Havana in Liverpool
I'd been there before with colleagues, and had a great time, so a few months later went back with a different friend. We got a table, eventually managed to order a bottle of wine from the waitress (who was too busy drinking her own red wine with her friends to bother much with us) and ordered our meal. Nice and simple, garlic bread to start, fajitas for the main.

Well, 40 mins later and we're both pretty hungry, and the wine is about two thirds gone (we were trying to save it for the meal, but gave up). The waitress staggers over with the fajitas. When we asked what had happened to our garlic bread starter, we got told "oh, it got given to another table." which was apparently perfectly ok with the tipsy waitress.

Then we look at our meals. Now, as you'll know, fajitas arrive on a sizzling dish, and is a mix of chicken, onions and peppers cooked in spices. What we actually got was a plate of raw peppers with a sliced chicken breast on top, sprinkled with parsley. What's more, the tortillas themselves were frozen in the middle instead of warm, and the plate of guacamole etc wouldn't have fed an anorexic field mouse.

I looked at my friend, and pronounced the food shite. Then we decided just to leave. Not complain, not struggle to force down the "food" presented to us, not pay and slip out grumbling, just leave. So we stood up and started to put our coats on.

Out of nowhere a manager turns up, and asks if there's a problem. We point to the crap we've been served, and say we're not happy so we're going to leave. The poor woman tried to apologise, offered us different food etc. We told her that we didn't think their kitchen was capable of producing edible food, and we were hungry and had decided to go elsewhere. She even offered to let us finish the wine before leaving (the wee dribble in the bottom of the bottle).

We went round the corner to a lovely indian restaurant, cue another bottle of wine and a curry, and all was groovy.

F x
(Flurble - The Innocent One, Sat 29 Apr 2006, 1:12, Reply)

Greek
Went to a Greek resteraunt, apparantly one of the best in Surrey. Marinated lamb you say? That will do nicely. What I actually recieved can only be described as looking like an abortion -


( HelloIamAdam and Adam is my name, Sat 29 Apr 2006, 0:42, Reply)

COMPLAIN - You usless twats
Yes, I could go into great length about bad meals I have had out or on a plane - indeed gut wrenching stuff.

However, what makes me more sick is reading all your whinging about bad food. Crap like 'I just ate it', 'didn't want to say anything' or 'looked / tasted horrible'.

Bunch of weak willed twats. The reason we have bad food in this, or any other Country is because we put up with it. If, for once, you made a stand, the rest of us would get better food and better service.

Next time COMPLAIN. If you are not happy take it to the Manager. Still not happy take it to the head office. Still not happy, speak to the local council / paper. They will give in. What have you got to lose?

Fucking sort it.

If all else fails, make her......
(Suck it and Sea, Sat 29 Apr 2006, 0:42, Reply)

DOOM
my mum was relaying a news article from our local paper over dinner this evening. turns out 4 eateries in our town, after undergoing a health inspection, managed to score 0 out of 5. this basically means that these places are roach infested hell hole traps of death. i have eaten at two of them.
(George_Dawes, Sat 29 Apr 2006, 0:33, Reply)

Dammm you france!
I was on the school art trip to the south of France when I was 14. Now this trip was one of those £500 things, which for 4 days in France seemed a little pricey. I don't know maybe it was the fact that I was 14, and the most money I had seen was £45.

Anyho...we got there after a day in the coach and its about 8pm. So they rush us in for dinner in the Hotel restaurant, all pre arranged and I supose intended to keep us from eating the vending machine whole after all we had eaten was our packed lunches.

We sit down. Starving. This french greasy guy who looked more like a gurning champ than a waiter waltzes over and informs us its chicken on the menu. Like we care, we just want to eat. We are a bunch of cocky 14 year olds....JUST FEED US!

