Eaten what's not food?
Hi Everyone,
So the previous post was about whether to tell or not tell for seeing a mouse. It got me wondering...What is the worst experience you've had at a restaurant of something you ate that wasn't supposed to be on the plate? I was eating at a local pizzeria, and I ordered the pepperoni and spinach pizza. It was delicious --it always is. And the place is so clean, great beer selection; It's my standby place! I was getting full, but could stuff down one more slice and as I took the first bite of the slice I noticed a weird taste. Then I bit down, then it tasted AWFUL and there was a weird sensation. I put a finger in and pulled out HALF a gross cockroach-esque looking bug! I'm a bug-phobic, so I spit the rest out into a napkin and almost tossed cookies on the spot. In total the bug was over an inch long! The crunchy shell was the worst part :( Since they used fresh spinach on the pizza this guy was under a leaf and I didn't see it! It was probably some bug from Peru or something that was shipped up in the spinach. Sick. Worst ever...
Come on, what's yours!
Add a comment:
Previewing your comment:
HTML Hints
Some HTML is OK: <a href="URL">link</a>, <strong>strong</strong>, <em>em</em>
Comment Guidelines
Post whatever you want, just keep it seriously about eats, seriously. We reserve the right to delete off-topic or inflammatory comments. Learn more at our Comment Policy page.
If you see something not so nice, please, report an inappropriate comment.
Start Talking!
Need a question answered? Have advice to share? Start a Talk topic now!
Sign up to get your questions answered and share advice.
33 Comments:
Ugh... that is gross. :(
I can think of two occasions. I suppose it depends on what you label as food...
Background:
There was a restaurant I frequented 3-6 times per week with my husband. The kitchen was apparently tired of the way I ordered my pho and ordered me to eat the bowl they dished out -- I always ordered the rare beef pho since I don't like beef balls and all the sinewy meat that gets served with the other pho...and I hate onions and cilantro. So I get a bowl with a ton of tripe, sinewy beef, and beef balls with heaping mounds of cilantro and raw onions. Tried to return it, couldn't because the kitchen was fed up.
So the next dish that comes out is my husband's and he gets live crickets in his soup, swimming around.
Of course, we were forced to pay for the food (that we didn't eat). By far, this was our worst experience at a restaurant ever. It was a convenient place with okay food for cheap that we frequented several times a week for several years. Some people eat crickets (grubs, roaches, ...) every day. We don't, so in my eyes, it's not "food."
The other incident was at one of the restaurants at work. I ordered my food and toted it back to my office. Half way through one of my [soft] tacos, there was a loud crunch.
I spat my food out and found a metal bolt.
Several days later, I was sitting at a dentist's office, getting my molar extracted because it cracked my tooth and couldn't be salvaged. This sucked because I'm without a tooth, the taco was mediocre, and insurance didn't cover 100% of the extraction. It was an expensive taco.
Cassaendra at 1:58PM on 09/18/09
@cassaendra: next time you go for pho, order "pho tai" which is just broth, noodles, and rare beef. i hope you find another restaurant to go to!
chlamers at 2:09PM on 09/18/09
ughhhhh! That reminds me of something my mother says: "What worse than finding a worm in your apple? Finding half a worm in your apple!"
I was studying abroad in Florence and needed to grab lunch on the go. I went into a bakery and bought a chicken salad sandwich (or something that look like chicken salad anyway) Starving, I sat down and bit into my sandwich. Tasted great. Wonderful bread. And then I felt something small and hard. I chewed a little more. Could it be chicken bone? That's probably what it is... As I began to remove it from my mouth I could begin to make out the shape. It was a lady's fingernail. Complete with nail polish. Oh and it was real. Not a press-on.
yayfood at 3:04PM on 09/18/09
@yayfood, sick! Did she clip her nails into your chicken salad?? That's pretty bad :(
kmgagne at 3:49PM on 09/18/09
There was only one, so my guess was that maybe the chicken salad was mixed by hand, like the way some people mix meatloaf with their hands.
It was an interesting little window into Italian food service standards and person hygiene. It was painted a pretty shimmery maroon color. Nice. ;)
yayfood at 4:22PM on 09/18/09
I once gleefully pulled a yogurt from the fridge while I was chatting with a buddy on the phone, pulled the lid off, gave'er a good lick...
