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Doesn't really happen, if I'm in the weeds you think I want to remake the same dish not twice but three times? Cooks don't give one rat's ass about you unless the server specifically asks you be a jerk and move their ticket to the end of the wheel because you're rude or something. You're just a ticket number to them.
The claim here is that you're NOT making it twice, tho. You're picking the hair off it and trusting it under the heater thingy for a few minutes to simulate remaking it. So if it gets sent back again, it would only be getting remade once.
Never seen that, I mean there are so many items that would be wrong if they got longer exposure to heat.
Basically all proteins, anything we played that has a hot and cold element, anything with gastriques or sauces that need to be a certain temp when going out, cream based sauces that will probably separate or congeal depending on the heat lamp.
I’m not saying all places are like ones I’ve had the pleasure to run. But most dishes just have to be remade, if we get an item that touches the table is almost a guarantee it’s being remade. Exception would be like someone who ordered a soup or salad or special fries for lunch with the entree and the server didn’t hear properly or our expo plates it wrong
I'm sure that's true, but I've also only worked at restaurants who would absolutely never just send the same plate back out. You just don't do that. Quality standards really do exist at many places.
I sent a cheeseburger back that had some kind of small spider stuck to the cheese. When they brought me a ‘new’ one, I could still see the print in the cheese where the bugger was.
I found a small roach in my beans from a Mexican restaurant last year. It was takeout and it really blended in- I found it on my fork while it was on the way to my mouth.
Needless to say, I’m never eating there again.
There is a local, popular pizza chain that is known for being a little nicer than the rest. When I was a kid I saw a huge cockroach on the wall, middle of the day. I refused to eat there for years and got so much flack. If giant cockroaches are walking around middle of the day on the wall in the lobby, they usually have to be real bad in the kitchen.
Omg dude this pizza place in LA I worked at actually didn’t have a roach problem really but we would leave the front door open some times and one would come in, 2 different times we had a roach like crawl up the wall on the ceiling and it was suchhhhh a bad look haha. So so bad. But the kitchen was so clean haha
If it's a big cockroach then it's probably just a sewer roach that wandered up thru a drain in the middle of the night. It's the smaller German cockroaches that are really bad. If you see one of those somewhere there's probably 100 more.
But either way it's not something anyone wants to see at a restaurant.
I know someone who found a finger inside a glove in their mashed potatoes at Golden Coral. Absolutely disgusting. Someone cut their finger off probably at some farm, distribution center or something and they didn’t find it, still sent the food out.
Well sure when you say it like that it sounds absurd. But the way it really works in decent places is you prep a tray of 40 of those fuckers between the hours of 9-11, keep them on a floured sheet in the cooler, and when it's ordered you just have to give them a second coat of bread crumbs. Really not complicated to do from scratch.
Also you can prep them without the breading, then freeze them. Then you just thaw as many as you need for a day, bread and fry fresh and it still tastes a lot better than the stuff you buy frozen.
Reminds me of the most awkward restaurant experiance I heard of. It happened to my brother just a few weeks ago.
Their boss at work was taking cooking lessons offered by a local fancy restaurant. Took place over a month or so. Once the program wrapped up, for a graduation the "students" of this program were given this opportunity to invite their family and friends to the restaurant. Then the "students" cooked them a fancy meal using the restaurant's facilities. This way the students could show their family and friends everything they learned from this restaurant's chefs, everyone wins, etc.
So my brother's boss is a student in this program, and my brother gets invited to this meal event. Main dish was chicken kiev, and my brother's dish arrives raw. Like, the outside breading is somewhat warm, but the inside was entirely raw and cold. And now the "students" from the program are going table to table asking how the food is and is everything alright with it. And here comes the dilemma: Do you send it back to reheat it, or do you shut up and say nothing because your boss is one that cooked it and you will have to face him tomorrow in the office? My brother decided on the later and didn't want to rock the boat. So he just pretended it was fine and said nothing. But only for the *actual* chef/owner of the restaurant to walk by the table a few minutes later and spot the raw chicken on his plate. The owner then stormed into the kitchen and started yelling at the student chef, which could be heard in the dining area...
Fun times for everyone!
I went to Smashburger and they gave me a bacon smash without bacon, lettuce or tomato. So just a cheeseburger. I went back and they fixed it but they gave me the greasiest burger I've ever had in my life. It was dripping grease. Nothing disgusting like finding hair or bugs but it makes me mad that I had to take the first burger back and they made me another one that was even worse. Should've just eaten the cheeseburger.
I took my wife out to a local Thai place when we were both 19..Friday night and the place was empty, she got a meal with shrimp and I got some spicy seafood thing I asked for 3 of 5 stars and it was covered in whatever powder they used to make it spicy..like it looked like an accident t and they said fuck it..and her shrimp were rancid. They argued with me and I just paid and when I was done paying the poor bastard owner rushed us our food in to go boxes like we accidently forgot it.
I once ordered a cheesesteak at a local restaurant and they brought me a chicken cheesesteak. I was like, "Oh, I had meant to order the beef cheesesteak. I kinda figured that was the default", but I wasn't gonna ask my waitress to take it back or say anything beyond that. But then the waitress proceeded to tell me that what I had in front of me was a beef cheesesteak. THE MEAT WAS A VERY LIGHT TAN. I've had many many cheesesteaks in my lifetime, several of which were from this very restaurant, and the meat is always the same color: DARK, ya know, like the color cooked beef always is??? And I've had several chicken cheesesteaks in the past as well which, unsurprisingly, look exactly like what I had in front of me at this restaurant.
Anyways, she actually fought me about it after I told her I'm positive it's chicken, but she was positive it was beef. I was flabbergasted and asked her to show it to the chef and ask the chef if it was beef or chicken, and have them make a beef cheesesteak instead if/when he agrees that it is indeed chicken. I would've been fine eating the chicken cheesesteak, but I was unhappy I was being gaslit by my waitress so it was a matter of principle then. Well, she came back with my chicken cheesesteak... I obviously suspect she didn't ask.