We spoke too soon over come the plates. With a small side salad that resembled the nettles we had trodden on outside, chips that were barely warm and the odd one frozen on the inside. But the brigtest star on the menu a nicely browned piece of chicken...mmmmm there is hope until we cut it open. Its not just pink. It hasnt just got a twinge of colour. No. Blood comes pouring out of this chicken. BLOOD! So we all make a horrific english teenage fuss. Teachers complain but we are promised a good dessert. Ahhh Happy Day. So they bring over the tubs of ice cream one look at the name and all I want to do is cry......the ice cream was called 'cock whip' COCK WHIP!!
(sharna-banana Why am I sticky & naked? Did I miss something fun?, Sat 29 Apr 2006, 0:19, Reply)

Xmas day 2005
In a mexican restaurant in the Andel area of Prague. We'd all overdone it on the absinth the night before (being Xmas Eve and all) and when hungover I get uncontrollably incessantly horny. Scarily horned up.

The food was crap and the beer was worse. After 2 mouthfuls I stood up and said to the 2 blokes with me "fuck this noise, I'm going back to the hotel for a wank"

They couldn't finish their meals for some reason.
(FiftyFour, Sat 29 Apr 2006, 0:18, Reply)

Jimmy's British Pub in Thailand
Bangyakok. My mate was a stauch orangey coloured man from Belfast, hated foreign food. I loved it or so I thought! Smart arse!

He took me to Jimmy's where true Brits can relax in the style of true Brits everywhere. Chucking arrows and Pissed.

The beer was Aussie - "What the fucks 'Bietter' mate?" and the food was all english, I was told. Like fuck.

I ordered a nice bowl of Soup o' the Day and some bread. It took a while. Everyone else had prawn and melon cocktails.

A big bowl thusly arrived at our dinner table with a steaming tea towel over it. The crusty bread was served with butter, nice!

Today we have Oxtail said our thai waitress and took the tea towel off the bowl.

It was genuine Oxtail all right.

Sitting a clear bowl of gelatinous liquid was the last few vertabra of a deceased Ox. (water buffalo actually, but who's being picky?)

The end of the arse and first few inches of the tail clearly visible swirling around in a tail flicky sort of way, plus bits had floated off into the liquid.

I quickly ordered a local curry, chicken and the waitress tucked into the buffalo arse as she was off-duty in five. Nice girl, but no tits.
(chrisjw, Sat 29 Apr 2006, 0:03, Reply)

Nan and nails
Sitting in a curry house that shall remain nameless mainly because it no longer exists (ok, it was the Windsor Tandoori) I tucked into my curried meat choice, on this ocassion a sheesh kebab starter, and bit on something hard.

It was a bent six inch nail.
(Kit-Koo, Fri 28 Apr 2006, 23:59, Reply)

Things I Have Learned From This QoTW
1. Don't travel to England.
2. If you must travel to England, then for Christ's sake don't EAT anything.
(busterbeckett BUSTER BECKETT - saved by the buoyancy of citrus, Fri 28 Apr 2006, 23:55, Reply)

Crunchy
Years ago while living in MerkinLand (Baltimore), my wife at the time and I would regularly go to a great pub/restaurant called John Steven's. They did really good but affordable seafood and had a great range of beers (big bonus for a Brit).
We almost always shared a starter consisting of a big plate of fresh steamed mussels (still in their shells of course) with a bowl of melted garlic butter to dip the forked out mussels into.
Having eaten their delicious mussels many times before, I dug in heartily, ignoring the odd little bit of "grit" (that you invariably come across if you eat alot of shellfish) and happily munching through.
I should've inspected the first large piece of gritty substance more carefully (after having dicreetly removed it from my mouth) because the next one was much bigger and crunchier...it tasted foul and I had to spit it out.
Upon inspection of what I'd spat out and further exploration of the remaining mussels I soon found the answer. There had been baby crabs living inside some of these mussels at the time they were fished/farmed and since they'd now been cooked they looked like curled up fat black spiders with pincers.
The one I spat out was as big around as a drawing pin / thumbtack and since I'd already crunched up and swallowed at least two smaller ones I totally lost my appetite.
Although the price of the mussels was taken from the bill there was no real room for complaint, we'd already ordered a basket of steamed crabs for the main course (the full sized ones are a local delicacy there).
I just couldn't get the taste of that bug-like little beasty out of my mouth, so I just sat and enjoyed the beer (got pissed), while the ex Mrs. Twizla tucked into the parents of the evil looking things I'd just been retching on.
( Twizla ...a shrew living on the edge of a bog, extinct on, Fri 28 Apr 2006, 23:43, Reply)

Lake District child chefs
Me and the other half started to go up to Ambleside every so often and we would arrive around 9pm on a Friday. Bars going well, loads of people about.