...then looked into the yogurt cup and saw the fuzziest cup I've ever seen.
My story's not so bad considering some others I've heard through life and on here. I'm a bug-phobe too so, kmgagne, your experience really hit home for me. I'm not sure if it's even set in yet because I wouldn't know how I would react to that.
*cringe with sincere goosebumps and chunks currently camping in my throat*
@Cassaendra - I had to stop reading at the swimming live crickets. OMG
hungrychristel at 5:32PM on 09/18/09
Whoa some of those are horror stories compared to mine and I am sorry you had to experience that. Aside from finding your single strand hair every now and then in something, I used to love chicken flautas and ordered them all the time till one time I bite into one and it tasted funny, I spit it out and looked at the chicken, smelled it to find that the chicken was completely rotten. The kitchen was very sorry and offered something else on the house but I could not eat anything the rest of the day. This was 20 years ago and to this day will not order flautas.
@ Cassaendra- Isn't there something that you husband you can to like report this place or something?
pjracz10 at 6:21PM on 09/18/09
Oh My God, just thinking about it gives me goose bumps. Deep Breath.
So, I'm at a Chinese restaurant and we're given a choice between regular and "adult" fortune cookies. We opt for the "adult." I take a teeny nip and then crack it open, as you do, and a HUGE cockroach comes running out, up my arm, UNDER the sleeve of my blouse.
Excuse me, I just had another moment.
Anyhow, that was probably the worst.
In actually eating food, it was when I ate dog and didn't know it. I have to say, it was quite tasty, but when my friend turned to me, all smug and happy, and told me what it was (dog in a stew, thickened with blood), it was pretty brutal. Toto. I ate Toto.
chisai at 8:09PM on 09/18/09
I used to love going to this local Mexican place. Great people etc. My friends hubby who is a bug terminator told me not to eat there anymore. He said the kitchen was so infested with cockroaches that when he sprayed there they were jumping out of the cuffs of his pants when he left. agh! I make my own tacos now.. I also remember when I worked at Burger King back in the day and a mouse ran across the lobby, A customer said something to the manager and the manager said yeah we get them. I quit that day.
chardonnay at 8:28PM on 09/18/09
The worst thing that I can remember is biting into a burrito from Burritoville in lower Manhattan and crunching into glass. I had eaten there so many times before and was really shocked when that happened. I walked up to the counter and asked the guy behind it to hold out his hand. I put the glass in it and explained, "I just got a mouthful of this." His eyes bugged out. I didn't return.
therealchiffonade at 8:50PM on 09/18/09
I once got a piece of rusted metal in chinese delivery fried rice. A big piece of very rusty metal, possibly an ancient handle from one of the food continers, but almost too corroded to be sure. Hello tetanus shot! And, I can't eat from the containers anymore, I have to pour it out onto a plate first.
AliceBlue at 9:12PM on 09/18/09
For the server side...
I used to work at a chain Mexican resturant in Texas and we alwas had a good time in the kitchen. Our GM was a Nazi about keeping the line clean, and it showed. However, the line crew would open the far back door when it got too hot for the AC to be efficient. During a slow Sunday afternoon shift, they made a burrito for a customer. I was laughing about how awful it would be if something flew into the food from the door being open. No kidding...the burrito goes out, the customer cuts into it, and a FLY FLIES OUT FROM UNDERNEATH THE TORTILLA!!! The customer promptly vomitted on the floor, the manager yelled everything naughty I've ever heard in English and Spanish and I just about quit that day.
SuzyHomemaker at 10:15PM on 09/18/09
When I was a young teen, I was eating at a Japanese teppanyaki place with my father. The chef was preparing beef negimaki, one of my favourite dishes at the time. I felt something land sharply on my neck, like it was flung. I lurched back in my seat in surprise, and the cockroach that was on my neck started skittering around on the table.
