They meant so well too!
Was recently out for a night out in Leeds, me and a mate showing this German guy around who'd come to meet us, imagine us "showing him how to party English-style" (He wasn't a particualrly great drinker, considering his land of origin invented Lager, but hey.)

So after many late afternoon beers down by the river, and many more Strawberry Beers (Nice!) in another place - and after going to Gatecrasher, walking past Oceana to Creation, then BACK to Gatecrasher, we decide it's high time for a little late night sustinance. Walking past about five curry houses, all shut, I pop into an open one and ask "How long are you open for?" as we were considering walking the length of town to one of the decent ones. They'd be open another half hour or so (there was one couple in and they were about to go I think,) so we trapse all the way to the bottom of town, to find that our favourite places are all closed too, and therefore head back up to the one near Gatecrasher (NOT The Tripti, the other one,) and BEGGED them to stay open and serve us. Phew! Food! Yum, hot n spicy food for my aching beer-filled belly! Until, (shop owner and his wife were trying their hardest to look awake, and kept putting Elvis on their Media Player,) there it was, at the bottom of the rice that I'd just eaten - a long, thick, black hair. Could it be mine?

Nope, mine is short brown.
Tom's? Nope - he's short n brown too.
Denis from Germany? Spiky blond.

The only people in the place with long black hair were the people waiting for our money. I'd nearly eaten asain mop.

I left the money on the table, with the top note *JUST* under the offending hair. We won't be going back :(
( smokinfish * All time exists simultaneously *, Sun 30 Apr 2006, 20:00, Reply)

Eating in a Happy Eater as a kid, by the side of a motorway somewhere.
Our food came, but my mother's steak was not done as she'd asked. She persisted with her sub-standard mastication until a young, clearly new waiter turned up, asking the usual, "Is everything all right?"

"Well, no actually," my Dad responded.

"Oh..." said the waiter, and promptly walked away.

Bless.
(Nossidge, Sun 30 Apr 2006, 19:31, Reply)

I feel icky...
Since moving to London from sunny Australia the number of bad meals is so numerous that I have stopped counting. My favourites are...

1. We caught a bus with other smelly tourists to Salisbury to see Stonhenge and the cathedral. We went to an 800 year pub as recommended. We were broke so I ordered the cheapest thing, a baked potato with sour cream, can't go wrong. Out came a potato that had been in the oven for a week and was dry and tough. The sour cream was quite obviously sweetened whipped cream for desserts with lemon juice in it. When I complained to the waitress she confirmed that the chef does indeed mix lemon juice and the whipped cream to make 'sour cream'. She then wandered off like she was asked this all the time. I can't describe the disgusting taste of the meal.

2. A pub in north London. My wife ordered the curry special. The waiter come out with the food and is apologetic that they have run out of naan bread and have substituted a normal bread roll, we aren't bad people so we tell him that it's no problem and begin our meal. My wife breaks off a bit of the bread to dip in the curry sauce and tells me its a bit stale, and when i have some it is stale but since it's being dipped in hot curry it isn't a problem. The third bit broken off has a large spot of mould on it, she turns the roll over and it's covered in mould spots. We call the waiter over and point this out to him, he looks at the roll and says that's terrible. And walks away. Never to return. Not with a replacement roll. Not with an apology. Nothing.

3. And every single fast food place in the country is disgusting and dirty especially the kebab shops. Even McDonalds and Burger King are filthy and unkempt. Except the fish and chip shops, they are tasty and dirty.

I still however seem to gain weight.
(unclehunty, Sun 30 Apr 2006, 19:29, Reply)

Do it yourself
Never, ever, ever plan to go for a meal out on the following: Valentines Day, Mothering Sunday, New Year or in the month of December. You are asking for trouble. Not only will you end up paying 50% more, you can guarantee crap service, and possible food poisoning. If you're feeling romantic, festive etc. get your arse down to M&S or Sainsburys. Save yourself time, money and effort and you even get a nice bit of satisfaction of cooking something "homemade". Obviously not made in your home (or any home for that matter). But you can lie godammit!