So first of all we went to Mr Dodd's chip shop (now defunct, I think). "Sorry, we're closing in a minute." A chippie?

Never mind, we think, and the next day we go to the restaurant entitled "Mr Dodd's".

One of the very few places actually run by children. No manager, noone over 12 years old seems to be running the place. Ordered a grill. Received carbon. Wedged into a table that could have sat two Barbie dolls.

Needless to say that whenever we go back and are thinking about dinner the food at "Mr Dodd's" comes slightly after dwarf bread.

And the wine was shite too.

Still its best to find somewhere else after the Glass House went crap about five years ago.
(aardvarkadam, Fri 28 Apr 2006, 23:39, Reply)

In teh 'Merica
I was skiing in Boston in Febuary last with my school. We went to Mc Donalds and it gave me a minor bout of the shits.

That is all.


VFM
(Viscous Fridge Magnet Used To Be A Cha-Cha, Fri 28 Apr 2006, 23:29, Reply)

a pint of poo and a ruined ballgown
This was told to me by a friend who attended, and while it's not strictly a meal out with bad food, I'm pretty sure the lady in question had the worst meal of her life.

For anyone who lives in the Croydon area, this is a story about Trinity boys school.

At the end of year school prom/meal the boys who are leaving attend this prom thing and bring their girlfriends. Obviously they are all dressed up to the nines with pretty pink ribbons and bows and stuff. The particular boys in question were a bunch of public school ingrates with tendancies to go a little over the top.

So anyway one of them takes his pint of lager with him into the toilet and comes out 10 minutes later with a large turd floating in said pint.

One of the idiots round the table reckons he can take a sip of the poopint without vomiting for a dare. He does. So tho up the stakes another idiot round the table produces a condom, puts it over the rim of the glass and pretending to be Tom Cruise in Cocktail shakes, and shakes harder and harder, breaking the little brown gift into tiny pieces therefore obviously making it more palatable.

Surprise surprise, the condom flies off the end of the pint glass and the foul smelling liquid contents go all over one of these lovely dolled up prom girls in her nicest pink dress covering her in faeces.

What didn't help the situation was her boyfriend totally pissing himself with laughter while she cried her little girly heart out. I don't think she enjoyed her meal.
(drshipman iz in yr shower killing yr nan, Fri 28 Apr 2006, 23:16, Reply)

Dinorben Arms
The blessed Dinorben Arms in north Wales used to do an all-you-can-eat buffet for a set price, so at the tender age of 13 it was my first choice for a birthday meal.

After a large meal (probably steak and chips) it was time to get serious. At the end of the table was a large glass bowl full to the brim with rich chocolate mousse. It was my birthday and the rest of the family were happy for me to have a second helping. And then a third. Closely followed by a fourth. My stomach distended by the rich chocolatey goo, something had to give. My grandad, bless him, saw what was coming and necked what was left of the pint of bitter he was holding (almost two thirds of a pint) and held the glass to my chin allowing me to spew the contents of my guts into the pint pot.

Amazingly I chucked up nearly an exact pint of sick and didn't spill a drop, allowing my grandad to take the offending liquid to the toilets to be disposed of. I felt great after that.
( caldini Have you seen my polar bear?, Fri 28 Apr 2006, 22:55, Reply)

Inkworm....
"And the place should you ever fancy going out...
ASK in the centre of Leicester, still there but I'd never go back."

Absolute fucking shit-hole. My mate took his missus there for her birthday and ended up not paying too due to shite service.
(Nyphur, Fri 28 Apr 2006, 21:44, Reply)

A friend of a friend went to McD's.
....and ordered a Big Mac.

When it arrived, he sent it off for analysis, and was shocked when the results came back.