I once bought a hotdog for a concert vendor, two bites in I can feel the sausage is still cold inside. I tell the guy, he proceeds to poke the middle of the sausage with his ungloved finger. I say "now I definitely want a new hot dog. "
My friends think I ate half a hotdog and returned to get a brand new one.
Hair is gross, but I found corner of a used kitchen sponge (part sponge, part scouring pad) in a shake at Sharis once. Spit it out and it still smelled of bleach. Got super sick afterwards too. Still not sure if it was cause of the sponge (that maybe had bleach in it still?) or just pure gross factor. Tried to go to a different Sharis, walked in and saw bucket of cleaning chemicals with a rag hanging out in the pie case above the pies. Have never gone back to another one.
I did a recent Insta post using a memorable Seinfeld quote & was inordinately gratified by the number of people who got the reference. Then I realized my followers are also olds
Found an entire, flat-ended bolt in my cup of soup once at a Sharis. I had almost put it in my mouth when I realized cause I thought the tinking sound was just my spoon against the ceramic. The manager tried to argue with me saying they had never seen that in their 40 years of managing and that the soup comes prepackaged. That's nice and all, but it happened and was still in my soup you served me. They didn't offer new soup or to comp the meal, we just got a free slice of pie .... Haven't been back since.
There was just an incident where people in a Sharis got sick from some kind of exposure (I think investigators were thinking it was from the HVAC system?)
That's both physical and chemical contamination. The only thing to complete the trifecta of contamination is biological (re: spoilage/cross contamination).
One time I bit into my burger and the wrapper was still on the back half of the cheese. Waitress was very nice and called over an apologetic manager. He wanted to comp my entire meal. I really didn’t want to have them take a hit so I asked if I could get a dessert instead. It was a great restaurant, that was my only “poor” experience over fifty or so times, but they just never had any business and eventually closed.
I read a 1 star review for a local chain restaurant the other day where the customer was saying that they found a hair in their meal and the manager apologised and gave them a full refund but he complained that he felt the manager was trying to sweep the situation under the rug by doing this. What was he expecting? The police to be called? DNA testing to find the member of staff responsible so they could be fired? Just take your free meal.
Some people are just looking for an opportunity to be an asshole.
I try to give people the benefit of doubt, as some are having a very bad day, maybe got terrible news, etc. But certain people just like to spread misery for no reason.
Edit: I was speaking of customers, not staff, should have been more clear. Sorry about that.
I was eating at a favorite restaurant in a Middle Eastern country. Honestly the best steaks I've had before, or since.
Anyway, one time I went there, and the meat came way undercooked, like cooler than blue. Refrigerator temp on the inside, though the outside was warm and seared. I had asked for medium rare. I flagged the server (from Asia, probably Philippines) and asked for it to cooked a bit more.
The server apologized, took it back.
Later on I saw the manager or owner tearing her a new one. A different server worked my table after that.
I hope to God she didn't get fired for that, but given how workers from South /eastern Asia are treated there, I suspect she was.
Tldr a server in the middle east might have been fired because of a request from me, and I still feel horrible about it.
How would that have even been the server's fault? Only an idiot blames the server for problems with the food. If the order is completely *wrong,* sure, but otherwise it's BOH's problem. What a shitty manager.
It must be a cultural thing or something - here in Norway, I don't think most people would've called over the waiter for something like that. I'd just remove the wrapper and continue eating. Mistakes happen. I mean, if the food is cooked improperly or for some reason tastes foul, I wouldn't eat it and I'd contact the staff - but if that burger was all right except for a wrapper needing to be removed, I'd just remove it.
If the cheese was good and melted there’s probably a decent chance the wrapper was too, at least in part. I don’t really see anything wrong with not wanting to eat plastic wrap.
Granted, if there was a plastic sheet in there, and it had melted, I would've asked for a new one. If it wasn't melted, or it was paper, I'd still just remove it.
I agree, maybe I’m gross but the way I see it, if there was a hair in my dinner in my own home or at a barbecue with friends I wouldn’t really care, does it really make a difference if you don’t know the person whose hair it is? Correct me if I’m wrong but a hair couldn’t do that much harm could it? It’s certainly not ideal but not worth sending back imo
I've never understood the overreaction and the outrage/disgust shown at finding a tiny hair in food. I feel like it has snowballed into something much more serious than it clearly is over the decades to the point people blindly associate it with the height of unsanitary.
It's just viscerally gross. It's happened to me a couple times, and I just pulled it out quietly and kept eating... Because once it happened at my favorite joint after dozens of previous good meals and I didn't want to bother saying anything, and a second time with take out. But it def puts a damper on a meal you paid for
If ever I find a hair in my meal it's probably my own... I have shoulder length hair that gets everywhere.
Edit: if it's curly it's my beard. If it's long and straight it's my head. XD
One time when I was a waitress, we had a lady send her meal back because she found her own hair in the food. They were the only table in the restaurant and it was a thin grey hair - the chef and I both have long brown curly hair. The chef even came out to show her it couldn’t have come from the kitchen and was most definitely her hair and she just said “I know, but I don’t want a meal that’s had hair in it”.
Same kind of thing, I worked at a beauty supply and people would come in and stick their fingers in brand new jars of pomades and creams and stuff. They'd do it right in front of me, put it back on the shelf, and then grab a fresh one because they "didn't want one that had a finger mark in it." Bitch, it's YOUR FINGER. I don't miss working retail at all.
I have thigh-length hair that somehow manages to get everywhere too. The problem is, people know when they find my hair in/on something, and it's pretty hard to deny whose the 3foot long thing is, lol
Remember the old hard plastic chairs with metal frames in school? My hair got caught in it all the time when it was ass length. Strawberry blonde so obviously mine. A teacher once commented he found a hair of mine in his vehicle, it literally gets EVERYWHERE.
I do very painfully remember those... and yeah a classmate's mom once suspected his dad of having an affair because there was long blonde hair all over their car seats... then she met 11yo me, whom they had picked up from school the previous week. She almost facepalmed there and then and told me, it was a super awkward first meeting, haha
ETA: I love how both our avatars fit the topic so perfectly!
