Sunday, October 04, 2020

DINING MISHAPS LEAVE A BAD TASTE

Ever-changing unexpected, unpredictable events continue to occur in our government about which we're all being informed by our news media, so I'll limit any review of most particulars here.  Suffice to say the pandemic continues to wreck havoc in the world to some degree from one country to another.  Here in the US. the inevitable viral spread keeps surfacing with varying intensity giving me concern as to how our lives are being affected, how our future will unfold.  

My previous post reveals how I discovered I use the British, not the American or French method to prepare my scrambled eggs.  I was intrigued with how some who commented described their own egg scrambling methods.  I don't think I'm overly picky about food but I do have some basic expectations when I eat out.   I recall a couple incidents unrelated to scrambled eggs that were quite objectionable.  

I was at an upscale restaurant with an old friend I hadn't seen for a while who had returned home for a short visit with her mother.  They lived in a small community whose local newspaper latched on to her visits as a social item worthy of note whenever she came to town.  She laughingly told me she had long since gotten use to her notoriety there which prompted headlines like "E (her name) is back in town!"  After all, girl/woman continuing to make good -- working in NYC television industry with celebrities was news during those years when TV was the prominent technology with only three major networks, long before cable and our digital world.

She took me to the most prominent of one of her small town's primo hotel's restaurants where we were practically the only people in the dining room.  I'm sure they were impressed and pleased to have her there.  Having placed our dinner orders my friend had my full attention as we caught up on our lives while waiting for our dinners to be served.  As I took a sip of my water I became vaguely aware of feeling something soft at the corner of my mouth.  Continuing to concentrate on what my friend was saying, I paid little attention as I just automatically reached with my fingers to remove what I felt on my lower lip.

Seeping into my consciousness then was the realization I was sipping water so there shouldn't have been anything of substance.  Glancing at the unknown as I laid it on the table after a few shocked seconds I incredulously recognized I was looking at a very large dead water-soaked cockroach/water-bug.  My friend was equally repulsed as was I.  The waiter we called over was mortified as he should have been since I think he surely would have noticed the creature when he brought our filled water glasses if he had been paying attention. 

Ever since that experience, I check all water glasses I'm served and hope that waiter learned to examine water-filled glasses, too.  As you might expect, the restaurant manager was quick to volunteer they were giving us complimentary dinners.   

Years later when having lunch at a different restaurant I suddenly realized the strawberry pie filling I was eating had a strange crunch on one chew.   Examining the remainder of the pie in front of me I discovered a rather large-sized neck piece of a broken glass bottle.  I was frozen for the moment, concerned I might have swallowed glass bits.  When I summoned the restaurant manager  he said they would pay for me to get an ER medical examination but I must sign a form first relieving them of any responsibility though I wasn't asked to pay for my lunch.   Of course I refused to sign the form.  

What I learned at the hospital was I must await the food to process through my body, then if bleeding symptoms appeared I would know there was a potential problem.    I was very alarmed for a day or so waiting to be certain my bodily system was unimpaired.   I did contact the attorney wife of my employer who counseled me to do nothing further at that time as I was concerned about future implications for myself and husband.  Those days were a different time since subsequent years lawsuits have become much more prevalent over every thing that happens.  Fortunately, I never exhibited any symptoms indicating interior body damage so no further action was taken.  

No doubt some of you may have had some dining experiences you hadn't expected, leaving a bad taste in your mouth.    

25 comments:

  1. I have not had any such life threatening dining experiences but, can relate to your own with quite a bit of interest. I have always wondered what would happen if someone did have such an experience and this post explains it very well. Thank you.

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    1. I’m glad to hear you’ve not had any such unpleasant experiences and hope you don’t ever.

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  2. I can't recall any of your magnitude but cold food, food fried in rancid oil, old lettuce. All minor irritations and usually corrected by management.

    That glass tho - frightening.

    XO
    WWW

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    1. Yes, the glass really did alarm me and what i found was a sizable bottle neck piece still in the pie filling.

