Your worst ever resturant meal/experience?
Discussion
On a recent PH trip, we went to a Restaurant in the French Alps - was a nice small little place.
A couple of the guys with us were Muslim so couldn't eat pork, and ordered a vegetarian omlette, when it arrived they could smell bacon.
PHer: "Does this contain meat?"
Waitress: "No"
PHer: "I can smell bacon, I'm sure it has meat in"
Waitress: "Yes it has bacon in".
The Frenchies really don't get vegetarians.
A couple of the guys with us were Muslim so couldn't eat pork, and ordered a vegetarian omlette, when it arrived they could smell bacon.
PHer: "Does this contain meat?"
Waitress: "No"
PHer: "I can smell bacon, I'm sure it has meat in"
Waitress: "Yes it has bacon in".
The Frenchies really don't get vegetarians.
Easy. The ‘Living room’ in Oxford was the most overpriced, worst served s
thole I have ever been to.
It started with an e-mail detailing the set menu for the evening, and although I am not veggie I thought I would consider the option. However, after looking at the rest of the menu I realised that what they were offering on the set menu, you could get cheaper if you just ordered of the ‘A la carte’ menu by £8 for three courses (I know this isn’t the end of the world but it contributes to the attitude of the place in general).
When we were seated 90 mins after our booking (table of 20 or so) the staff were rude, arrogant and poor. We had to order our own drinks, the courses were delivered at random times so part of the group had their mains before others had started, and the wrong cutlery was offered.
After I asked for something which wasn’t on the set menu (as two of the three only mains were off) two of the waiters had an argument at our table, and I was given a plate of cold linguini and a knife.
This ‘meal’ was £30 per head so without drinks the bill was £600 and after our drinks, which we ordered ourselves the majority of the time, we were near 1k and the staff were had the cheek of charging 10% service.
Please believe me when I say that if you want some ‘boil in the bag’ overpriced ste make sure you go there. If, like normal people, you want some well cooked and prepared fresh food, go somewhere, anywhere else.
I have included one of the funniest reviews I have read to back my comments up….
When I find myself on death row, having just been denied clemency by governor Jeb Bush (a recurring nightmare; best not dwell), and the guard asks after the last meal, I now know what to request. I want the chef (if there is one) from The Living Room in Oxford flown over to replicate, precisely, the dinner I ate there recently. After that, death by lethal injection will be comic relief.
The Oxford branch of this burgeoning chain stands in the shadow of an ancient prison, which is where the owners belong for offences against the palate. With its hint of fireside armchair, The Living Room seems a misleading name for what is part cocktail bar and part dining area cheaply but skilfully styled to produce an echo of a trendy London fusion joint: loads of dark wood, plants lining the walls, low-hanging lamps, exceedingly dimly lit.
Still, the gaggle of young women at the bar and arrayed across the restaurant seemed happy enough, so we adopted a let's-not-be-snotty-metropolitans-and-give-it-every-chance approach. We were soon smitten by Farrah, a waitress-in-training who appeared with tutor Camilla maternally beside her and who ran expertly through the specials. A reference to "the mussels of the day" sounded novel, albeit less intriguing than beef Bergerac, disappointingly amended to bourguignon by Camilla. The menu calls itself eclectic, but in fact it's a chaotic mish-mash of clashing influences (Italian, Japanese, Thai, New York deli) with a few imbecilic inventions apparently chucked in to lend a flimsy cloak of originality (burger with gorgonzola and pear: yuck, yuck and, yea, even thrice yuck).
My friends, who moved to Oxford not long ago, were pointedly praising the food at the Randolph Hotel when the starters arrived. "Can I move back to London now?" said one of them within 0.37 seconds of tasting her oversalted and oddly liquid "spiced Thai salmon fishcakes" (£5.45). "Oh my God, oh my God," was her husband's opaque reply as he tried his "roast duck tatin" (£5.95) - strips of grey duck, seemingly microwaved for 20 seconds and served with what appeared to be wood chippings on what was cited as a piece of pastry but might have been a J-cloth, the ensemble accompanied by a sinister black sauce redolent of a liquefied Fisherman's Friend and something too testicular in texture and appearance to merit further investigation. Of my starter, four icy chunks of rubberised squid laced with red pepper and served with sub-KFC coleslaw flavoured with wasabi (£5.45), I propose to say little, not because there isn't much to say (I could write three volumes), but because some painful memories must be suppressed if the experience is to be faced again, and ruling out squid for life could be irritating. Although not much.