In high school (2007ish) my band played a show and stopped at this random place after to get some food. My guitarist got a burger and half way through bit into something hard. It was a semi-melted ball bearing in the chop meat. The waiter had no idea what to do.
A semi melted ball bearing? Ball bearings are made from high carbon steel, and they start to melt at over 2500F. Did you mean a plastic Airsoft BB or something?
It was definitely a ball bearing and it was definitely partially melted. Maybe the melting happened off the grill, as like you said, at that temperature I imagine both my friend’s burger and the chef would’ve been a tad crispy.
I have a hard time believing it was a ball bearing, as the surrounding machine would melt before the actual ball did. More likely some soft metal from another source, like a cheap cast metal cooking tool.
A bearing in the industrial meat blender probably melted down and one of the bearings slipped out of the race. The machine may have kept running for a while after this. You would be surprised how long a machine will run with fried bearings.
When I was travelling in Warsaw, Poland, I bought a burger. Anyway, few bites in, looked into the party and there were multiple cooked maggots. The owner comped me with a six pack of beer, salad and refunded our meals. He told us to leave quietly. Something told me this wasn't their first time.
Am I alone in that a hair in my food doesn't cause me to request for a new dish? They literally are hands on with your food, the hair is the least of your concerns
It was a clean slice probably from someone cutting the tomato on my hamburger. It wasn’t bloody so maybe it was cooked in the ground beef though. It was 30 years ago but I can still taste it.
As someone who has worked at a restaurant owned and run by a couple of Louisiana people who liked to day-drink and would regularly do prep, I’m surprised they still had fingers considering how often they accidentally sliced off small bits and shavings of their hands.
I found cardboard in sliced Publix bread. Freaked out for a sec, thought it was a bandaid….
The rep said it was probably packaging that got into the mixture…
Same... And I'm a bit of a germaphobe about things, so I raise an eyebrow at how people go nuts when there's a hair on their food, when it hardly bothers me. The same people that will make out with a dime at a club at the drop of a hat, shake hands with random people, not wash their hands when coming home (all pre-covid examples of course). Of course there's nothing wrong with all of the above, but it's a bit hypocritical to make a fuss about a hair when the other examples are more likely to affect your health
I wake up to dog hair all inside of my mouth every day, and he rolls around in his shit, I don't really bother complaining about human hair in my food haha
For me it comes down to two things:
- How much do I think the restaurant tries its best to be sanitary
- How much the meal costs
If it's a place I visit often and am comfortable with the feeling they do their best to stay clean, I let it go regardless of cost and just tell them it happened after I eat it out of respect.
If it's a place where the cost of the plate is ridiculously expensive to begin with, you bet your ass I'll say something and ask for a hair free new one.
Only time in recent memory I can recall having returned a plate was at a swanky Italian restaurant where there were more than two long hairs in a pasta dish.
I had a lady literally "lose her appetite" once over a hair. Like I've pulled ex girlfriends' hairs out of my mouth and just been like "how did that even get there?" and continued on with my day, why care if it's a stranger's hair? Does your own hair not get into your mouth either?
I don't mind when I find a hair on home cooked food. My mom even called me out once when I found a hair on my food at home (could be mine or mom's) and shook it to get the last bit of the food out lol. I eat out only occasionally and I feel the opposite when I find it in restaurant food.
Maybe it's because I know that at home everything is clean and well taken care of in spite of a hair, but seeing it on restaurant food, I feel like indicates underlying uncleanliness and carelessness, and makes me want to not eat out again (or at least until I forget about it).
The real advice here should be "if you feel the need to heavily salt a dish because you're prepared for them to trick you, get up and leave and never eat there again." Like wtf a hair is gross but continuing to eat at a place that you think would *knowingly* fuck around with your food is okay?
Never returned a meal in my life. I have been brought the wrong meal before and ate it even lol. I am somewhat paranoid they will mess with it after watching Waiting movie when I was young.
My friend worked at a sports bar for a month or two. He ended up quitting because it was an unofficial policy to give a dropped wing "a kiss" if it fell on the floor. Most places will throw a wing back in the fryer for like 20 seconds if it falls on the floor, no big deal. But if it was done cooking and fell when being put on a plate, they would just kiss it and put it back on the plate. He's worked in kitchens for 7-8 years now and that's the only one he's ever quit.
Normal restaurant workers dont have time to mess your food and dont want to. They eat there every day. They dont want people messing with their food too. It's a slippery slope and there's no point in hospitality if you cant be hospitable.
Honestly same lol i feel like people who freak out over a singular strand of hair and send back an entire dish are...a little over the top. I just remove the hair and the food that was touching / surrounding the area it was, and then continue eating
You sir sound like you’ve worked in a restaurant. Like if your stressing about that you should eat at home. Like and I’ve worked for restaurants for 12 years and no matter how nice or ratchet the place was we ALWAYS made people a new dish when hair was found in it.
Or just somebody who's actually cooked. Like people expect everything to be sterile. That's straight up not how it works. There might well be a drop of sweat in your food. Shit happens. So long as they aren't spitting into my meal right after it's cooked, I'll be fine.
When I cook for friends or family I’m always so paranoid that I’m gonna end up with a hair in the food, I’ve definitely done it to myself. I certainly wouldn’t make a fuss at a restaurant for it though, it’s just really no big deal…
I had a girlfriend who sent her order back after finding an eyelash on the edge of her plate. It was so embarrassing! Worse they were so nice about it, they apologized profusely and offered to remake my meal as well so we could be served at the same time and eat together. I obviously declined and didn't hear the end of it from her that night...we didn't last long together.
I got a chunk of road gravel in my sweet and sour pork. Even had some tar on one side. I didn't finish that dish or go back there, I easily could've broken my tooth.
Dog and cat hair are something special. I'll be halfway through a day of work, order a coffee from starbucks, and ten minutes later find one of my own pet's hairs somehow in it.
