Tuesday, June 24, 2008

I don't mean nail, as in hammer...

Those of us who engage in consistent food reading/blogging/tasting, enjoy extolling the virtues of various foods and restaurants. Many of us have been moved by the skill and talents of various artisans throughout the world and have little difficulty in heaping praise on those we think deserve it.

There is a flip side to this. In order to find good food... stellar food, we have to sample a fair amount of it. This means, for every great place that we find, the odds are that we should bump into some place, less than acceptable/poor/bad. I don't mean poor, where the food is edible but uninspiring. I mean BAD, in the "holy cow! Woe be unto the Man who unknowingly steps into this wayward joint and eats from its kitchen,"... kind of way!

The worst restaurant I had ever had the misfortune of visiting, was a cafeteria in Wales. A simple big breakfast was quickly turned into the nightmare meal of my life, when the food got to my table, soft, lumpy and reeking of something organically stale/sick/putrified. Nevermind that... when I bit into the meal, which was soft and lumpy and reeky… my teeth hit a crunch, and I quickly spat it out. There sat a nice big piece of NAIL in the shiny palm of my hand. I don’t mean nail as in hammer, I mean nail as in phalanges. Calcium. What is that.. Toenail? Fingernail? Cow’s Hoof? I couldn’t be sure but whatever it was, we complained, paid and where out the door faster than a bolt of lightning. Thank God I didn’t suffer any ill effects later, from that meal. Needless to say we never went back to that restaurant again !

What was the worst meal from a restaurant that you have had? Leave a comment below.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

worst meals? tough one, most of the time, it was bad experience such as going to Studels and asked for one and they said they ran out for the day ( it was only 11sam).......or rude chinese waitress threw all the chopsticks at the centre of the table for us to sort them out ourselves

ifi have to pick worst meals, i would say my mum;s awful hakka dish -cut pineapples friend with pig intestines and red chilli and i was shocked it was actually a specialty of a hakka restaurant at The Curve. In a word ----disgusting

Anonymous said...

I don't know the name.. but Genting Highlands, halal steamboat - the corner shop with the reusable soup with fat floating on top, and the cold stale meat balls... totally bllearch...!

Anonymous said...

Can't remember a specific place in recent memory, but in general it'd be any place to serves up less-than-palatable versions of easy favourites such as nasi lemak or roti canai. Yes, they can screw up even these usual suspects!

Worst ever meal would be baso urat when I was in Bandung... basically meatball noodles made not from real meat but tendons! Ewww...

"Joe" who is constantly craving said...

when food doesnt taste like food..haha

Anonymous said...

Restaurants that do not stop patrons from smoking - yeeks! come out smelling like smoke ducks. Some more got to wash hair again.

LianneK said...

rabbit burger which my friend's mum tricked me into eating. i've been wary of burgers eversince.

Ciki said...

bryan lee:
wow.. looks like you've had a few! :P

anon:
jeepers creepers!

kenny mah:
ok , i will steer clear of the baso urat ;)

joe:
when food tastes like un-food! I hear ya

Sweetpea:
Waaaaaa.. ur standards so high kah.. most coffee shops are smoking one wor...

lianne:
poor gal

HairyBerry said...

so many bad experiences that i cant really recall all of 'em..let's see...stinky fishballs, durians (yucks!), uncooked chicken, wet hokkien mee and above all, screaming children! hehehe...

Ciki said...

nic:
i hate durian! i dislike screaming kids! i hate any form of supermarket chicken! (will only eat wet market chicken). i hate uncooked chicken! shake hands, pat back... lol