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What's your funniest/worst/most embarrassing restaurant experience?


BDuncan

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I peed on the cloth seat at a very expensive restaurant. ...  I have a feeling that they figured out what the big tip was for (cringe). :sad:

I'll bet the waitstaff didn't figure it out until after the next patron said..."Hey, how come my seat's wet!?" :laugh:

I ASKED for a SWEET white wine, and THIS, is not SWEET.......

I wanted to crawl under the next table with the dog.  That and the  Ketchup On the Filet Mignon Incident should have been writing on the wall that the relationship was indeed doomed, but It took me another three years to realize there were ireconcilable differences.

I can top this. An ex was horrified in a Japanese restaurant that the lady at the next table was using her hands to dip and eat her sushi, and exclaimed to our server that not all white people were such slobs and ate with our hands, and that he was very cultured and refined blah blah blah. When our Japanese server explained that it was perfectly acceptable to eat nori rolls with your fingers, my ex proceeded to scream at our Japanese server that he didn't know the first thing about Japanese culture and was a poseur. And by scream at I mean rant for a good 3 minutes at the top of his lungs. :wacko:

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I peed on the cloth seat at a very expensive restaurant.

Poor, dear Toasted! I shouldn't laugh, but I just can't stop laughing. If you're lucky, maybe they just thought you spilled your water.

And srhcb, you are naughty. Naughty!

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Having never been to a Japanese restaurant before, I ordered Sashimi at Monterey Bay Canners (a local, middle-of-the-road sea-food chain). It looked very impressive: a big tray of crushed ice, topped with leafy veggies, upon which rested the raw fish, pickled ginger and an oyster shell that contained a green paste-like substance. Having no idea what any of these things were -- and not paying too much attention to the food in the first place -- I just absent-mindedly assumed that the green stuff was guaccamole. I mean, this is California; Mexican food is practially the national cuisine.

I ate everything except the green stuff. But then I figured what the hell, I might as well finish that off too... So I took a spoon and scraped everything up -- and ate it.

I noticed peoples' heads started turning towards me... And then, the world just ... well, it just sort of melted. My eyes, my mouth, my nose just turned on like faucets, and there was a horrible humming sound in my head. Man, that was an E-ticket ride...

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They really should make a point of telling people about wasabi the first time they have sushi. I did something similar, since I'd never heard of wasabi in 1979.

My most embarrassing restaurant moment was a million years ago when I a young mother with a one-year-old child. We were at a Mexican restaurant somewhere in the West on a trip. It was a small place and we were the only ones in there. We were about to leave when I noticed that my daughter had...uh...lost something hard and round from her diaper on the floor. I scooped it up in my napkin and couldn't find anywhere to throw it away. My husband was paying the bill and the waitress was about to come clean the table. I quickly dumped it on the plate and covered it with the Spanish rice. Horrible, I know, but I didn't know what to do. I got my stuff and was just leaving when I looked back--and my husband, who was kind of a glutton, was eating the rest of the rice off my plate. :blink: I never told him, and he didn't notice.

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... We were about to leave when I noticed that my daughter had...uh...lost something hard and round from her diaper on the floor.  I scooped it up in my napkin and couldn't find anywhere to throw it away...  I quickly dumped it on the plate and covered it with the Spanish rice.  Horrible, I know, but I didn't know what to do.  I got my stuff and was just leaving when I looked back--and my husband, who was kind of a glutton, was eating the rest of the rice off my plate.  :blink: ...

Would you please take MY exhusband out for a meal like that one? I'll pay! :raz:

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A special meal at my Aunt Una's in Ascot, England. (not my real aunt)

Hubby and I were visiting, and they put together a very special Sunday lunch for the American couple. It was all family, about 15 of us, they spent days cooking at their house, just for us.

Adults and kids.

At the end of this multi course lunch, they served Sherry Trifle, homemade, like everything else.

They also put a bottle of Sherry on the table.

I proceeded to open the bottle, put my finger over the top, and sort of shake it in dribbles- over my sherry trifle.

I thought this was the proper way! I mean it was Sherry Trifle, and the Sherry was put on the table!