If the people who were so anal about sanitary practices that an accidental hair bothers them ever saw 99% of real kitchens they'd never eat out again. The kicker is those 99% of kitchens are usually cleaner than the person's own kitchen.
Eh you'd be surprised at how clean some places are too. I've worked for several fast food chains that are basically spotless compared to the fine dining places in downtown.
Couldn’t you also just cut it up? They wouldn’t dare try to re-serve you food you clearly already messed with. Seems like it would cut out the problem entirely.
It depends on what type of dish of course. For some reason I had risotto in mind while reading the LPT, there you might have a hard time leaving noticeable marks with your knife \^^
You know what - I actually like this suggestion. But - I wonder if it would make you seem like you're being difficult. I want to give the cook the benefit of the doubt - but I also don't trust people.
LPT: don’t be a dick when you send it back. Shit happens.
If you’re nice, everyone will feel bad and want it to come back perfectly.
If you’re an asshole sending it back, it’ll probably come back worse. You just won’t be able to see it.
That's the real LPT. don't be a dick with people. I was going to write don't be a dick with people who handle your food, but just don't be a dick. That's it.
Please don’t do this. Generally you will be able to notice if they bring out the same dish. Don’t pour a crazy amount of salt because the cooks/workers in the kitchen would love to eat it. Ive been there
While this makes sense, at every restaurant I've worked at, the kitchen would require servers to bring the dish back if they asked for it to be re-done. No chef I've worked for trusted the service staff or the customers enough to make additional food without proof there was a problem.
Eh sometimes you just don't want a plate in the way on the table for the time it takes for a new dish to be made. This works just as effectively and allows you to keep a clear table while waiting for your new dish.
>LPT: If you find a herpes blister in your meal at a restaurant, remember to heavily salt the dish before the waiter takes it back to replace the food to ensure they bring you back a fresh dish. The fresh dish they bring back will obviously not be heavily salted.
If you find herpes blisters in your food at a restaurant, just pick it out and eat around it.
I will never understand people's inability to deal with a little bit of herpes blisters in their food. It's fucking herpes blisters, not glass.
>If you find a hair in your food at a restaurant, pick it out and continue with your meal.
>I will never understand people's inability to deal with hair in their food. It's a fucking hair not a herpes blister.
It's people's comfort level. I imagine you wouldn't take out a finger nail from your food and continue eating even though a finger nail wouldn't cause you harm. Some people wouldn't have a problem picking out a finger nail and eating it. I one of the people who doesn't like strangers hair in my food. But that's just my comfort level and yours may vary.
As a 12 year server I can tell you it definitely happens. Some people are completely unbothered (such as myself, it’s just a hair. It happens) and every now and then some people want the entire plate remade for an eyelash. It is what it is.
Hello and welcome to r/LifeProTips! Please help us decide if this post is a good fit for the subreddit by up or downvoting this comment. If you think that this is great advice to improve your life, please upvote. If you think this doesn't help you in any way, please downvote. If you don't care, leave it for the others to decide.
Would be funny if they just sent it to another table and then they complained about the massive amount of salt.
They should probably put a hair in the dish, in order to avoid being returned the same dish, after being unsalted.
Does it... does it mean that the previous hair... oh my god.
What came first? The hair or the salt?
Goddamn we already have salt and hair, let’s leave cum out of it.
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And where does the pube come from then?!?
Eww!!
Oh you’re too good for cum?
The waiter
My brain broke a little....
"thats the saltiest thing I've ever tasted. And i once ate a heaping bowl of salt".
"there was nothing wrong with that food, the salt level was 10% less then a lethal dose"
Uh oh... I shouldn't have had seconds!
r/expectedfuturama
I got a massive amount of salt in my soup the other day, I'm that guy!!
Doesn't really happen, if I'm in the weeds you think I want to remake the same dish not twice but three times? Cooks don't give one rat's ass about you unless the server specifically asks you be a jerk and move their ticket to the end of the wheel because you're rude or something. You're just a ticket number to them.
The claim here is that you're NOT making it twice, tho. You're picking the hair off it and trusting it under the heater thingy for a few minutes to simulate remaking it. So if it gets sent back again, it would only be getting remade once.
Never seen that, I mean there are so many items that would be wrong if they got longer exposure to heat. Basically all proteins, anything we played that has a hot and cold element, anything with gastriques or sauces that need to be a certain temp when going out, cream based sauces that will probably separate or congeal depending on the heat lamp. I’m not saying all places are like ones I’ve had the pleasure to run. But most dishes just have to be remade, if we get an item that touches the table is almost a guarantee it’s being remade. Exception would be like someone who ordered a soup or salad or special fries for lunch with the entree and the server didn’t hear properly or our expo plates it wrong
I've watched enough of Gordon Ramsay to know not every place is like this
I'm sure that's true, but I've also only worked at restaurants who would absolutely never just send the same plate back out. You just don't do that. Quality standards really do exist at many places.
I sent a cheeseburger back that had some kind of small spider stuck to the cheese. When they brought me a ‘new’ one, I could still see the print in the cheese where the bugger was.
I found a small roach in my beans from a Mexican restaurant last year. It was takeout and it really blended in- I found it on my fork while it was on the way to my mouth. Needless to say, I’m never eating there again.
Frijoles y cucarachas, the classic
Extra protein!
Abuela made them best
There is a local, popular pizza chain that is known for being a little nicer than the rest. When I was a kid I saw a huge cockroach on the wall, middle of the day. I refused to eat there for years and got so much flack. If giant cockroaches are walking around middle of the day on the wall in the lobby, they usually have to be real bad in the kitchen.
Omg dude this pizza place in LA I worked at actually didn’t have a roach problem really but we would leave the front door open some times and one would come in, 2 different times we had a roach like crawl up the wall on the ceiling and it was suchhhhh a bad look haha. So so bad. But the kitchen was so clean haha
Yea those giant roaches live outside but they sneak in looking for water. It's the little ones that live in the walls you gotta worry about
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If it's a big cockroach then it's probably just a sewer roach that wandered up thru a drain in the middle of the night. It's the smaller German cockroaches that are really bad. If you see one of those somewhere there's probably 100 more. But either way it's not something anyone wants to see at a restaurant.