Also, never eat in McDonalds. Ever.
(cupid stunt, Sun 30 Apr 2006, 19:27, Reply)

Happened last year in a well known chain pub (starts with a W and ends in etherspoons, but it's not really fair to name them) in Leicester
Went in with one of my flatmates to get food, without necessarily intending to drink. Walked up to the bar to order and this spotty little madam behind the bar just sneered "got any id", like i said we weren't going to drink and as it happened my flat mate (who is 6'2'' and had the startings of a beard at the time) didn't have any. She first refused to serve us at all until one of her co workers pointed out we could still have food. I've nothing against being asked for id, i've done it to people before but because of her general rudeness and lack of customer service skills we now felt it was our duty to annoy her as much as possible. Went and got a table and then I went to get drinks, tried to order 2 pints from a different girl and the other girl came storming over and shouted her mouth off again. So i ordered one pint and one coke ... the gave the pint to my flatmate (like i said we were trying to annoy her now), as she walked by he raised his glass to her. You could see she was pissed, she came over and was her usual charming self again, que the manager coming over and asking us to leave and not to come back until my flatmate had proof of age, hurrah! And we've not been back since, they don't have music anyway. Not sure if it ocunts as a meal though, we had to leave before our food arrived. Apologies for length, it's all down to genetics
(tomatosoup, Sun 30 Apr 2006, 19:25, Reply)

Elvis saves the day
worst actual food ever was at an 'italian' in streatham a couple of years ago. some of my party ordered prawn cocktail - half an avocado, two prawns propped atop with a dollop of salad cream. my soup was a bowl of runny nothingness. the mains were all lukewarm pig slop and my dessert of fruit 'salad' consisted of an apple and two grapes. However, none of this mattered really, thanks to the many, many bottles of wine, and a mighty fine Elvis impersonator; evidently he was employed to distract customers from the horrors of their dinner. I hope he was paid well.
(Carravanquelo, Sun 30 Apr 2006, 19:08, Reply)

My rehearsal dinner
We reserved the private back room of a Japanese steak house for my wedding rehearsal dinner. Made the reservation weeks before. Submitted a deposit one week before. Called to confirm the time, 6:30pm, three days before. A few guests arrived at the restaurant at 6:15 to let them know we were on schedule, and the rest of us (75 people) arrived at 6:30. When did they seat us? 8:30pm. To compensate, about 1/3 of the people were given a free eggroll. One effing eggroll. In-towners were leaving before we were seated, and (admittedly not the restaurant's fault) by the time we got out of there at midnight, a blizzard had been blizzarding for a few hours so there was a foot and a half of snow on the ground. I think I tipped them negative 40%.
(chase, Sun 30 Apr 2006, 18:56, Reply)

Maybe slightly offtopic but people did eat at my house
My 'rents went away for a few days a couple of years ago and left me with £50 for food etc. Naturally this was all spent on booze and what little I had left I knocked together a pretty tasty curry for myself and my sister, only problem being there was loads, so I thought fuck it, have it tommorow.

I decided to invite a few of my mates over to watch tv, get pissed and a bit loopy on the bifta. By the time it reached 10PM, everyone was pretty blotto and had some serious munchie related issues, so one of my mates decides to go out and re-heat the curry in in a bowl

After obliterating it with about 5 minutes worth of full microwave power, he eats it. "ugh this is fucking disgusting, what the fuck have you put in it" and I get a similar wave of "you cant cook hardcore" bleurgh "I feel sick etc" from other people which im quite amused by, as my sister who doesn't normally like curry loved it. We all decided to crash for the night after some pretty crap jokes and random giggles and went to bed.

I came down in the morning to find 10 empty bowls with minimal curry remains in. Oh and the big pan I had left it in had marks where it had been licked clean.

I cant cook, my arse.....ahahahaha, oh well at least I spat in it beforehand.
(loopadoop loves toilets, Sun 30 Apr 2006, 18:40, Reply)

Having worked in most of them, I tend to avoid the dodgy resteraunts in Belfast, but here's a story for you
I was working as a KP/pref chef in this small resteraunt with two chefs and on this particular week one of the chefs was on holiday, so one chef was working every shift.
He was in from 9 until 11/12 every day as we had a lot of lunchtime business, and by Thursday he was feeling pretty knackered. After the lunchtime rush he adjourned to the neighbouring pub for a pint or two and returned to work seeming somewhat more sprightly. Just as customers were starting to appear for dinner he was in the kitchen, chopping chops with his chopper, he said something to me and I turned around just in time to see him whack the cleaver right into his hand. So he's standing there in the middle of the kitchen, holding his hand which is litterally spurting blood, the waitress has dropped her plates, he's screaming, she's screaming, the manager has just walked in and is blethering like he can't figure out what's going on, I'm laughing and trying to find a cleanish cloth to wrap his hand with and here's how this is a crap meal out, this resteraunt has an open kitchen.
That means the customers have a full view of this scene just as they're tucking into their brioche, they're sitting there, open mouthed as this 6 foot 5 frenchman screams like a little girl and gets the wrong kind of claret all over his whites and the manager blubbers like a fat kid who's just found a sheeps lung in his luch box (don't tell me you've never played that trick at school)
We had to ask the customers to leave and we closed up early, the chef returned to work the next day with severed tendons and a fractured thumb, I was promoted to "assistant chef" for my trouble, and the resteraunt itself closed a few months later due to managerial incompetence.