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  3. My SIL & her husband took us to dinner in St Louis, about 50 years ago. I bit into something hard that was in my shrimp etouffee - a coil of copper from a Chore Girl scrubbing pad. Other than hairs, that's about all I've experienced in my years of eating out. I have dislodge a tooth crown, now and then, biting into a burger, a Jordan almond, or a raw almond; but, that doesn't register on my angst scale.

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    1. The copper coil would certainly be a concerning issue in a different realm from nuts as you describe.

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  4. Think I gagged a bit over the critter in your water and good grief, glass in your food? So far I have been very lucky with no foreign matter in my food--that I knew of.

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    1. I gagged a bit myself at the time when I saw that critter. Glad you've avoided any unwanted additives in your food.

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  5. My worst dining experience was on the Mediterranean coast of Turkey, where I was staying at a brand new motel and ate salad in their restaurant and contracted cholera. They gathered all their guests and described the symptoms, which I already was experiencing. Time to go to the hospital.

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    1. Oh, wow! That’s really scary. Obviously you survived but that must have been a horrible experience to go through.

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  6. Goodness! Thankfully, nothing at all like what you've experienced, just the usual poor food, cold food, or browning lettuce in a salad. You really had some icky experiences.

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    1. Glad you've not had any concerns other than what you mentioned.

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  7. During my final school years, my relationship with my mother was somewhat restrained as we did not often agree on dress codes and the whole you-call-that-music (art, literature . . .) kind of thing. And yet, she felt the need to honour - occasionally - the odd exceptional (in her view) exam result by bringing me to a restauarnt of her choice.
    These were usually rather tense events what with the usual objections (my hair, make-up, jeans for goodnesssakes) but we managed to not make a scene, decorum has always been important in my family.
    One of her favourite restaurants was a rather classy place specialising in mediterranean/Croatian food. Very popular in Europe pre Balkan wars. Quite similar to Greek food, lots of olive oil and various elaborate dishes using minced lamb.
    We had our meal, we agreed that the food had been good and two days later, read in the morning papers that said restaurant had been shut down after the health inspectors had found large quantities of minced and pre-minced dogs on the premises.

    I have also eaten fruit bat curry. That was many years pre covid times.

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    1. Oh, geez, the thought of eating those upsets my stomach. Your mother must have been upset with learning about the restaurant she took you, too. BTW i presented challenges to my mother and aunt over my wearing jeans in the 1940s — finally accepted at home but certainly not elsewhere. My mother more amenable than my aunt.

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    2. My goodness! Some of us were late to the party. I can't recall wearing jeans until I was in my late 30s. Mom didn't care.

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  8. I've never had any dining experiences as bad as that, those incidents sound shocking. Thankfully the only complaints I've had about restaurants involve cold food, badly cooked food, tiny portions and blandness. All pretty trivial compared to your discoveries.

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    1. Glad you've not had any serious negative food issues though what you have experienced is not what any of us ever expect.

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  9. Your writing was so descriptive that it made me feel the shock that you felt while experiencing it. UGH. I've had some pretty bad meals eating out but nothing like those!

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    1. They were experiences quite unlike anything I’ve had since.

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  10. Those are crazy dining stories. I have nothing to compare. I doubt that I would have been able to eat anything after finding a dead cockroach. It makes my stomach upset even reading about it!

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    1. Welcome to ATW. Was unable to link to your Typepad blog even using that URL you gave. Yes, those experiences seemed crazy to me, too.


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  11. Good grief! That is absolutely AWFUL! Scary about the glass incident too. I believe we had a bug incident in an ice cream place a long time ago. They’ve gone out of business since. The other incident was the live wasp in the prewashed salad from Sam’s club.

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    1. Those two bug incidents sound none too pleasant.

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  12. I used to like scrambled eggs with cheese in them, grew up with my mom adding milk. Now,I like them best cooked in butter, little salt but not runny. It is especially good when I am not feeling well

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