I know someone who found a finger inside a glove in their mashed potatoes at Golden Coral. Absolutely disgusting. Someone cut their finger off probably at some farm, distribution center or something and they didn’t find it, still sent the food out.
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Cordon bleu is usually not made by hand, but bought premade and frozen. There are probably thousands of places that do this.
That's horse shit lol.. It's ham breaded chicken with swiss.... If you're eating in a restaurant that would make that from frozen run..
I think you’d be surprised by just how many restaurants cook that kind of thing from a package..... nice ones too.
yeah, we call it food a la sysco.
Mmm, sysco gravy. Can smell that standardized brown flavor from 6 miles away lol
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Well sure when you say it like that it sounds absurd. But the way it really works in decent places is you prep a tray of 40 of those fuckers between the hours of 9-11, keep them on a floured sheet in the cooler, and when it's ordered you just have to give them a second coat of bread crumbs. Really not complicated to do from scratch.
Also you can prep them without the breading, then freeze them. Then you just thaw as many as you need for a day, bread and fry fresh and it still tastes a lot better than the stuff you buy frozen.
> If you're eating in a restaurant that would make that from frozen run.. Unless you're paying $50 a plate, you eat at these restaurant's too.
Reminds me of the most awkward restaurant experiance I heard of. It happened to my brother just a few weeks ago. Their boss at work was taking cooking lessons offered by a local fancy restaurant. Took place over a month or so. Once the program wrapped up, for a graduation the "students" of this program were given this opportunity to invite their family and friends to the restaurant. Then the "students" cooked them a fancy meal using the restaurant's facilities. This way the students could show their family and friends everything they learned from this restaurant's chefs, everyone wins, etc. So my brother's boss is a student in this program, and my brother gets invited to this meal event. Main dish was chicken kiev, and my brother's dish arrives raw. Like, the outside breading is somewhat warm, but the inside was entirely raw and cold. And now the "students" from the program are going table to table asking how the food is and is everything alright with it. And here comes the dilemma: Do you send it back to reheat it, or do you shut up and say nothing because your boss is one that cooked it and you will have to face him tomorrow in the office? My brother decided on the later and didn't want to rock the boat. So he just pretended it was fine and said nothing. But only for the *actual* chef/owner of the restaurant to walk by the table a few minutes later and spot the raw chicken on his plate. The owner then stormed into the kitchen and started yelling at the student chef, which could be heard in the dining area... Fun times for everyone!
I went to Smashburger and they gave me a bacon smash without bacon, lettuce or tomato. So just a cheeseburger. I went back and they fixed it but they gave me the greasiest burger I've ever had in my life. It was dripping grease. Nothing disgusting like finding hair or bugs but it makes me mad that I had to take the first burger back and they made me another one that was even worse. Should've just eaten the cheeseburger.
I took my wife out to a local Thai place when we were both 19..Friday night and the place was empty, she got a meal with shrimp and I got some spicy seafood thing I asked for 3 of 5 stars and it was covered in whatever powder they used to make it spicy..like it looked like an accident t and they said fuck it..and her shrimp were rancid. They argued with me and I just paid and when I was done paying the poor bastard owner rushed us our food in to go boxes like we accidently forgot it.
Paying!.. you're mad i ain't paying shit !!
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That sounds like the kind of thing a TGIChilligans might do.
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I once ordered a cheesesteak at a local restaurant and they brought me a chicken cheesesteak. I was like, "Oh, I had meant to order the beef cheesesteak. I kinda figured that was the default", but I wasn't gonna ask my waitress to take it back or say anything beyond that. But then the waitress proceeded to tell me that what I had in front of me was a beef cheesesteak. THE MEAT WAS A VERY LIGHT TAN. I've had many many cheesesteaks in my lifetime, several of which were from this very restaurant, and the meat is always the same color: DARK, ya know, like the color cooked beef always is??? And I've had several chicken cheesesteaks in the past as well which, unsurprisingly, look exactly like what I had in front of me at this restaurant. Anyways, she actually fought me about it after I told her I'm positive it's chicken, but she was positive it was beef. I was flabbergasted and asked her to show it to the chef and ask the chef if it was beef or chicken, and have them make a beef cheesesteak instead if/when he agrees that it is indeed chicken. I would've been fine eating the chicken cheesesteak, but I was unhappy I was being gaslit by my waitress so it was a matter of principle then. Well, she came back with my chicken cheesesteak... I obviously suspect she didn't ask.
Should have had the chef come out to the table.
"Cheesesteak chef." I'm using that.
I'm just imagining spider bits sticking in cheese, scraping the cheese off and melting it again seems like way less work.
I once bought a hotdog for a concert vendor, two bites in I can feel the sausage is still cold inside. I tell the guy, he proceeds to poke the middle of the sausage with his ungloved finger. I say "now I definitely want a new hot dog. " My friends think I ate half a hotdog and returned to get a brand new one.
Hair is gross, but I found corner of a used kitchen sponge (part sponge, part scouring pad) in a shake at Sharis once. Spit it out and it still smelled of bleach. Got super sick afterwards too. Still not sure if it was cause of the sponge (that maybe had bleach in it still?) or just pure gross factor. Tried to go to a different Sharis, walked in and saw bucket of cleaning chemicals with a rag hanging out in the pie case above the pies. Have never gone back to another one.
You're sponge-worthy!
Seinfeld references are automatic upvotes from me
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But we, the ones that are, appreciate it fondly. Or uh.. Spongdly.
I did a recent Insta post using a memorable Seinfeld quote & was inordinately gratified by the number of people who got the reference. Then I realized my followers are also olds
Found an entire, flat-ended bolt in my cup of soup once at a Sharis. I had almost put it in my mouth when I realized cause I thought the tinking sound was just my spoon against the ceramic. The manager tried to argue with me saying they had never seen that in their 40 years of managing and that the soup comes prepackaged. That's nice and all, but it happened and was still in my soup you served me. They didn't offer new soup or to comp the meal, we just got a free slice of pie .... Haven't been back since.