A round of cheering broke out as the manageress dropped a tray of glasses, a chorus of Happy Birthday arose elsewhere, and Farrah presented a trio of main courses that would, were they served in a prison canteen, have the local roof tilers licking their lips in anticipation of a tasty contract. The kindest thing to be said about the sea bass fillets (£11.95), which looked like smoked mackerel and tasted like on-the-turn cod, is that they'd been successfully thawed. My roasted meatball, tomato sauce and spaghetti (£8.95) would have been a stone-cold disgrace to Signor Dolmio. And whatever one calls the aforementioned beef stew (£9.95), it made fish eyes and witchetty grubs with Ant and Dec seem like an à la carte splurge at Le Gavroche.
When the label on a warmly recommended Spanish dessert wine (ordered to neutralise the taste of history's vilest chocolate fudge cake) suggested it would go with anything except dessert, it seemed the moment to drink up and request the bill. This amounted, with moderate drinking and several side dishes, to £40 a head, which would buy you a three-course set lunch and half a bottle of house wine at many Michelin-starred places. Here, without exaggerating one iota, it is impossible to be sure if there is a chef at all, or whether everything arrives from a central depot each morning, pre-packed and ready to warm up. Someone is getting away with culinary murder here. Time to call in Inspector Jim "Boeuf" Bergerac, on secondment from the Jersey police.
thole I have ever been to. It started with an e-mail detailing the set menu for the evening, and although I am not veggie I thought I would consider the option. However, after looking at the rest of the menu I realised that what they were offering on the set menu, you could get cheaper if you just ordered of the ‘A la carte’ menu by £8 for three courses (I know this isn’t the end of the world but it contributes to the attitude of the place in general).
When we were seated 90 mins after our booking (table of 20 or so) the staff were rude, arrogant and poor. We had to order our own drinks, the courses were delivered at random times so part of the group had their mains before others had started, and the wrong cutlery was offered.
After I asked for something which wasn’t on the set menu (as two of the three only mains were off) two of the waiters had an argument at our table, and I was given a plate of cold linguini and a knife.
This ‘meal’ was £30 per head so without drinks the bill was £600 and after our drinks, which we ordered ourselves the majority of the time, we were near 1k and the staff were had the cheek of charging 10% service.
Please believe me when I say that if you want some ‘boil in the bag’ overpriced s
te make sure you go there. If, like normal people, you want some well cooked and prepared fresh food, go somewhere, anywhere else.I have included one of the funniest reviews I have read to back my comments up….
When I find myself on death row, having just been denied clemency by governor Jeb Bush (a recurring nightmare; best not dwell), and the guard asks after the last meal, I now know what to request. I want the chef (if there is one) from The Living Room in Oxford flown over to replicate, precisely, the dinner I ate there recently. After that, death by lethal injection will be comic relief.
The Oxford branch of this burgeoning chain stands in the shadow of an ancient prison, which is where the owners belong for offences against the palate. With its hint of fireside armchair, The Living Room seems a misleading name for what is part cocktail bar and part dining area cheaply but skilfully styled to produce an echo of a trendy London fusion joint: loads of dark wood, plants lining the walls, low-hanging lamps, exceedingly dimly lit.
Still, the gaggle of young women at the bar and arrayed across the restaurant seemed happy enough, so we adopted a let's-not-be-snotty-metropolitans-and-give-it-every-chance approach. We were soon smitten by Farrah, a waitress-in-training who appeared with tutor Camilla maternally beside her and who ran expertly through the specials. A reference to "the mussels of the day" sounded novel, albeit less intriguing than beef Bergerac, disappointingly amended to bourguignon by Camilla. The menu calls itself eclectic, but in fact it's a chaotic mish-mash of clashing influences (Italian, Japanese, Thai, New York deli) with a few imbecilic inventions apparently chucked in to lend a flimsy cloak of originality (burger with gorgonzola and pear: yuck, yuck and, yea, even thrice yuck).