So remember kids, always keep your eye on your chopper when you swing it.
( VampireMonkeyOnSpeed a super sexy sexual sex terrorist sex, Sun 30 Apr 2006, 18:22, Reply)

Not the restaurant ... me.
I tend to get nervous and catapult the plate onto my lap.

Sigh.
(ladyintheradiator, Sun 30 Apr 2006, 17:57, Reply)

Medium Rare, please.
Once, whilst wondering around (as one does) at 8pm, I happened across a small, rather nice looking (from the outside, at least) restaurant. The prices were attractive and I was hungry, so I went inside.

It wasn't very nice at all inside.

Bare plaster walls, cracks in the ceiling, damp and a carpet so foul a pig would have put on wellingtons.

Anyhow, onto the food. Ordered a Sirloin steak, medium rare. Attractive prices, terrible engrish on the menu.

And waited.

And noticed that almost everyone else was waiting too.

And waited.

And contemplated the meaning of those little pieces of gunk you find in the corners of your eyes when you wake up.

And waited some more.

And when the steak finally arrived, it was cold. STONE cold, like it had just been whipped out of the fridge. Below room temperature.

It was also not medium rare, but well done.

Now, the thing that troubles me is that if it had been cooked, why the FUCK it had been put in the fridge before serving it to me?

I suspected it had been a leftover and had been taken out of the fridge but NOT re-heated.

And it had taken two hours to get to me.

I was not pleased. I berated the waiter in my limited cantonese. He actually retorted, telling me that he didn't have to listen to me
and that I was being unreasonable.

At this point, I lost my temper. I had just waited 2 hours for a steak that was cold when it got to me, not cooked as I asked and now the waiter was being derelict in his duties as a waiter.

I told him as much, in a very loud voice and spending particular attention to the fact that he was giving me backchat and as a waiter part of his job was to deal with complaints and he had better deal with this one and sharpish too.

I decided then that I wouldn't be getting the last two hours of my life back, calmly picked up my plate and handed it to the waiter, and walked out.

Half of the patronage, most still without sustenance, followed me.

Best part? The lady who had sitting next to me worked for one of the local newspapers as a restaurant reviewer.

Two weeks later, passing the same spot, where the restaurant had once stood was a shoe shop.

Been responsible for the downfall of a restaurant? Been there, done that.
(DarkLite swallowed my entire undercarriage, Sun 30 Apr 2006, 12:57, Reply)

Noctu: Harbour Lights! It's quite quiet (although never visit during the day).
staff are friendly, food is nice, deserts are terrifying, and it has a balcony over the sea.

(It's at the top of the imax building!)
( stevierar, Sun 30 Apr 2006, 12:02, Reply)

the headline was "Waiter, there's a space missile in my soup!"
When I was an annoying 8 year old, my Mum's friend, who was a journo, decided to write a series of articles about posh restaurants coping with irritating kids.

He went undercover with - you guessed it - me to several places.

My memories are quite foggy, but I remember at one (chinese, I think) place, I took along a space rocket toy which fired little plastic missiles.

I accidentally set one off, and it was impossible to trace. I had a load of waiters searching around for it, as I was quite upset about losing a 1cm long piece of plastic.
(teasus likes tea, Sun 30 Apr 2006, 11:58, Reply)

The World Turned Upside Down
So, I took the wife to a Harvester. I was on a budget, OK?

The World Turned Upside Down in Reading didn't do itself any favours by being directly downwind from the sewage works, but as long as they keep the windows closed, you're fine.

Any road up, we got our starters (mmmm... Prawn Cocktail, I literally oozed class in those days), and waited for our main meals.

And waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Two hours later, the fire brigade asked the manager - within very shouty earshot - why there were still customers in the building, seeing as how the kitchen was a raging inferno and "the whole fucking place is about to go up".

"We didn't want to disturb their night out" he replied.