It was made of ground worms, topped with deep fried mouse w(with a pus-filled tumour), and the "tomato ketchup" consisted of blood and semen. And phlegm. And the fries had been stuck up someone's arse. And the milk shake was thickened with cow eyeballs. (and they found dead cats in the freezer.)





There. Hopefully that'll satisfy the people who want to post FOAF-tales. (If in doubt, visit Snopes.com)
( Tepid_Halibut felt like a cold, empty shell of a human...until, Fri 28 Apr 2006, 21:10, Reply)

St Andrews again
drunkenoaf - I know someone who worked behind the bar in the Oak Rooms, he said he wouldn't eat there either.

But if you're in St Andrews, never, ever go to Little Johns. The waiters are all bored students working at minimum wage and the food is at best something you could have done for half the price at home. At worst, I once ordered a chicken burger (was feeling adventurous) which was essentially bits of mashed up chicken that had been shaped into a meat patty, and was held together with cornflour. Complained to the waiter, whose response was 'Oh, do you want another one?' before he came back and said 'Actually, all of them are like that.' Any normal person would've complained to get their money back. Alas I am an idiot, and my mouth tasted of sticky flour all night.

If you are in St Andrews, try the Vine Leaf. Or if you're wasted, the KFB will deepfry ANYTHING (including goldfish if some of the less scrupulous staff are on).
(thePontificator, Fri 28 Apr 2006, 20:40, Reply)

La Cucaracha
One day my boss handed me a wad of cash and sent me out to pick up pizza for the staff. After eating about half and about to take another bite, the boss looked at his slice and found a large, dead cockroach, belly up, baked into the cheese. I returned with the uneaten pizza to the restaurant, including the bit with the cockroach topping. They weren't going to refund our money until I started to complain about the roach very loudly in the middle of their tourist-packed dining room. Needless to say, none of us ever ate there again and told everyone we could to avoid the place.
(bunnybutt, Fri 28 Apr 2006, 20:14, Reply)

The Bayswater Breakfast
Some years ago me and my (then) boyfriend took a trip to London. It was between Christmas and New Year and we had trouble finding somewhere to stay, and wound up at an absolute shit pit in Bayswater. Our room was vile beyond description. We thought it wouldn't get any worse....
The "dining room" was what most folk would describe as the cellar. It was almost pitch black, illuminated by a couple of weak light bulbs. It was fucking freezing. The waitress was wearing a big coat, hat, scarf and gloves. In very broken English she asked if we wanted a full English or Continental breakfast. Being patriots we opted for the full English, and after a long cold wait the waitress returned with a floral side plate (for boyf) and a kids Mickey Mouse plate for me. Our full English was one rather small rasher of bacon and one egg, which although it may of once been in the same room as a frying pan, they had never been formally introduced. Her gloved thumbs were holding the bacon onto the plates.
We decided to leave the salmonella behind us and went to McD's....which was crap but at least it was cooked.
(BooEvil, Fri 28 Apr 2006, 19:34, Reply)

Paris, a couple of years ago
Someone in our group decided it might be a good idea to get some Greek food in Paris...

We were the only customers in the restaurant, the music was playing way too loud and the cd they played all through our meal skipped every 20 or so seconds.
The waiter, with a big smile, announced that he would remember all of our orders by heart (we were with about eight people).

Naturally, not only did he get every single thing wrong, the food was mediocre at best.
We decided not to stay for desert.
( mediocre ha ha ha, you're reading this, Fri 28 Apr 2006, 18:32, Reply)

when I went to Paris for my grandmothers funeral
We stayed in her old flat with my Dad and his sister. They din't get on at all well, and were basically constantly drunk too.

We all went out for a pizza, and my aunt ordered something with beef and egg. When it arrived, she pretended she hadn't ordered it, and that it was mine.

Basically it was a pizza base covered in minced beef with a not-quite-fried egg on top. Hmmm - yummo!
(teasus likes tea, Fri 28 Apr 2006, 18:27, Reply)

Used to always go to a nice restaurant/pub with my dad when I went over to his place, called the Lammastide, in Berkeley.
It used to be absolutely gorgeous. Everyone in there knew my dad (him being the local postie and all), the food was always nice, and well-timed (so you didn't feel rushed, but at the same time didn't feel like you were hanging around). Plus I won £15 on their fruit machine.