My friends, who moved to Oxford not long ago, were pointedly praising the food at the Randolph Hotel when the starters arrived. "Can I move back to London now?" said one of them within 0.37 seconds of tasting her oversalted and oddly liquid "spiced Thai salmon fishcakes" (£5.45). "Oh my God, oh my God," was her husband's opaque reply as he tried his "roast duck tatin" (£5.95) - strips of grey duck, seemingly microwaved for 20 seconds and served with what appeared to be wood chippings on what was cited as a piece of pastry but might have been a J-cloth, the ensemble accompanied by a sinister black sauce redolent of a liquefied Fisherman's Friend and something too testicular in texture and appearance to merit further investigation. Of my starter, four icy chunks of rubberised squid laced with red pepper and served with sub-KFC coleslaw flavoured with wasabi (£5.45), I propose to say little, not because there isn't much to say (I could write three volumes), but because some painful memories must be suppressed if the experience is to be faced again, and ruling out squid for life could be irritating. Although not much.
A round of cheering broke out as the manageress dropped a tray of glasses, a chorus of Happy Birthday arose elsewhere, and Farrah presented a trio of main courses that would, were they served in a prison canteen, have the local roof tilers licking their lips in anticipation of a tasty contract. The kindest thing to be said about the sea bass fillets (£11.95), which looked like smoked mackerel and tasted like on-the-turn cod, is that they'd been successfully thawed. My roasted meatball, tomato sauce and spaghetti (£8.95) would have been a stone-cold disgrace to Signor Dolmio. And whatever one calls the aforementioned beef stew (£9.95), it made fish eyes and witchetty grubs with Ant and Dec seem like an à la carte splurge at Le Gavroche.
When the label on a warmly recommended Spanish dessert wine (ordered to neutralise the taste of history's vilest chocolate fudge cake) suggested it would go with anything except dessert, it seemed the moment to drink up and request the bill. This amounted, with moderate drinking and several side dishes, to £40 a head, which would buy you a three-course set lunch and half a bottle of house wine at many Michelin-starred places. Here, without exaggerating one iota, it is impossible to be sure if there is a chef at all, or whether everything arrives from a central depot each morning, pre-packed and ready to warm up. Someone is getting away with culinary murder here. Time to call in Inspector Jim "Boeuf" Bergerac, on secondment from the Jersey police.
An Indian in Luton, had only just opened and didn't stay open long.
It was that evening that taught me that eating undercooked rice and drinking causes the rice to swell in your stomach. I ate until I was full them the meal doubled in size inside me. Felt like an extra in an Alien film.
I've also had some bizarre but not entirely unpleasant experiences living in Portsmouth. One Italian place had decent food but terrible service. Another Indian, the only place within a five minute walk of the B&B I was staying in managed to serve me about a dozen meals in the time I was there. All were excellent but not one was quite what I ordered.
It was that evening that taught me that eating undercooked rice and drinking causes the rice to swell in your stomach. I ate until I was full them the meal doubled in size inside me. Felt like an extra in an Alien film.
I've also had some bizarre but not entirely unpleasant experiences living in Portsmouth. One Italian place had decent food but terrible service. Another Indian, the only place within a five minute walk of the B&B I was staying in managed to serve me about a dozen meals in the time I was there. All were excellent but not one was quite what I ordered.
Landlord said:
crmcatee said:
We found a cook your own BAR / BBQ place
In Sydney? That'll be Phillips Foote I reckon!Landlord said:
crmcatee said:
We found a cook your own BAR / BBQ place
In Sydney? That'll be Phillips Foote I reckon!"Red Fort" Indian restaurant in Glenrothes in Fife. We'd been seated for around 15 minutes and no one had been near us to order, sudden yelling and screaming noises from the kitchen, the double swing kitchen doors crashed open and a casserole dish full of food flew into the restaurant, followed by a dusky skinned gentleman who stormed through the room and slammed through the street doors.
I looked at my other half and asked "do you fancy Chinese?"
About a week later there was a sign in the window declaring "Under new management"
I looked at my other half and asked "do you fancy Chinese?"
About a week later there was a sign in the window declaring "Under new management"
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