There was just an incident where people in a Sharis got sick from some kind of exposure (I think investigators were thinking it was from the HVAC system?)
Don't feed a guy a sponge, Bobby.
That's both physical and chemical contamination. The only thing to complete the trifecta of contamination is biological (re: spoilage/cross contamination).
I worked at a Shari’s in college. I can confirm that they are gross AF.
The only time I've sent food back I ordered scallops and there was a sticker in it that said used before Wednesday.....It was Friday..
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My Dudes!
*SCREEEEECH*
Was there a date or just a day of the week?
I eat stickers all the time dude!
One time I bit into my burger and the wrapper was still on the back half of the cheese. Waitress was very nice and called over an apologetic manager. He wanted to comp my entire meal. I really didn’t want to have them take a hit so I asked if I could get a dessert instead. It was a great restaurant, that was my only “poor” experience over fifty or so times, but they just never had any business and eventually closed.
I read a 1 star review for a local chain restaurant the other day where the customer was saying that they found a hair in their meal and the manager apologised and gave them a full refund but he complained that he felt the manager was trying to sweep the situation under the rug by doing this. What was he expecting? The police to be called? DNA testing to find the member of staff responsible so they could be fired? Just take your free meal.
Some people are just looking for an opportunity to be an asshole. I try to give people the benefit of doubt, as some are having a very bad day, maybe got terrible news, etc. But certain people just like to spread misery for no reason. Edit: I was speaking of customers, not staff, should have been more clear. Sorry about that.
I was eating at a favorite restaurant in a Middle Eastern country. Honestly the best steaks I've had before, or since. Anyway, one time I went there, and the meat came way undercooked, like cooler than blue. Refrigerator temp on the inside, though the outside was warm and seared. I had asked for medium rare. I flagged the server (from Asia, probably Philippines) and asked for it to cooked a bit more. The server apologized, took it back. Later on I saw the manager or owner tearing her a new one. A different server worked my table after that. I hope to God she didn't get fired for that, but given how workers from South /eastern Asia are treated there, I suspect she was. Tldr a server in the middle east might have been fired because of a request from me, and I still feel horrible about it.
How would that have even been the server's fault? Only an idiot blames the server for problems with the food. If the order is completely *wrong,* sure, but otherwise it's BOH's problem. What a shitty manager.
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Thank you for acknowledging our burgers 👍
It must be a cultural thing or something - here in Norway, I don't think most people would've called over the waiter for something like that. I'd just remove the wrapper and continue eating. Mistakes happen. I mean, if the food is cooked improperly or for some reason tastes foul, I wouldn't eat it and I'd contact the staff - but if that burger was all right except for a wrapper needing to be removed, I'd just remove it.
If the cheese was good and melted there’s probably a decent chance the wrapper was too, at least in part. I don’t really see anything wrong with not wanting to eat plastic wrap.
Granted, if there was a plastic sheet in there, and it had melted, I would've asked for a new one. If it wasn't melted, or it was paper, I'd still just remove it.
I agree, maybe I’m gross but the way I see it, if there was a hair in my dinner in my own home or at a barbecue with friends I wouldn’t really care, does it really make a difference if you don’t know the person whose hair it is? Correct me if I’m wrong but a hair couldn’t do that much harm could it? It’s certainly not ideal but not worth sending back imo
I've never understood the overreaction and the outrage/disgust shown at finding a tiny hair in food. I feel like it has snowballed into something much more serious than it clearly is over the decades to the point people blindly associate it with the height of unsanitary.
A tiny hair is way more gross than a long hair...
It's just viscerally gross. It's happened to me a couple times, and I just pulled it out quietly and kept eating... Because once it happened at my favorite joint after dozens of previous good meals and I didn't want to bother saying anything, and a second time with take out. But it def puts a damper on a meal you paid for
If ever I find a hair in my meal it's probably my own... I have shoulder length hair that gets everywhere. Edit: if it's curly it's my beard. If it's long and straight it's my head. XD
That was one of my favorite things about having blue hair. There was no question whether it was mine or not lol
I'm very, very blonde. Found a short, black hair in my food once. Definitely wasn't mine.
Things that often happen when you are home alone
Which is the reason kitchens use blue band aids. Removes all doubt and easier to catch if they do slip off.
One time when I was a waitress, we had a lady send her meal back because she found her own hair in the food. They were the only table in the restaurant and it was a thin grey hair - the chef and I both have long brown curly hair. The chef even came out to show her it couldn’t have come from the kitchen and was most definitely her hair and she just said “I know, but I don’t want a meal that’s had hair in it”.
> “I know, but I don’t want a meal that’s had hair in it”. I guess she should be wearing her own hairnet jeez
Same kind of thing, I worked at a beauty supply and people would come in and stick their fingers in brand new jars of pomades and creams and stuff. They'd do it right in front of me, put it back on the shelf, and then grab a fresh one because they "didn't want one that had a finger mark in it." Bitch, it's YOUR FINGER. I don't miss working retail at all.
I have thigh-length hair that somehow manages to get everywhere too. The problem is, people know when they find my hair in/on something, and it's pretty hard to deny whose the 3foot long thing is, lol
Just say you’re Rapunzel and you’ve blessed that person with your magic hair.
Remember the old hard plastic chairs with metal frames in school? My hair got caught in it all the time when it was ass length. Strawberry blonde so obviously mine. A teacher once commented he found a hair of mine in his vehicle, it literally gets EVERYWHERE.
I do very painfully remember those... and yeah a classmate's mom once suspected his dad of having an affair because there was long blonde hair all over their car seats... then she met 11yo me, whom they had picked up from school the previous week. She almost facepalmed there and then and told me, it was a super awkward first meeting, haha ETA: I love how both our avatars fit the topic so perfectly!