Result: Free meals in any Harvester for a year. I'm a sucker for punishment.
( Scaryduck LIKES EGG, Sun 30 Apr 2006, 11:32, Reply)

Ham
Stayed at the Ambassador's Hotel in York (sounds posh - isn't). Went down for the breakfast, which was included. Entering the dining room it quickly became apparent that the main contingent of the guests were hefty hairy germans whose breakfast of choice involved a selection of stomach churning cold sausages.
We ordered the continental breakfast expecting some jam/roll combination. The waitress brought out a plate with a roll, croissant nestled together with a thick slice of ham. As a veggie being faced with cold meat at that time of a morning it was all I could do not to retch. Says I to the waitress 'I'm sorry, but I don't eat meat' (so english to apologise for it) 'Could you please bring me one without the ham on?'. She whisked my plate off without a word and returned seconds later with the same plate now featuring a ham shaped gap, a sheen of grease still visible on the surface of the plate.
'Did you just take the ham off and bring it back?' I said, coaxingly, like you might to a child who won't own up to some miscievous deed'.
'No' she said sheepishly.
'Bring me a NEW one'
(Kazza , loathing myself so you don't have to, Sun 30 Apr 2006, 11:06, Reply)

I won't say the name of the place - because it's fucking lovely, just amusing at times
It's a pub in Bournemouth, and we'd always suspected that their, whilst quite lovely pub grub, was cooked in microwaves; we never knew for sure.

Until one day.

We always sit (being the /regulars/) in this comfy little corner, right next to the kitchen door. Well!

One day there's screams from the kitchen, and the new guy comes running out (WEARING FISH TROUSERS) screaming at the head-chef who's chatting to a barmaid that "THE MICROWAVE'S ON FIRE!!!". Horror on the staff's faces. Hysterics on ours: expecting slightly over done chips.

As the commotion dies down, the bar maid looks at us, and says "Don't worry; we've got twelve more".

Hooray!
( stevierar, Sun 30 Apr 2006, 11:06, Reply)

Oh,
And this isn't 'crap' either, but if you're ever on Manchester's Curry Mile in Rusholme, call into Lal Haweli and have a look at the head waiter's fantastic wig. It is truly, truly legendary around these parts. It *needs* to be seen to be believed.
( Mike Fishcake teamfishcake.co.uk - better than your mum's face, Sun 30 Apr 2006, 11:00, Reply)

This isn't creally a 'crap' meal - more an 'amusing' one.
I'm not a vegetarian, but sometimes I just don't feel like eating meat. One day we were at a restaurant in Llandudno. Been there before - reasonably acceptable and nice and average enough. However, this was one of the days I was in a 'veggie' mood, so I had a look at the menu, and as I'm sure any herbivores won't be surprised, was strugling to find any veggie options other than 'salad'.

So I called the waitress over to ask her what vegetarian stuff there was on the menu. She looked confused, walked away to ask someone, came back and pointed at Chicken Kiev on the menu. I looked at her and laughed because I thought she was joking. She looked confused. I said "Chicken? Erm, I was asking for vegetarian meals!". She looked confused again, walked off to ask someone, then came back and told me that there was a vegetable kiev.

Anyway, the meal was nice enough, she looked embarassed even though I told her it was ok, and, erm, that's about it. Sorry, that's about as interesting as it gets.
( Mike Fishcake teamfishcake.co.uk - better than your mum's face, Sun 30 Apr 2006, 10:57, Reply)

Wedding Supper
The wife and I were invited to a wedding involving some distant branch of the in-laws. A shotgun affair, they'd done the whole wedding on the cheap and the meal was a rather sparse buffet. Naturally, the top table got first go on the food, and we watched with horror as the bride, groom and family (who suffered from what we might generously call "pie retention") tucked in like Mr Creosote on a night out. The two bottles of sparkling wine were necked in about thirty seconds, and Mr Kipling might have been exceedingly proud of his cake, had the chief bridesmaid not gone at it with both hands and a mouth like the opening of the Mersey Tunnel.

I got a lettuce leaf and two dry-roast peanuts, and I counted myself lucky.

By the time the starving hordes returned from the chip shop they'd missed the fight, and everyone had been thrown out of the village hall as a result. We got home just in time for dinner.
( Scaryduck LIKES EGG, Sun 30 Apr 2006, 10:14, Reply)

An incredibly long winded reminiscence about a meal that never came but I cannot forget
It was at the Fray Marcos Hotel at Williams, Arizona - the gateway to the Grand Canyon and located on Route 66 - the mother road. Earlier in the day I felt like throwing myself into the Grand Canyon. Onward to dinner time. I had been existing on Buffalo wings - zingy chicken wings, a 12 pack of Coors beer and some herbal ecstasy which I bought in a gay bookstore in San Francisco. The herbal ecstasy did absolutely nothing in the area it was supposed to but proved to be an excellent laxative which was good as I struggle in that area when away from home, not to mention a gruelling all points 8 week tour of the USA. So dinner at the Fray Marcos restaurant - a massive barn like sructure adorned with stuffed animal heads and road sign paraphernalia. I was not hungry but felt obliged to join the others at the table, would have preferred to stay in and mope with one of the putrid bottle of tequila I bought in Tijuana. So I ordered a meal of Turkey Chili accompanied with some buffalo wings and salad with ranch sauce accompanied with an icy cold coke. We stayed there for as long as it took the others to eat. The coke was lovely but my meal never came. My head was done in too much to ask about its whereabouts. I retired to my room and drank all of the tequila. Later that night I wet the bed.
(rodgerroop, Sun 30 Apr 2006, 10:07, Reply)

French
French, very expensive, very little to eat.

