Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

^He was screaming out you because you complained? Ugh!

I found a bug--not surprising, given that it was an open-air cafe by the shore, and one could have easily gotten 'caught' in the sauce while waiting. I wanted to complain but was with my father who just told me I needed the protein and not to make a fuss :p

I guess the two worst would be the times I've discovered cilantro and/or hunks of blue cheese in a dish. Other than that and a few small bugs, I've been very lucky.

I bit into what had to be a rock at a buffet-style breakfast at a conference last week. I gave it to one of the waitresses, who was very nice and told me she would tell the manager. A few minutes later two women walked passed my table and, without stopping or even looking at me, announced "that was seasoning in your potatoes." But it couldn't have been, any sort of seasoning would break when bitten (who hasn't chewed up a peppercorn whole by accident here or there?), but a rock (the size of 3-4 peppercorns combined and oddly shaped) does not. And even if they were going to maintain that there was nothing wrong with the food, the least they could have done was actually address me, look at me, etc.

I wrote out the entire thing on the hotel comment card, with my suggestion for how to improve that they not hire managers who treat guests like crap. If only people read those things.

I used to work in a county jail, where the one food service kitchen sent out almost 5000 meals a day. One morning, an inmate brought me his tray, and said he had found a tooth in it. I asked if it were his. He opened his mouth, and had all his teeth. So I called the food service officer. He told me "I can't think of anyone down here with dental problems. We make sure everyone's healthy. It could be a rodent tooth." A rodent tooth? EEEWWW. I'm just glad it wasn't my breakfast (I always took my own food).

worst thing i ever found in my food was what i thought was a piece of semi-melted plastic in the bread of a sandwich. took it to the attention of the manager and had my meal comped. went in again the next day and the manager came over and said that she had investigated it, and it was actually just a really hard sun-dried tomato that was supposed to be baked in the bread. she just wanted to make sure we knew that it wasn't actually plastic. she even let us examine it to make sure.

worst thing i ever saw in someone else's food was from a friend's bagged salad at a grocery store in Rome. she got halfway finished with her bowl of salad, then saw half....HALF... of a small frog in it. so very very gross.

Half a tooth. The entire tooth would have been bad enough, but half was just... ugh. At this same place, I also found a stick in my salad, and my dad found several hairs in his food.

Needless to say, this place is no longer in business.

I was working as a server when i noticed something "funny looking" in a plate of pasta. After looking at it closer I noticed a piece of a rubber glove (actually the finger from the glove) mixed into the pasta. I showed this to the kitchen manager and he then pulled it out and said that I could deliver the dish to the table. Well needless to say that was my last shift there....I left after that, i was just so disappointed in a place I really enjoyed.

This reminds me of the funny story that my friend sent to me a few months ago where a woman found a deep fried rat's head with teeth in her bag of shrimp chips. I still eat shrimp chips from that same company.

I ordered a brownie fudge sundae once at a restaurant and the brownie still had the piece of paper it must have come wrapped with on the bottom of it. Worse still, the server seemed suspicious of the whole thing, like I had brought my own paper, carefully cut it to brownie size and slipped it underneath the sundae.

for pure gross factor it would have to be the time i witnessed a server come out of the kitchen with a tables food, the manager stops her, puts his index finger 2 knuckles deep into the soup, taste it, then......wait for it.......do it again!!!(same finger obviously). it wasnt our food, but we bailed anyways. I still shudder when i think about that too much.

most dangerous has to be the wing nut i found in a maple bar at a skeevy little all night donut shop in Pheonix. big one, pretty sure it was 5/8" machine thread. let me just say, if your equipment is actually falling apart at such a rate that some of the detrius gets into the food, its time to upgrade!

There was a pizza place in Delaware County PA. Everyone swore was the best pizza ever. It won best of pizza for that area in the local paper for years. You had to call and place your order in advance. They took orders till 7 pm then no more orders. Was expensive too. We finally called early and ordered this oh so great pizza.
They had a wood burning pizza oven.
When we brought the pizza home it was covered in wood ash. Not just some ash spots, but burned wood bits/twigs/mulch looking clumps ON the actual pizza. What was worse was the guy making this illustrious pizza was leaving curly black hair all over the food. After I picked off a few hairs and burned wood clumps I called them back and said make us another pizza. I was told it was passed 7 pm and they were no longer taking orders. I send Husband back to give them back their work of art and get the money.
We never ordered again. Even driving by the place makes my skin crawl. The burned mulch black curly hair pizza place.

I waitressed at a small restaurant where the cooks/kitchen help could see through the pass-thru window to the customers. I had a check for three ice cream sundaes. Before topping the sundaes with whipped cream, the cook asked which table had ordered them. I told him and apparently the guests and he were acquainted but not in a good way. The cook proceeded to cough up three hawkers, one for each sundae, then topped them with the whipped cream. I gawked at him and went back to remake the sundaes myself. To this day when eating out, I try not to imagine the possible attrocities occurring in the kitchen.

What's the deal with the "no comping for any reason" policies nowadays? Sometimes I feel like I'd be forced to pay for a deep-fried shoe. Are that many customers trying to swindle restaurants out of paying?

Yeah, I've bitten into a nut (nut/bolt) eating a soft taco that I had taken back to my office to eat. I cracked my molar which had to be removed. I didn't take the nut back because I didn't think I could prove that it was actually in the taco.

I was eating general tso's chicken when I happened to look down at the piece of chicken on my fork and noticed something black on it. I looked closer and it was a cockroach that was stuck to the chicken, fried, then covered with sauce. Now I always look at my food before I put it in my mouth.

My husband and I were dining in a small mexican restaurant on the westside in Cincinnati, Ohio. They made the best taco salads (with ranch dressing!!!). My husband was just about finished with his usual - seafood burrito - when he found a long black hair underneath the last of the burrito on his plate. We showed it to the owner/manager and she just shrugged her shoulders and said since he had already eaten most of the burrito, she couldn't comp his meal. We left, never to return. Thankfully, they are no longer in business - at that location anyway!!

Hehe, I love these stories... Hair doesn't bother me anymore. I've seen way worse! I've seen a little caterpillar in my broccoli, nail in a salad, bugs in lettuce, and glass in pasta. The latter were from a place I worked. Stuff happens!

Once at a freshly opened chain steakhouse, my friends and I were dining and we kept finding these little black beetles in our food, drinks, etc. Evidently, they were literally coming out of the wood and falling everywhere. We got our alcohol and food comped, along with pretty much everyone else in the place that night.

When my dad was in highschool, ( 70's) he worked at a snack shack on a beach. There was always a big pot of chili going to put on hotdogs or fries or other crap. He was getting some ground chuck out of the fridge, and noticed it was totally rancid. He was throwing it out, and his boss yelled at him " What the hell are you doing!? Throw that in the chili!". And so it was with dropped hot dogs or burger patties, or other such things meats normally disposed of.

And once I opened up a baked potato in my highschool cafeteria, and there was a big fat baked worm inside. since I went to a private all girls school, I got to make a big fuss about it. it was great fun. :)

ok, third comment, but I don't care this one is awsome.

in college, my dad's friend and his newly announced fiance were cooking for a meet the parents dinner. she brought a cassarole dish of something already made to stick in the oven. before the family got there, they got high off their asses. she stuck the cassarole in the oven, plastic wrap and all! and they ate it.