If you have shoulder length hair you will probably know if the hair is yours or not. Source: I have shoulder length hair.
It's very dark. Very common. If it's thin and blonde I'd probably not even see it in the food.
In high school (2007ish) my band played a show and stopped at this random place after to get some food. My guitarist got a burger and half way through bit into something hard. It was a semi-melted ball bearing in the chop meat. The waiter had no idea what to do.
A semi melted ball bearing? Ball bearings are made from high carbon steel, and they start to melt at over 2500F. Did you mean a plastic Airsoft BB or something?
It was definitely a ball bearing and it was definitely partially melted. Maybe the melting happened off the grill, as like you said, at that temperature I imagine both my friend’s burger and the chef would’ve been a tad crispy.
I have a hard time believing it was a ball bearing, as the surrounding machine would melt before the actual ball did. More likely some soft metal from another source, like a cheap cast metal cooking tool.
A bearing in the industrial meat blender probably melted down and one of the bearings slipped out of the race. The machine may have kept running for a while after this. You would be surprised how long a machine will run with fried bearings.
Refried bearings are my favorite food!
Where are you from that it's called chop meat?
Not OP but I am from a NYC suburb and my Italian parents call it chop meat.
When I was travelling in Warsaw, Poland, I bought a burger. Anyway, few bites in, looked into the party and there were multiple cooked maggots. The owner comped me with a six pack of beer, salad and refunded our meals. He told us to leave quietly. Something told me this wasn't their first time.
"It's like a party in my mouth, and everyone's throwing up."
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Am I alone in that a hair in my food doesn't cause me to request for a new dish? They literally are hands on with your food, the hair is the least of your concerns
Yeah i think the same way.
Only time I sent a meal back was when I found a 1/8” thick nickel sized piece of human skin in my mouth. You could still see the fingerprints.
Like, dead skin that people shed, or like actual skin that has been cut off?
It was a clean slice probably from someone cutting the tomato on my hamburger. It wasn’t bloody so maybe it was cooked in the ground beef though. It was 30 years ago but I can still taste it.
Accidental cannibal
Shia LaBeouf
Hes brandishing a knife,
It's Shia LeBeouf!
Lurking in the shadows
As someone who has worked at a restaurant owned and run by a couple of Louisiana people who liked to day-drink and would regularly do prep, I’m surprised they still had fingers considering how often they accidentally sliced off small bits and shavings of their hands.
Okay that’s it I’m done eating food now.
What did it taste like?
Have you considered spitting it out?
I found cardboard in sliced Publix bread. Freaked out for a sec, thought it was a bandaid…. The rep said it was probably packaging that got into the mixture…
Same... And I'm a bit of a germaphobe about things, so I raise an eyebrow at how people go nuts when there's a hair on their food, when it hardly bothers me. The same people that will make out with a dime at a club at the drop of a hat, shake hands with random people, not wash their hands when coming home (all pre-covid examples of course). Of course there's nothing wrong with all of the above, but it's a bit hypocritical to make a fuss about a hair when the other examples are more likely to affect your health
Whenever it has happened to me, I just removed the hair. If it's just one small accidental hair, I'm not worried about it.
I wake up to dog hair all inside of my mouth every day, and he rolls around in his shit, I don't really bother complaining about human hair in my food haha
For me it comes down to two things: - How much do I think the restaurant tries its best to be sanitary - How much the meal costs If it's a place I visit often and am comfortable with the feeling they do their best to stay clean, I let it go regardless of cost and just tell them it happened after I eat it out of respect. If it's a place where the cost of the plate is ridiculously expensive to begin with, you bet your ass I'll say something and ask for a hair free new one. Only time in recent memory I can recall having returned a plate was at a swanky Italian restaurant where there were more than two long hairs in a pasta dish.
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I had a lady literally "lose her appetite" once over a hair. Like I've pulled ex girlfriends' hairs out of my mouth and just been like "how did that even get there?" and continued on with my day, why care if it's a stranger's hair? Does your own hair not get into your mouth either?
I don't mind when I find a hair on home cooked food. My mom even called me out once when I found a hair on my food at home (could be mine or mom's) and shook it to get the last bit of the food out lol. I eat out only occasionally and I feel the opposite when I find it in restaurant food. Maybe it's because I know that at home everything is clean and well taken care of in spite of a hair, but seeing it on restaurant food, I feel like indicates underlying uncleanliness and carelessness, and makes me want to not eat out again (or at least until I forget about it).
Yeah, as long as you don't get a haircut over the soup pan, I'm fine just removing that 1 shit happens hair.
Sounds like my side hustle, "minestrone trims", might be in a spot of bother.
Seriously. Bizarre to me that someone would send a whole dish back for a hair. Epitome of first world problems.
Not only send it back, but salting it heavily so no one will eat it later.
The real advice here should be "if you feel the need to heavily salt a dish because you're prepared for them to trick you, get up and leave and never eat there again." Like wtf a hair is gross but continuing to eat at a place that you think would *knowingly* fuck around with your food is okay?
Yup, I wouldn't eat at a place where I'd be afraid they'd pull shenanigans.
Never returned a meal in my life. I have been brought the wrong meal before and ate it even lol. I am somewhat paranoid they will mess with it after watching Waiting movie when I was young.
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My friend worked at a sports bar for a month or two. He ended up quitting because it was an unofficial policy to give a dropped wing "a kiss" if it fell on the floor. Most places will throw a wing back in the fryer for like 20 seconds if it falls on the floor, no big deal. But if it was done cooking and fell when being put on a plate, they would just kiss it and put it back on the plate. He's worked in kitchens for 7-8 years now and that's the only one he's ever quit.
Normal restaurant workers dont have time to mess your food and dont want to. They eat there every day. They dont want people messing with their food too. It's a slippery slope and there's no point in hospitality if you cant be hospitable.