Stopped for fish and chips on the way home.
(Julian Coped, Sun 30 Apr 2006, 8:43, Reply)

don't forget the flies in the toilet
As we had just been on what could better be described as a drunken techno-infused camping-party than outdoor festival, the only vittles we had consumed that past week were standard camping faire, beans and...beans. And rice, and cereal and things that weren't meat because of the hippies...er, vegetarians, that we were with. The first "outside" food we all get to eat was actually, as luck would have it, MEXICAN FOOD, just across the border in Oregon. My general disposition is to avoid all "Mexican" family-type restraint establishments, due not only to the rather horrid quality or quantity of food, but also to the rather tacky surrounding, sometimes incomprehensible waiters/waitresses, "great" music, and the overall cleanliness of everything (this does not apply to authentic burrito or taco trucks in California, those sell the best Mexican food outside of Mexico). The Mexican restaurant that we chose is 'LAS MARGARITAS,' which is a small family run chain that is ruining the good name of not being sick after eating. Aside from this joint being practically deserted, the room that we were escorted to was apparently used also for a dance hall of sorts; tacky disco-ball, karaoke-type machine-thing, scuffmarks everywhere, oh, and a GIANT MIRROR-WALL. Anyway, the menu was filled with your standard Mexican food-fare, if not a little expensive. However, the first true treat of this place lies within the bathrooms.
Now, the bathrooms, while being quite worse than most restaurants, they are not as bad as your standard punkbar (ie "decrepit hole"). That being said, they wouldn't have to do much to reach that level. Lit by a rather yellow fluorescent light, the bathroom is bathed in what appears to be a thin layer of disgusting. However, the human mind attributes this to a trick of light, conveniently allowing us to ignore the fact that it truly is a thin layer of disgusting. There are three standing urinals; the farthest to the right flooded (complete with cigarette butt), the middle relatively clean (thusly it was chosen), and upon inspection, the farthest left apparently had something in it that fruit flies and gnats find most appealing (The flies will return!). The two other waste-receiving options in this bathroom were probably shrouded in a dark corner for good reason. I had to assume they are nothing more than just two stalls regular stalls, which were not illuminated in any way, and given the state of the things in the bathroom, probably didn't work either. I was too scared to find out; that's where the wild things are. The hand washing facilities were also no shining example of proper "I own an actual restraint" management. The mirror had a thin layer of grime (slightly akin to grease that would cover a frying pan after making a few good pounds of bacon), and the wall was in slight disrepair. The molding that separated the wall from the dark-orange shaded tiles of the sink counter was strangely only attached in the middle; both ends were drooping to reveal a rather shoddy caulk job. One of the three sinks was missing the handle for cold water; however, if it worked like the sink I used, then it wouldn't need it. A quick crank on the cold water handle of my chosen sink resulted in nothing; however, the hot water spat out an undefined gush of cold water. Surrounding the sink were several dead flies, apparently drowned, or smashed (or possibly suicide?). One of the two soap dispensers contained soap. However, the paper towel dispenser looks to have been refilled recently, asking the question, why did this bathroom, if actually being stocked with paper, be completely neglected in the area of cleaning (or, it asks the question: does everyone in Oregon just not dry their hands? Or even wash them to begin with?)? As you exit the bathroom, there is a sign posted to encourage washing your hands. "Stop! Please wash your hands; Help prevent the spread of disease!" And they are right; by washing your hands you do help stop disease, much to the chagrin of the bathroom, and the apparent management of LAS MARGARITAS.
Good music can do a lot to camouflage otherwise unworthy settings, but bad music just reminds us of the failures. The music at LAS MARGARITAS was the most wonderful rendition of circus music performed by a drunk mariachi band I have ever heard; in fact, it's the ONLY circus music I have heard performed by a drunk mariachi band. If perhaps the instruments were not out of tune or used by tone-deaf musicians, and if the music had actual Spanish or Mexican sounding origins then there would be no problem. What this strange mixture of sounds achieved was to make a veritable mockery of eating. It seemed as though every action was farcical, purely due to the fact that the crazy circus music conjured up images of sleazy country fairs and circuses, where cheap prat falls, water-in-the-face roses, and other unfunny clown effluvia reigns. This is the same feeling you get while being in Las Vegas's famed casino Circus Circus (add about 70,000 cigarettes a minute and just as many crushed dreams, that is). In fact, the strange Mexican caterwauling seemed to fit the Circus Circus scene in Terry Gilliam's rendition of Hunter S. Thompson's "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas." A drunken, stumbling confusion, both aided and hindered by the circus like surroundings, mockery by the employees, and disgust by the fatter and more sober Vegas natives. Some songs actually added another element to the strange bastard creation that was the mariachi circus; by having a 2-note tuba beat and with some seemingly accordion sounds, we were transported to some strange dimension where the mariachi circus crash landed in the middle of a north western European Oktoberfest. If you try to think of a cherubic Norse-Mexican fat guy in lederhosen, wearing a sombrero, while simultaneously playing the tuba whilst riding a unicycle on a tight rope, you are pretty much there. In order to recreate this masterpiece of work that is the oktober-mariachi-circus, first obtain a mariachi-circus record. This will be no small feat, as the only mariachi-circus band probably died in a bus/elephant collision. Providing there were more copies of this music that did not spontaneously combust while passing within a mile of any god-fearing church, then simply place the record on your turntable (or phonograph), but do NOT turn on the mechanism. Instead, use your own arm to spin the record at its recommended speed; the following sound produced will be a good approximation of the out of tune and tone deaf performance. Oh, and I almost completely forgot to mention that while we were eating to this accursed music, at any moment I expected a clown to attack me with a pie, or an audience to laugh at me while I attempted to stomach the joke that was our food.
Don't forget the flies in the urinal