To this day, I can still recall -- oh god, I'm trying not to gag just thinking about it -- the feeling of that roach on my neck.
avaryne at 12:44AM on 09/19/09
Yup, the cockroach nightmare has happened to me too - well, not actually me, but another person at my table. This one wasn't alive, but had actually been cooked into her cheese omelette. I think the best (worst) part was that one of it's little legs had obviously been amputated and was floating a inch or two over from the rest of it's body. Needless to say, the rest of the table immediately put down our forks, were comped for the meal, and moved our little party to a different restaurant. Sad thing is, it really was a party - it was one of our friends' 24th birthday that we were celebrating. Ahhh memories.
Also, for anyone in Nashville - the restaurant was Pancake Pantry in Hillsboro Village, and I have never eaten there again. There's a reason why their sanitation grade is so low.
kimberlymac at 9:56AM on 09/19/09
A long time ago I was at a favorite local spot and had ordered my number one dish at the time: chopped salad. It was always perfect, fresh...LOVED it. That is until the day I grabbed a big forkful and included in that forkful was a twisted up, USED hairnet. I didn't see it unfortunately. Discovered it after chewing for quite some time and wondering what it was that wasn't chewing up. Sorry. Yep. Still brings the chills to me to this day.
radley24 at 11:01AM on 09/19/09
The worst that happened to me was a large (2 inch) moth in a chef's salad, and not on top, so I'd eaten quite a bit before I came to it. It was in a large lunch meeting, and I was embarrassed to have to ask the waiter to take it back. But this is nothing compared to what some of you endured.
@Cassaendra: You had to pay for your meal? I can't imagine why. I think I would have informed them I wasn't paying and then invited them to call my lawyer if they insisted. They behaved inexcusably, unless you'd done something really bad to them, which makes me wonder why you ate there so much.
lemonfair at 1:05PM on 09/19/09
wow! all these stories make you wonder if you ever want to eat out again. my story, which i posted in the mouse piece was: i once found a roach that had been griddled into the top pancake i was served. it looked like a garnish. i couldn't believe the cook or server didn't notice. we walked out of the place.... didn't pay the bill either.
this is why i eat home alot. if there's a hair or something in the food, my husband always finds it. either he has good eyes or bad food karma.
pooch at 7:29PM on 09/19/09
I don't eat out very often, and after reading this thread I think I will continue to prepare my own food. Anything that goes wrong and it's my own fault.
dmcavanagh at 8:28PM on 09/19/09
Our state health department has a 44 point inspection program for restaurants, and the Burlington Free Press publishes a summary for about 20 restaurants every month (this is a lot, considering the size of our county). It's rare for any restaurant to fall below 90%; I'm sure it affects business if they do. So I'm pretty confident in the cleanliness of any restaurant that's passed with that high a grade. You can see what they inspect for on their site, and look up the grade for any restaurant in the state they've inspected. I'd see if your own state health dept has a similar program.
http://healthvermont.gov/apps/restaurant_scores/RestaurantScoringProcess.aspx
lemonfair at 9:49PM on 09/19/09
Tonight as I stepped on the first step to our restaurant I saw a cute, tiny mouse and said so to the guy that works there and we talk to quite frequently. I didn't see it as a really bad thing, but when I went inside I thought that everyone that heard me might be mortified. This was in a big city and we live an hour out in the country and it took me a moment to realize that what I said was probably pretty off putting for a lot of folks.
janaatwg at 10:21PM on 09/19/09
Wow. Just touched base on more of ˆˆˆˆtheseˆˆˆˆ:
Perhaps we should call Gordon Ramsay on some of these.
He'd straighten them out :D
PS I heart gordon
hungrychristel at 9:47AM on 09/21/09
@lemonfair: They said they'd call the cops on us if we walked out w/o paying for the dishes they prepared for us. I didn't want to go to jail for a $9 tab. It must have been a full moon that day or something, but they lost our business forever.
So many roach stories...it's making me quiver while I'm eating lunch at my desk. :x
Cassaendra at 2:31PM on 09/21/09
I can't believe these stories... def happy that I bring my lunch to work and don't eat out too often.
flavacrisp at 3:10PM on 09/21/09
Wow these are great everyone, thanks!
kmgagne at 10:05AM on 09/22/09
luckily my worst experience involves only a piece of cardboard cooked into my deep dish pizza, but my friend once bit into a piece of already chewed minty gum in his pita pocket.
palimpsest36 at 9:33PM on 09/22/09
I didn't eat it but when I worked as a cook in the mid-eighties in a resturaunt in Dallas TX, one night during a busy time I noticed their was something sticking my leg down by my knee. I finally pulled up my pant leg and found that I was carrying around a huge coakroach.
danrob54 at 10:27PM on 09/22/09
I was eating a salad at a local restaurant, and I discovered a quarter-sized piece of jagged porcelain right in the middle of the salad. Thankfully I didn't bite down on it too hard, but I was still not a happy camper.
