Food Inspired by another thread — Tell us your restaurant horror stories!

lunchtime, wife ordered a chicken and bacon sandwich alongside other choices for the rest of us, took forever, eventually brought the rest of the food, asked about the sandwich - they'd forgotten, very apologetic.
Clearly panicked and brought it out within literally 2 minutes, and the bacon was stone cold raw.
 
I just dismiss the horror stories really. Anyone can have a bad day. Only one sticks in my mind, just because I have to go there quite a lot. Koln. Beer Keller very close to the cathedral. Homely style, knuckly stodge. Full of locals but also some tourists. My FIL likes the place. I went with my wife and an old school friend of hers. So 2 Germans and 1 English (me). My wife and her friend got their food. I didn't. Chased it. Still nothing. Time passed. More time passed. To my shame I actually left them to it and walked out in a strop. My wife still refers to it as my "I'm out of here" moment. :rolleyes:
 
Pub lunch in rural Norfolk. I ordered a cheese and pickle sandwich. Took 45 mins to arrive. The pickle was rancid. Tasted like nail varnish remover. Thankfully I spat it out.

How can you mess us up a cheese and pickle sandwich?
 
We often go to Lanzarote for a one week sunshine break, the bonus being the superb artisan wine scene that has developed and that we have now identified a dozen really good restaurants around the southern half of the island.

One we always go to at least twice is called Liken, at the Rubicon Marina. A broad deck opens immediately out to the water, boats bobbing about, fish swimming by, and an absolute oasis of calm as it is relatively pricy compared to the surrounding tourist places offering cheap lunch deals. We often have it co.pletely to ourselves and wonder how it survives. Very good cooking in a big open kitchen and about the best wine list at the Marina, but so few people there.

Anyway, last year we were in Lanzarote for 2 weeks unusually for us, and decided for the first time to try it for dinner. I have never witnessed such a transformation. Absolutely packed to the gunnels, instead of our usual front row table above the water we are the back, next to the lavvies and kitchen. To our left, a couple with a child in a high chair gleefully lobbing bits of pasta in all directions, to our right a couple with a child running endlessly around the table with a toy car. As we looked around, of the 50 patrons, 20 were pre-school age (we were there during term time) and the noise was very like the monkey house at Edinburgh zoo, with added screaming, tears, and nappies.

As far as 'worst restaurant experiences' go....
 
30 years ago… The Swan at Horning - we moored up for lunch, I ordered a ploughman’s - it came with this amazing salad and superb small loaf of bread - and the tiniest piece of cheddar you have ever seen! I asked for some more cheese and the waiter took it away and came back saying that he had weighed it and it was the correct weight for the meal! As you can imagine my response was perhaps not the happiest!
 
Sister's 21st. Family lunch for 20 at a decent place on Dartmoor (not Gidleigh) - q a few driving or not drinking so ordered a couple of half bottles of white Burgundy off the list to start as they were well priced. The first poured and was good. Wasn't offered a taste of the second but as it was poured it was approximately the colour of engine oil so called the 'sommelier' over and asked him to take it back. He had a complete strop and told me it was fine(!). I told him it wasn't and that a wine that colour was clearly oxidised. He moaned some more and told me that the wine was listed too cheaply anyway so stop complaining. My father and I decided to take the issue away from the table and told him clearly that we did not expect it to be on the bill. We spent the rest of the lunch receiving evil glares from said individual. I remember v little else of what should have been a lovely day.

Same area but Gidleigh Park itself back in 2015 - took my parents for lunch and advised them when I booked that my mother doesn't eat fish (not allergic but absolutely loathes it). 'Dietary requirements' checked when we were given menus too - same response. Amuse bouche arrive. Mother takes a sip of the cup of whatever has arrived. Shellfish bisque...
 
I've always wondered what happens when a customer says a wine is corked, oxidised or whatever, and the somm disagrees. It's never actually happened to me (even the recent incident the somm clearly agreed with me and the MD was having an off day). My only example that I can remember was at Gavroche quite a few years ago. Business thing. The somm poured the wine (Margaux) sniffed it and then poured a tiny amount into a tasting tumbler. Said with a smile he was terribly sorry but he was going to have to replace this bottle. I asked to taste it myself just for the education value and we had a really nice chat about what he expected and why he rejected it. His suspicions were raised he said when extracting the cork. That of course was excellent service.
 
AJ Temple said:
I've always wondered what happens when a customer says a wine is corked, oxidised or whatever, and the somm disagrees. It's never actually happened to me (even the recent incident the somm clearly agreed with me and the MD was having an off day). My only example that I can remember was at Gavroche quite a few years ago. Business thing. The somm poured the wine (Margaux) sniffed it and then poured a tiny amount into a tasting tumbler. Said with a smile he was terribly sorry but he was going to have to replace this bottle. I asked to taste it myself just for the education value and we had a really nice chat about what he expected and why he rejected it. His suspicions were raised he said when extracting the cork. That of course was excellent service.
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Worse if one's in the reverse position. I recall opening a corked bottle of Josmeyer Gewurz when I was working at the Northcote Manor (2004) - it was marginal but the fruit was stripped and I wouldn't have drunk it. I was however over-ruled by one of our team and told to serve it. The customer didn't notice but it was unfair and disingenuous.
 
