Disastrous Dinners That Will Never Be Forgotten
Visiting a restaurant is supposed to be a fun experience. You can order whatever you want, have it served to you and maybe you’ll even get to take home some tasty leftovers at the end of the night. But not all restaurants have the same standard of hospitality.
These people had incidents during dinner that were anything but savory, and the experiences left a pretty bad taste in their mouths.
Two Hours, No Food
Back in the 80s when there were a lot of Nouvelle Cuisine restaurants opening in my city, we booked into a relatively new place that had good reviews. This was a work event with about 15 people going.
To make things easier we pre-ordered our food from the menu, so there should have been plenty of time to prepare the food.
We arrived at 7 PM and were seated by the friendly maître’d and ordered drinks. These came quite promptly and were consumed, then we ordered more. At 8.30 PM there was no sign of the food, we asked the waiter what was going on, he said the kitchen was unusually busy.
Except the restaurant wasn’t full. So, we came up with a plan. When it hit 9 PM and there was still no food, someone called Pizza Hut, who delivered the food to the restaurant.
We ate it, paid for our drinks, and left. To this day I have no idea what the kitchen was doing.
Time Is Of The Essence
I was catching a flight to Iceland with my family. We stopped to grab some food at Durgin-Park in Logan Airport, not because we thought it would be good, but because we thought it would be fast. It’s an airport restaurant, right? 30 minutes after we sat down, our drink order was taken.
My glass had someone else’s lip gloss on it.
20 minutes later, our food order was taken. We were already cutting it close at this point, so we asked them to bring the check right away. Another 30 to 40 minutes later, our flight is boarding, and we still have no food.
By this point, we call over the manager, who says, “Sorry, we would have given it to you for free, but you already paid.”
We got the food right about at the final boarding call. It was cold and congealed, so we ended up throwing it out. To be fair, our server was trying her hardest, but that was the worst-run restaurant I had ever seen.
Each server was assigned to like, 15 or more tables, and they can’t have had more than one cook back there judging by the food.
Her Signature Dish
My grandma had signature dishes, which meant it was all she made, ever. “Swiss steak” consisted of the cheapest cut of meat, cooked until hard and gray, and then she’d dump a can of mushrooms on top and burn those until they turned into a congealed topping.
Ramen noodles were usually cooked just to the point of liquidity.
If she was feeling fancy she’d dump in a can of tuna and mix that all together with the seasoning packets. “Fruit salad” was orange or lime Jell-O mixed with canned fruit. The topping would consist of mayonnaise and cream cheese spread over the top.
She also served reheated McDonald’s French Fries and used expired condiments and seasonings.
Someone Doesn’t Like To Do The Dishes
A friend invited me and a couple of other friends to dinner when I was in high school. His mom served homemade chicken soup, which was fine. There was chocolate cake for dessert.
What she did when she served it will haunt me until the day that I die. Instead of putting it on separate plates, she went around to each of our places and sliced off a piece into each of our soup bowls, each of which still had some broth.
Chocolate cake flavored with chicken broth is not a flavor I really want to repeat.