Well, it recently changed hands, and the new family that ran it came from 'oop north'. They had previously owned a place up there, and had come down here to run this one (I don't know why). We thought we would try it out, to see what it was like.

Fucking bad was the conclusion.

Without putting too-fine-a-point on it, they were chavs. The dad behind the bar had a baseball cap and a stained t-shirt on. The son looked like a display case for Argos' jewellry range. The music playing was something normally heard blaring from a car stereo. That was just the first impressions.

The beer was warm, and tasted like it had sat in the pipes for a week, which wouldn't surprise me, given that all of the local punters weren't there to drink it.

So, anyway, we sit down. The menu was tiny, about 6 items to choose from on the main. We decided to forgo the starters, because nothing there sounded remotely nice. My dad had steak, my stepmother had fish and chips, and I had 'Calvados chicken with black rice'. The fish and chips looked and tasted good. The chicken was crap, mostly bone, and the rice tasted of nothing. But the steak, well, that was just fucking abysmal. It was cooked on one side. My dad always asks for no blood, because it turns him off the food. So what do they do? Burn it on one side, and leave it raw on the other. Now I know people eat steak 'blue', but you don't expect it half cooked (literally) when you asked for it 'medium, no blood'. We complained, and got half of the price off the steak (I suppose because it was only half that he didn't like. Or just cheapness).

To be fair, we would have gone back, but with the bad atmoshpere added into it, it just wasn't worth it. It is one of the only restaurants in Berkeley, but it's like putting a strip club inside a church. That kind of atmosphere they tried to create was completely out of place in the middle of a tiny place like Berkeley.

Local town for local people indeed.
( OneSullenBrit *air sandwiches*, Fri 28 Apr 2006, 18:15, Reply)

Steak tartare
Guess who ordered it in Paris thinking it was steak with tartare sauce?

I finished it, but it gave me the farts and bloating for the next 24 hours.

And for those who don't know, it's raw mince.
(rogerzilla, Fri 28 Apr 2006, 18:01, Reply)

France; Best food in the world (my arse)
On a school trip to Paris last year. We stayed in a hotel on the outskirts of Paris to save on food. This was some of the food we got.

Smash Mash pomme de terre avec raw poulet dans a heinz soup tomato sauce. (fake mash with raw chicken and heniz soup tomato sauce).

Me being apsolutly starved ate about 4 other peoples meals ...and got tomato sauce all over my face. Yummy!

Though we did get our own back! We trashed most of the rooms (the top bunk of one, I jumped through another - stupid bed if i can take the force for a 13 stone 15 year old, pulled of curtains,etc.)

We then blaimed it on the hotel and the school complain about the facillities - fucktastic!
(mrtinybrain, Fri 28 Apr 2006, 17:58, Reply)

McD's, again
I heard a story about the one in Northfield, Birmingham, around 1992. Allegedly on someone's last day he/she added a few lumps of their own - ahem - used food to the root beer concentrate.

This turned out to be an astute choice, because NO-ONE complained about the taste. It was only discovered when the time came to add more concentrate weeks later and the partially-dissolved poo was floating there.
(rogerzilla, Fri 28 Apr 2006, 17:49, Reply)

urban myths again
semen in food - www.snopes.com/horrors/food/semen.asp

urine ditto - www.snopes.com/horrors/food/outback.htm
(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Fri 28 Apr 2006, 17:12, Reply)

Went to the British Museum with the parents
After the BM had had the courtyard redone. Smashing, we thought, nice shiny new restaurant. Lovely, we though, nice menu. Great, we thought, as attentive waiting staff took our order and brought our drinks...

... What a load of shit, we thought (and in fact made very clear to an admittedly very apologetic manager) when after 2 hours they finally decided to tell us that the kitchen had had a power cut and every time they'd said "it'll just be a few minutes" in the last 2 hours they'd been lying and that in fact they were trying to cook all the restaurant food in the snack bar downstairs. On a Breville toaster and a kettle. Did get a load of free wine though.

