this restaurant again (in fact it closed 3 months later). i still get the heebie geebies every time I order salad.

Sarah said...

Yikes ladies!! Pieces of plate and insects? good lord.

ryssee said...

I'm a sender-backer when it's warranted, for sure. I've been lucky that I've never had to do it more than once in a month! I feel for you.

Blasé said...

Ruth's Chris Steakhouse.

Everything I put in my mouth was terrible. Never go back again.

Jillian said...

I ordered a roast beef dinner once and when they set it in front of me it was GREEN. No, it was not St. Patrick's Day. It wasn't we're selling green beef day, either. I refused to eat it.

Annie MacKenzie said...

Crab Cakes with cinnamon. That is disgusting!!!

Sarah said...

I know! At first I was like "maybe my palate is just not sophisticated enough to "get" it but really it was just plain gross.

Jackie said...

I ordered these mini creme brulle's at a very chic place & they were flavoured strawberry basil and blueberry tarragon or something. They sounded interesting but it was just awful - too much savory overwhelmed it & made it very undesserty...

And then, just yesterday, I ordered a beef dip with no mushrooms pls & thank you. (I LOATHE mushrooms). It came with mushrooms. So I asked the waitress to send it back to the kitchen and she asked "do you just not like them or are you allergic?". I said allergic (lie) because I didn't want the kitchen to pick them off & resend out my food. So she went off, and then the MANAGER came over to my table and asked me again "so you're really allergic?" - at which point I adamantly said YES! Because, who questions someone like that? Brutal!

hope505 said...

At about the tender age of 17 or 18, my friends and I had all taken LSD and decided to visit the local Pizza Hut after romping around in the country for a few hours...and the pizza came out looking like a giant scab! *haha!* ew! We ate as much of it as we could...to be fair, that was not Pizza Hut's fault.

I always order my meat medium-well to well-done, and sometimes they get it wrong and it comes out bleeding and pink. blehh.

Anonymous said...

I never send back and I really should. I once ordered a lobster and when I cracked it open it was black inside. I didn't eat the lobster but didn't send it back. How stupid is that? I wish I had enough courage to send back. I mean I am paying for it. Good for you for sending back!

Sarah said...

Yikes when lobster is bad....it's really bad!

I know what you mean. You feel like a jerk sending something back but for one thing, in all of these cases its not like I was like "Excuse me, take this away!" but rather when the waitress was like "how is everything" i was like "not that great" and then they took it away. Also, I figure that I work hard for my money and I don't have to spend it on badly prepared food. Plus its good feed back for the restaurant! If many people send the same dish back, they know it's probably not working. :-)