I forgot one more that qualifies, though I have told the story before I am sure. About 20 years ago we had a ridiculously OTT foodie holiday touring the south of France - I cannot remember if we had 16 or 17 stars in the 12 nights were were there, but basically a series of one star places every night with the odd 2* in the mix.

All had been booked well in advance and on our last night we stayed in a hotel in Haute Cagnes which had a 1* restaurant, but we were both absolutely sated with wine and Michelin-style dining and really didn't want to be there. However, sitting on a lovely terrace we decided we would have one course and maybe only a couple of glasses of wine. This was absolutely not what the restaurant thought it was about, and when we ordered two dishes and I chose a half bottle of wine, the look of disdain on the sommelier's face was unmissable. He returned with the half bottle and placed an ice bucket on a table to the side. He ceremoniously showed me the label. Having received my nod of approval, as he turned on his heels he dropped the half bottle from about three feet into the bucket, causing a splash and water cascading over the sides. Hospitality at its finest :)
 
My horror story is truly horrible so I don’t think I can share it here . Suffice to state it was in a lumber camp deep in the heart of Borneo in the early 70’s and involved a live monkey .
One less horrible, was a dinner in Bedouin style in the desert about 30 miles from Riyadh, in the late 70’s. This involved the consumption of freshly killed sheep , which was fine, but I was given the eyes to eat, as the guest of honour :cool:
 
Mine out of the Big 3 definitely has to be the time I want to Zuma with my partner to celebrate some big news after I finished work (either job offer or my masters results can’t remember which)… they always had a walk-in section and we were told it’s a two hour wait (arriving at 7pm) and we were fine with that so said not a problem but our name down and said we’ll wait at the bar. They had 1996 Salon so I ordered that… four hours later having seen multiple people arrive after and get fed before in the walk-in section, only to be told the kitchen was closed. After discussion they begrudgingly sat us at the counter and a very grumpy chef came back out to serve us whatever from the menu didn’t require cooking (which in a robotayaki restaurant means none of what’s good) and seeing the chef’s face we decided to leave. Turns out I ended up working closely with that same chef many years later at a different establishment. He didn’t remember me… but he remembered being mightily annoyed with the floor staff!

We went and had some excellent Kebab’s down the road!
 
Edward Bolland said:
A reasonably expensive restaurant, my food arrived frozen in the middle, obviously not microwaved for a sufficient time. I queried the bill and the restauranteur called the police. The officers in attendance took my side.
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I'm surprised the police even attended. They would presumably have known that a dispute over a restaurant bill is a civil matter.
 
I’ve a few. Dinner for two at a local restaurant in Lancs was usually a treat both with good food and wine supplied by T Wright, Horwich. I ordered a bottle of Pio Cesare Barbera and a decanter of wine was brought to the table. “We’ve decanted it for you”. Odd. A quick nose and it was pretty obvious this was the house Montepulciano. I explained their mistake and assumed all would be resolved. Waiter returns and declares the “Sommelier decanted it himself”. As we were trying to enjoy a birthday dinner I suggested then the wine was perhaps corked given the Barbera was a wine I was very familiar with having had several bottles in the last month. Again rebutted “There’s nothing wrong with the wine”, which was indeed correct. Getting a bit annoyed now I suggested they go and get another bottle of the Barbera, open it at the table and if indeed the two wines were identical then I would pay for them both. After a long delay the sommelier turns up at the table mutters an apology and decants the Barbera, removing the previous decanter. My wife takes one sip of the Barbera and declares ‘Gosh’. We never went back and I wonder how often they got away with this.

My worst remains having to go to the local pub for chips after a ludicrously parsimonious (and not very good) Michelin-starred meal in the Lakes.
 
AJ Temple said:
Must admit when I read that article earlier, I didn't find it credible.
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The Guardian article reminded me of the bad experience I posted about above, when a main course my wife and I hadn’t ordered was then replaced with a disgusting, rushed, and undercooked version of the dish we had ordered. I have zero doubt that we were correct about the order but the waitress didn’t seem to believe us when we pointed out her mistake and the state of the replacement we received consolidated this distrustful attitude.

The cling film incident in the article is horrendous but we have encountered some truly disgusting things in food at restaurants, without ever demanding a free meal, so it runs both ways! I vividly remember my wife spitting out a whole pig’s tooth while eating a head cheese dish once, for example.
 
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