I haven't bothered with the story of the one time I ever went to an Angus Steak House. But I imagine no-one in the history of mankind has ever had anything approaching a decent meal in one of those restaurant-themed hell holes.
( shavedchimp something something oranges something, Fri 28 Apr 2006, 17:11, Reply)

Last week me and my mate decided we fancied a nice meal in the new wetherspoons in Exeter.
We decided on curry but they had run out of naan bread, which to be honest was its selling point, so after much deliberation we ordered fish and chips, thinking that it would be nice served up with some delectable tartar sauce.

About 20 minutes later our food came, it looked horrible. The chips were brown and soggy, the fish looked a bit weird and the peas, well they were just peas but there was probably something wrong with them. This would all have been alright, however, there was NO TARTAR SAUCE. Enraged, we consulted the waitress, who said that they had run out. But WHY were we not informed of this as we were the naan bread, which like the tartar sauce had been the main selling point of our chosen dish?!

We begrudgingly forced down the lifeless disappointment that was our food, it was not great. Then we started playing around with sachets of mayonnaise, seeing if we could pop them with karate chops. We couldn't, but then I worked out that if we worked as a team, with me rolling up half the sachet and my friend doing the chopping, we were far more likely to succeed. And so, on the second attempt, a glorious spew of thick mayonnaise sprayed out about 10 feet from our table, or so we thought...

Suddenly amidst our childish giggling we heard an angry voice from the other side of the pub. Now this is a big pub, a converted church, and this cry of anguish was coming from 40-50ft away. A disgruntled student was pointing at a white blob on his arm exclaiming "that's not funny." and "do you want your chewing gum back?"

Suddenly it dawned upon us, we had utterly miscalculated the power of this new weapon. As Robert Oppenheimer said when he built the world's first atomic bomb; "I have become the destroyer of worlds.". Half the pub was coated in specks of thick gooey mayonnaise. The sofas, the chairs, the tables, and yes, the locals. All leading back in a triangular fashion to our table.

We downed our wine and ran away giggling uncontrollably. That fucking showed THEM.
( Damien's Hearse, Fri 28 Apr 2006, 16:40, Reply)

Worst I've had
was in a restaurant called Nostalgia in Pafos, Cyprus. Went in with an ex and ordered a veg meze. These are around 14 starter courses and the best meals out I've had have been veg or seafood mezes in restaurants in Pafos. You're obviously going to be spending around two hours or more eating. The lot was served to us in around forty minutes and was very average or below. It was run by Albanians or Russians, who sat scowling at us and drumming their fingers. We were two of a maximum of four people in the place. They were just dumping dishes onto the table a couple of minutes after serving the last course and trying to take away untouched courses to make room for new ones. I think someone was being dismembered in the kitchen or something.
(albinomeatpod, Fri 28 Apr 2006, 16:34, Reply)

It's their *culture* innit?
Thai meal, ate too much. They brought some Tom-yum soup out in a little green enamel tureen, and some soup spoons, and some (ever-so-slightly) concave side plates...

And that was it...

So I dutifully ladled the deliciously fiery concoction into the (ever-so-slightly) concave side plates... and we began to slurp down the spicy broth.

Waiter turned up 10 minutes later with the soup bowls. Big cock-knocker.

What made it worse was that the Missus turned to him, and, being (ever-so-slightly) blitzed on the wine we had been chugging smiled sweetly and told him we thought it was their culture to eat soup from side-plates. Blinking hell. She may as well have spoken v.e.r.y slowly and loudly, she sounded that bleeding patronizing. I daren't eat any more of the meal for fear 'johnny foreigner' would be doing something distasteful involving their love-gum and my satay sauce.

Another time, I had stir-fried whole crab. We broke the claws with our hands. Later on they brought us some shell-breaking-implements-that-looked-like-nut-crackers.

Do they do it on purpose?

Still, it wasn't as bad as Xmas dinner.
(Chickenwire social lubricator extraordinaire, Fri 28 Apr 2006, 16:31, Reply)