Then it became time to order us up some of that good ol' food nonsense. I, being secretly described by the other loathsome souls that made up this endeavor, am a food Nazi. I am very very picky. So, I ordered a 5 oz. cheeseburger. Iko ordered a beef tamale and chicken enchilada. Kait had a shrimp enchilada (sans any milk product, she being of the lactose-intolerant persuasion), and Amber decided on a vegetarian enchilada. Drinks were water, coffee, and the mystery of "Mexican" coffee. As an appetizer, we had the normal incredibly stale and flavorless tortilla chips, and a round of super-nachos (Chicken on a side plate to appease those that scoff meat). All of these foods had flaws. (oh, let's not forget the actually passably honey-sugar-strawberry-whippedcream on a fried tortilla bill/dessert, possibly the only reason to eat at a Mexican restaurant aside from getting stomach cramps).

Now I'm going to start backwards from the order I listed the food, but moving the drinks to the end to confuse anybody trying to read this.

Super-Nachos: take stale chips, coat with cheese. Hide some refried beans someplace, top with random vegetables, and just enough guacamole and sour cream to let people not have enough guacamole and sour cream (this way they can charge $1.50 for a side plate of said). Cook enough to appear thoroughly cooked, serve on hot plate to complete the illusion. Not much left to say about the Nachos. The cheese was only heated enough to melt on the surface, which means that the end result was a massive rubbery substance that would attempt to retain its shape under any circumstance. The chicken on the side was a tad cold and watery, like they were reheated remains from the night before (which they undoubtedly were).
Amber doesn't like mushrooms. Therefore, her Vegetarian enchilada, advertised to contain carrots, spinach, tomatoes, guacamole, onion, green beans, peppers, mushrooms and a creamy white sauce (supposedly "'Popeye' approved" due to the spinach), did not contain a good 80% of these ingredients. She received a tortilla filled with mushrooms, and less other vegetables than African-American members of the KKK. When I was young, I did not imbibe in the sins of the mushrooms either, but over time I have come to cherish them, and that being said, I have seen enough properly prepared mushrooms in my life to know that the mushrooms in said enchilada were stored cold, dried out and became slightly rubbery, and then quickly reheated, thus not being anywhere near the ideal cooked mushroom. This meal was quickly scuttled, after the loss of her entire crew to inedibility.
Kait ordered no cheese on her shrimp-configured enchilada. So after making it with cheese, the chefs were kind enough to just scrape and pick the cheese out. If the description of Amber's enchilada leaves an impression of a preponderance of mushrooms, Kait's is alike but almost not. Imagine taking a good handful of only two colors of M&Ms (let's say red and not-red-but-kinda) and then tossing them on a plate and arranging them so each M&M can only touch two other M&Ms. Now exchange shrimp for the red M&M, and cubed tomato for the not-red-but-kinda M&M [(colors the total opposite of what you'd think)], the plate for a tortilla. Serve with a smirk knowing it's complete crap.
It had appeared that Iko had routed his beef tamale rather quickly, though the chicken enchilada had hit a fatal flaw in common with most cuisine that is made by half-crazed (probably full-crazed) hermits who wander through forests for too long; it was wood. Well, it wasn't actually wood, but if a cheap wood substitute was needed (like there isn't) then the chef could definitely hold out for a few million on his invention. The interior of the chicken-food-thing is quite reminiscent of acoustic tile, common in schools and other places nobody wants to be at for an extended period of time. Grey, slightly pulpy, can easily be converted to a dartboard. I envied him not the next time at the toilet.
