The first time I got squid tentacles, it was a very bleak meal. I'm better now.

Jeremy has a policy of eating whatever is placed in front of him, just in case someone's mom cooked it. But I don't think he'll be ordering eel for a while.

What was your worst (or funniest) restaurant experience?

-- Anonymous, October 02, 1999

Answers

Oh, My Gawd, That was so funny. Bowl fulla eel! I laughed so hard that Dave came into the room to read it and he laughed really hard too. That was clearly funnier than Pamie :) :)

I'm funny about the things I'll eat. If it looks gross I won't eat it no matter how good you tell me it is. I've never ordered something gross, but I have been stuck at people's houses eating things that made me sick.

-- Anonymous, October 02, 1999

Yep-- just last night I went to a new Thai restaurant and decided to try the Royal Tofu with Walnuts. I'd forgotten that I didn't like large amounts of tofu as my meal (I do like it with other things, like in pad thai). Plus it had this weird gooey fruity/peppery sauce all over it. Yuck. Luckily, there was enough of the appetizer (seafood pancake, yum) left over so I didn't starve.

Anyway, the whole thing reminded me of why I so rarely veer away from the One Thing I Always Order (which varies by restaurant). Because I hate hate hate paying for food that I don't like. Especially when I'm hungry. I know that makes me not very adventuresome, but I'd rather invest in food I know will be tasty. I can try new things from other people's plates.

-- Anonymous, October 02, 1999

Never because the food was gross (I'm a wimpy orderer). But I have because I started to feel sick/upset after I got the food.

Outside of a restaurant, there were many times when I would not be able to eat dinner at home because it was just too disgusting. (Everybody else likes that rice-cooker glop with orange juice and chicken and raisins, but I found it inedible.) At least in a restaurant what I order at least _sounded_ appealing to me at some point.

-- Anonymous, October 02, 1999

I didn't exactly order it... but once, I went for a week to the Isle of Arran, when I was on holiday in Scotland. My friends and I stayed in wee bed-and-breakfasts and hiked round the island.

One morning found us in this lovely seaside farm, with eggs and toast for breakfast (and sausages for my one friend. His wife and I, on the other hand, are vegetarian.)

He was eating his eggs blithely. His wife took a bite, and looked at me. I took a bite -- FISH! They looked like eggs. They tasted like fish. Not just any fish, either. Old fish. Aged fish. These were lovely, homegrown eggs from hens fed dried fishmeal.

We couldn't. We tried, we just couldn't. We ended up in fits of giggles, while our other poor friend ate all our platefuls so that the very nice woman who owned the B&B wouldn't be offended.

-- Anonymous, October 02, 1999

This isn't an "I couldn't eat it answer", but my father relates the story of eating at his older sisters house (she was a missionary in Africa for several years), and inquiring about the meat served after a particular meal. Having not recognized it and asking, he was told it was monkey. My father promptly ran to the bathroom and vomited. He felt that was too close to people. Myself, I couldn't stomach her peanut stew.

-- Anonymous, October 02, 1999

I was in San Francisco visiting some friends, and we went to this Guatemalan restaurant in the Mission for brunch. I ordered this dish that was described as "eggs and vegetables on a tortilla shell. House Specialty". I'm a sucker for house specialties...

Now, I'm a pretty equal-opportunity-vegetable person. But we all have that one vegetable that haunts us. For me, it's beets. Can't stand them.

Who knew that beets were (at least based on the meal that I got) the staple vegetable in Guatemala?

Geoff

-- Anonymous, October 03, 1999

I've never ordered anything that was too gross to eat, because I'm also a wimpy eater and orderer. No danger of me accidentally getting tentacles, because I'm already quizzing the waiter about whether or not the dish has any onions.

I've ordered things at Thai restaurants that turned out to be too hot, sadly.

And I never eat something just in case someone's mom cooked it. I'm a real no-fun food fussy.

-- Anonymous, October 04, 1999

I can eat almost anything, except bad institutional food, which is what I was stuck with this weekend, at a conference. They had varieties of odd meat with weird sauces, like chicken in some pineapple whip shit. Bizarre.

Once I was at a restaurant and ordered some shrimp stir-fry, and it was inedible. The waiter came by and asked how everything was. "Awful," I said. "I cannot eat this." He wiped it from the bill and gave me a dessert, which tasted better.

-- Anonymous, October 11, 1999