My favorite non dining out store comes from Quaker oatmeal. My mom would always buy the variety packs (not sure why) of the instant oat meal, and I couldn't stand the apple cinnamon flavor with its weird dehydrated apple bits. One day, she made me eat the apple oatmeal that had been sitting in the pantry for months. When I opened the pouch and poured it into a bowl, it was crawling with green inchworms.
jboylan at 6:05PM on 09/23/09
Ok. The comment about unknowingly eating dog nearly caused me a breakdown yesterday. If that ever happened to me, I would kill the person that fed it to me and then have an irreversable mental breakdown. I'd be willing to try lots of different meats in other countries, but dog will NEVER be one.
misha1by at 12:41PM on 09/24/09
I was once eating a bowl of cheerios and right when i was putting the spoon into my mouth i heard a wierd high pitched noise and looked into the spoon and there was one of my children, shrunk down to tiny size in the middle of a cheerio....oh wait...that wasnt me, thats honey I shrunk the Kids...sorry.
CATERPILLARGIRL at 12:57PM on 09/24/09
I worked as a waitress in a very old and respected Bar and Grille in Canton Ohio and during lunch rush in the old bar part of the restaurant a rat was running wildly behind the bar while patrons were happily eating the signatur burgers! The owners daughte rwas having a fit and the manager scooped it up andinto a 5 gal bucket and tossed it into the trash! Hysterical!! I still eat there as I never saw any roaches or critters in the kitchen. Still if the diners had half a clue!
smammone at 8:30PM on 09/28/09
Huel Howser who has a PBS program called California Gold. He goes around and interviews people about interesting sites and things to do in California often they are the "off the beaten path" type of places.
So he did a show on a place that was suppose to have the best fried fish and as it turned out it was less then a few miles from my home. So of course I just had to try it.. The place is not a sit down but a take out so I got my catfish and dreamed of it all the way home and like therealchiffonade I got glass.
When I went back to the place with the catfish I noticed that the side of the display case was broken. I pointed it out to the manager he did offer to replace the catfish for free but I declined and never went back there again.
kah9932 at 8:55PM on 09/28/09
My wife and I went to an old Ryan's Steakhouse here in Tampa about 5 years ago. We went for the weekend breakfast buffett which was priced right and stocked well. I filed my plate with food including a helping of cheese grits. Everything was fine until my second bite of the grits. I put my fork down (which immediately alerted my wife), reached between my lips and pulled a foot long hair from my mouth. The waitress saw the event and rushed to the table. I could not be consoled. I spit the grits out onto my plate and rushed into the restroom to vomit. My wife was aghast and was verbally assailing the manager when I returned. We left, never returned to the place; and, returned the free buffett coupons they sent as an apology.
cd348 at 7:31AM on 09/29/09
A few years ago we were visiting my parents in the Foothills in Yuma, AZ.
They wanted to take us to their favorite Chinese restaurant as it was only open in the not too hot months. Well, my husband ordered a combination chow mein(was pork, chicken, beef, shrimp, veg.) While taking his last bite, he noticed something was very chewy, he spit it out to examine it and it was a cigarette butt filter. He showed it to the waiter and the waiter went and got the manager who accused my husband of planting the butt in his food. My husband is a cigarette hater, and has never smoked and came unglued. This was the times when people still could smoke in restaurants. We were shocked, that they would behave that way. We have often discussed this horrible experience, the only thing we can figure out is that maybe they had : 1. trouble with people doing things to the food, so they wouldn't have to pay. 2. problems with senior's in this retirement area. 3. or Just Assholes! In any case we never order chinese food with a variety of meats an veggies, too easy to clean a plate into the pot, an I do believe this is done, unfortunately.
cocoloco at 12:02PM on 09/29/09