I'm a connoisseur on hamburgers. I've had many that were disgusting, and many that weren't. And a few, despite the name, were NOT hamburgers. Or, at least, they were hamburgers, but actually made with HAM (Go England!). This burger, despite being small, overcooked, with the texture of cardboard, was actually not that bad, aside from the fact that the "cheese" in the "cheeseburger" equation apparently meant to put enough cheese to argue that it is a cheeseburger, but not enough to be visible or tasteable. The fries SUCKED.
There is coffee that you drink and proudly proclaim "Now THAT"S A GOOD CUP OF COFFEE!", the same way you give props to a strong alcohol that has sterilized your digestive system and made you go blind. And then there is the coffee you just manage to squeeze out of a two-day old lump of grounds and uses a gym sock as a filter. The latter was the coffee at LAS MARGARITAS. Nuff said.
When you take a well established, well, anything, and then completely change whatever it is, but just add a descriptive word to describe the new form, it completely baffles me, just like how that last sentence baffles you. I'm talking about Mexican coffee, which as a drink containing coffee, kahlua, tequila and whipping cream, just leads me to believe that Mexicans get up, get drunk, and like it to be mildly sweet. If you haven't already guessed by reading this peachy review, the Mexican coffee also failed not getting hit by the bus of suck. Starting with the incredibly weak coffee, add only enough of both alcoholic additives so that the profit margin of said drink is around 5000% (take two just-emptied bottles of each liquor and dip the spouts in the coffee, so only the few remnants of the lip are used). Forget to NOT add the whipping cream like the lactose intolerant person kindly asked for, and then go "make" the drink again by putting room-temp coffee in a glass and lying.
It's very hard to ruin up water. And, actually, the water itself wasn't ruined. It was the presentation that failed. I'll forget for now (though by writing it it's a clever trick we writing types like to call "Being a Jerk") that after the waitress brought our food she didn't bother to check in on us and refill out water, so I was left waterless while eating what my mouth was telling me was cardboard. Anyway, at the end of the so-called meal, she came and refilled our waters for us. Now, remember what I told you not to forget? FLIES! So, after I take a long swig of my freshly refilled water to aquify my dry palette, I discover a little fly floating, dead, in my glass. Ick. Not that I'm really too concerned at this, it's just displeasing. And then I find another one in there. And more in other peoples glasses. Did she just not notice the small colony of fruit flies that she was soon going to drown with near-ice-cold water at the bottom of the carafe? Ok, if you work in a bar you can and do get fruit flies to attack the beer spouts at night, but a quick spray and clean remedies that. But, if you work at such an insanely skuzzy place as LAS MARGARITAS that the fruit flies find something edible in the standing urinals, then you have problems. Iko's ex-house, aptly named The Insect Temple (the aptness will soon reveal itself), had a horrible fruit fly problem for awhile, but they never a) died, or b) were killed over somebody’s water. This discovery prompted our expedient removal of ourselves from LAS MARGARITAS, all doubting whether or not we ate clean food. I doubt I did, as having a "hand formed" burger meant that I probably ate 70 of those flies after being smashed into a hamburger patty.
I have to assume that the bill was large. We got a good laugh and probably a case of food poisoning from it though. As we left, I eyed the little gumball machines filled with assorted junk, and found two interesting things; one, a sticker machine containing grafitti-esque drawings of Mexican stereotypes, and more oddly #2, a gumball machine containing both off-brand chicklets and off-brand peanuts covered in chocolate. I am sure that has pleased the hell out of many kids over the years.

And such is the tale of LAS MARGARITAS, which, while my Spanish may be rusty (ie, non-existent), I am sure that translates into "HA HA You actually think we made food you could EAT?" The only other thing I can remember, as it is written on a note, is this:

Amber ate a Pepcid AD after this affair, and now, four hours later, still feels shitty.