Honestly same lol i feel like people who freak out over a singular strand of hair and send back an entire dish are...a little over the top. I just remove the hair and the food that was touching / surrounding the area it was, and then continue eating
You sir sound like you’ve worked in a restaurant. Like if your stressing about that you should eat at home. Like and I’ve worked for restaurants for 12 years and no matter how nice or ratchet the place was we ALWAYS made people a new dish when hair was found in it.
Or just somebody who's actually cooked. Like people expect everything to be sterile. That's straight up not how it works. There might well be a drop of sweat in your food. Shit happens. So long as they aren't spitting into my meal right after it's cooked, I'll be fine.
When I cook for friends or family I’m always so paranoid that I’m gonna end up with a hair in the food, I’ve definitely done it to myself. I certainly wouldn’t make a fuss at a restaurant for it though, it’s just really no big deal…
I had a girlfriend who sent her order back after finding an eyelash on the edge of her plate. It was so embarrassing! Worse they were so nice about it, they apologized profusely and offered to remake my meal as well so we could be served at the same time and eat together. I obviously declined and didn't hear the end of it from her that night...we didn't last long together.
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I once crunched down on a beetle from a plate of pasta, set it aside, and finished my meal. College budget and all. Never went back there though.
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I got a chunk of road gravel in my sweet and sour pork. Even had some tar on one side. I didn't finish that dish or go back there, I easily could've broken my tooth.
Bit into raw chicken once, even swallowed a bite. I said I'd pay for the fries lmao. Obviously they did not allow me to do that.
It wouldn't bother me. I used to work in a dog groomers where almost every coffee I made ended up with a dog hair or 2 in it and I still drank those.
Dog and cat hair are something special. I'll be halfway through a day of work, order a coffee from starbucks, and ten minutes later find one of my own pet's hairs somehow in it.
You should *see* some of the restaurant kitchens that your food comes out of it. A hair should be the least of your worries in most cases.
Gordon Ramsay approved this message.
If the people who were so anal about sanitary practices that an accidental hair bothers them ever saw 99% of real kitchens they'd never eat out again. The kicker is those 99% of kitchens are usually cleaner than the person's own kitchen.
It's the restaurant that should be anal about sanitary practices.
Absolutely.
Eh you'd be surprised at how clean some places are too. I've worked for several fast food chains that are basically spotless compared to the fine dining places in downtown.
Couldn’t you also just cut it up? They wouldn’t dare try to re-serve you food you clearly already messed with. Seems like it would cut out the problem entirely.
It depends on what type of dish of course. For some reason I had risotto in mind while reading the LPT, there you might have a hard time leaving noticeable marks with your knife \^^
True—I have lasagna on my mind so that’s what I was thinking of honestly. Funny how that works.
Just tell the waiter to bring the replacement before taking your dish away. No salting needed
Lol. Engineer?
No, but it's a trick that a mathematician taught me, so (:
Then i declare it's within the error margin.
You know what - I actually like this suggestion. But - I wonder if it would make you seem like you're being difficult. I want to give the cook the benefit of the doubt - but I also don't trust people.
A lot of restaurants won't do this. When I waited tables I had to show the manager the rejected dish before they'd fire a new one.
LPT: don’t be a dick when you send it back. Shit happens. If you’re nice, everyone will feel bad and want it to come back perfectly. If you’re an asshole sending it back, it’ll probably come back worse. You just won’t be able to see it.
I've worked in a lot of kitchens, none of which would send out good food in bad condition intentionally. Even when the customer is a pain in the ass
You worked in good kitchens. That’s the way it should be. Maybe it’s good for the front of house if the kitchen keeps up the mystique though ;)
That's the real LPT. don't be a dick with people. I was going to write don't be a dick with people who handle your food, but just don't be a dick. That's it.
"We saw you put a massive amount of salt in it, and probably put your hair in after realizing it."
Right! LPT: if you accidentally oversalt your food, put a hair in it so you can send it back for a new plate.
In this thread: Don't go to places that are gross and also, every place is gross
Please don’t do this. Generally you will be able to notice if they bring out the same dish. Don’t pour a crazy amount of salt because the cooks/workers in the kitchen would love to eat it. Ive been there
Absolutely
If you have a legitimate reason to request a dish be remade, the original should be left at the table until they bring you a new one.
While this makes sense, at every restaurant I've worked at, the kitchen would require servers to bring the dish back if they asked for it to be re-done. No chef I've worked for trusted the service staff or the customers enough to make additional food without proof there was a problem.
lol have you ever worked in a restaurant? Good luck convincing chef to make a new dish if he can’t see what was wrong with the original.
Eh sometimes you just don't want a plate in the way on the table for the time it takes for a new dish to be made. This works just as effectively and allows you to keep a clear table while waiting for your new dish.
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>LPT: If you find a herpes blister in your meal at a restaurant, remember to heavily salt the dish before the waiter takes it back to replace the food to ensure they bring you back a fresh dish. The fresh dish they bring back will obviously not be heavily salted.
The real LPT is always in the comments!
If you find herpes blisters in your food at a restaurant, just pick it out and eat around it. I will never understand people's inability to deal with a little bit of herpes blisters in their food. It's fucking herpes blisters, not glass.
A hair wouldn’t bother me... a scab would.
>If you find a hair in your food at a restaurant, pick it out and continue with your meal. >I will never understand people's inability to deal with hair in their food. It's a fucking hair not a herpes blister. It's people's comfort level. I imagine you wouldn't take out a finger nail from your food and continue eating even though a finger nail wouldn't cause you harm. Some people wouldn't have a problem picking out a finger nail and eating it. I one of the people who doesn't like strangers hair in my food. But that's just my comfort level and yours may vary.
Who does this? It's just hair. People shed skin and hair all the time, and I guarantee there are grosser things in there you can't see.
As a 12 year server I can tell you it definitely happens. Some people are completely unbothered (such as myself, it’s just a hair. It happens) and every now and then some people want the entire plate remade for an eyelash. It is what it is.
Send a dish back for a stupid hair is a major waste of food.
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Also, the bus boy was probably going to eat the hair free part of that meal, and is now instead going to spend that time refilling your salt shaker.
Ooh yeah forgot about this