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eventually this with pictures at students.washington.edu/denki/lm.html

APOLOGIES FOR NOTHING. FUCK YOU
(denki, Sun 30 Apr 2006, 6:43, Reply)

I've literally just got in....
The Kebab was fine, but the chickens eating the regurgitated kebab was funnier
(Monkey the Chicken Twitter: death_stairs, Sun 30 Apr 2006, 5:15, Reply)

Happy birthday to meeeee
For my 18th birthday, my parents took me to a rather posh Italian restaurant that we'd heard about for quite some time but had never visited. We sat down, ordered, and I have to admit the food was lovely...the restaurant was another story.

First, the drunk woman. Now, I know it's customary to drink wine with Italian food. But she was shit-faced on the house red and it wasn't even nine at night. Unfortunately, this was the kind of woman who became very talkative when drunk, and she felt that she needed to gesture wildly to prove her point. Anyway, after finishing one sentence, she made a final gesture with her refilled wine glass and smacked it back down on the table for emphasis. Only, she missed the table, and threw it to the floor right next to me, where it shattered to bits and a large chunk of it ricocheted against my arm (no blood, phew).

So the waiters cleaned Drunky up, she paid, and she left. Soon we decide we ought to leave, too, as we were getting a decidedly bad vibe. We gave the waiter our credit card. Business as usual, right? Well, we waited for our card to be returned...and we waited...and we waited...

Where the cock was our credit card?

We asked the waiter, and his response was, "I just gave it back to you."

Funny. I reckon we would have remembered getting a credit card back, as we would have had to sign the cheque.

Now, my da isn't exactly the largest, most imposing man, but NEVER try to argue something like this with him. He will mop the floor with your lame little argument, wring you out, and drop you back in the bucket where you belong. The waiter dashed off to get the owner of the restaurant, who turned on the charm and said, "Oh, sir, sorry, this happens all the time. We must have had this happen 25 times already tonight!"

Needless to say, we didn't buy that for one second. It's essentially impossible to lose 25 credit cards in a wee room like that. Unless, of course, someone "lost" it down their trouser pocket.

So my da told him in no uncertain terms to go find this credit card, along with the other 24 the restaurant had supposedly lost in the past three hours. I sensed some theatrics were needed, so I put on my best why-did-you-have-to-wreck-my-birthday-by-stealing-our-credit-card face. Eventually the manager told us, so, so sorry sir, when we find it we'll post it back to you...just give us your address!

By now we sensed that something was seriously amiss and we got the hell out of there, went home, and reported the credit card stolen by those twunts.

So that's how my family got an 70 quid meal at a posh restaurant, free!

Apologies for length...but I have to say, it was the best Italian meal I'd ever had.
( KersaI Missive Free Michael Shields! with Monday's Liverpool Echo, Sun 30 Apr 2006, 4:57, Reply)

YUK!
My parents dragged me out with my brother to a pub not too far away from me. I suppose I shouldn't have been that annoyed 'cos I was kinda looking forward to it.

Just wait till I got in this "pub" (that's part of a well known UK wide chain of pubs)

Firstly, they didn't have my favourite brand of Cider...aka Strongbow.

Secondly, they didn't even have my favourite brand of pre-mixed drink thing...aka Smirnoff Ice (Vodka + Lemon)

Thirdly, I don't know why I didn't get a coke.

Fourthly, I ended up having Orange Juice..but not a normal orange juice, bitty orange juice. I CAN'T STAND ORANGE JUICE WITH BITS IN IT!

I can't remember how the meal was but I expect it was crap too.
(Timmeh I am Timmeh and Timmeh is me!, Sun 30 Apr 2006, 2:57, Reply)

Right then,
This one time, I went out with a mate of mine. She was a vegan, and she always gave me dirty looks when the waiter asked "What can I get you?" and I would reply "Whatever, steak I guess, just make sure something had to die for my meal!" On one occasion she she had been nagging me the hole time I was trying to eat my "Murdered Animal" so I just said "Shut it you fucking bint! If you don't shut your cunt-hole I'll eat YOU!" I then left.

Good steak too.
(Human, Sun 30 Apr 2006, 2:03, Reply)

moody chinkie!
Was in a chinkie' up north somewhere, town escapes me, but I suspect Barnsley. In the restuarant with my sister, girlfriend and father. Now my father is not chinese and we all I assume have a level of expectancy from a chinese restuarant. Any way, as we sit in this large emporium that can sit 100, and has about 15 people in there, the food arrives, my father sees the dishes and announces to us "the chefs a cunt!" Head waiter hears this and asks, "Did you call the chef a cunt?" At which the father follows up with "No, I want to know what cunt called him a chef!!" At which point we were asked to leave......I love stuff like that.....
(jellylegs, Sun 30 Apr 2006, 1:57, Reply)