My "nieces and nephews", all 8-15 years old, just stared at me horrified. I noticed their staring, but just thought they thought it was weird to be adding alcohol, at Sunday lunch.

The adults, of course, didn't blink, and didn't say a thing.

Only after did I realize from my husband how funny it was! All I remember is the expression on the kids faces!

Philly Francophiles

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My parents are divorced and my father decided after doing the full Thanksgiving dinner himself a few times that he would just skip the work and all future holiday dinners would be done at restaurants.

So one year we ended up going to the big ol' fancy place in town. A place that is know for it's wine list. While he was no stranger to fine dining as a rule he next to never drank, but this year he got inspired to order a bottle of something for the table. The wine steward is brought over, he and my father talk and my father has decided he wants champagne. Many suggestions are made but my father shoots them all down. Finally the steward is at wits end and asks what my father had in mind and my father perceeded to ask if they carry Marti & Rossi Asti-Spumonte. Needless to say the answer was no and my brother and I wondered if it would be possible to have the rest of our meal served to us under the table... it ws down hill from there.

Edited by Gigi4808 (log)
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Hahaha.. well that's the things that happens..everybody gets some embarassment from time to time.

I remember one time when I was entering a restaurant in England,

and it was a half full and busy place. I said to the waitress "I would like a table for two, please." She simply replied "what?". Then I raised my voice and said very loud "Two!". She didn't hear me this time either. The place was so noisy so you couldn't hear anything. So I tried sign language, and stuck up two fingers in the air making a gesture.

The waitress suddenly ignored us and walked away notably irritated. I even saw there was some free tables! We walked out, wondering what we had done wrong, then it stuck me.

The gesture I've made was not the best one, it can be described as such:

With the back of the hand facing the other person. Stick up your index finger and your middle finger, shaping a v, while you have your other fingers closed in.

In my country this gesture means "two", in England it means "Go to hell" :laugh:

Edited by Hector (log)
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Well fortunately I've only done the lid-not-completely-on-the-bottle thing at home (fish sauce everywhere! :raz: ).

I guess I have fairly bad circulation, and had been sitting the entire meal with my legs crossed. My partner and I got up to leave the table and I got just far enough away before I realized my leg was entirely asleep.

He was halfway out the door before he turned around to see me splayed out in the middle of the restaurant protesting that really I HAD only had one drink :laugh:

**Melanie**

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Oh, man...salsa as gazpacho!!! :laugh:

My friend Miles and I used to work within a few blocks of each other on Park Avenue South.  Most weeks we had lunch together at least once, usually over on Third.  One of our favorite spots for a salad or sandwich was the Sunflower Diner.

One day we were eating there (along with Miles' significant other, Hall), and I ordered a hamburger and fries.  It came, and I, of course, wanted some ketchup.  I grabbed the bottle and shook it, since it was looking a little separated.

Well, whoever had used it before hadn't so much screwed the top back on as placed it gingerly on the bottle's lip...the top went flying off, and ketchup went EVERYWHERE.  Miraculously, I didn't get anyone else's clothes (though I managed to fling a few gobs on some of the surrounding booths), but I did get quite a good bit in my hair.  :laugh:

Ew.  :cool:

In my case, the top was screwed tight all right, but after I shook the bottle and removed the cap, the pent-up ketchup exploded from the bottle and settled all over my sweater and pants. It was not a pretty sight. The restaurant paid for my dry-cleaning bills and has since swtched to plastic squeeze bottles.

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Well, I don't think I can compete with many of these, but here goes. When we were in college, my wife and I toured through some of Europe after I had worked in Germany for awhile. We were in Venice, and wanted a really nice meal - really the first semi-fine dining experience together. So we get to the restaurant a bit after opening, and are greeted by the host. He smiles, and then promptly disappears, returning with a red velvet jacket. We are both horrified that I wasn't dressed appropriately, figuring that the waiter thought we were boorish uncouth tourists. As we spoke no Italian, I tried to apologize profusely, which only confused him. Finally, after some time, he shrugs and then puts the jacket on himself. Oh. D'oh! (It was his, and HE wasn't quite dressed when we arrived!) Had a fabulous dinner, of which my wife only remembers that my dinnner included a whole fried fish, which I was able to expertly (ok, passably) filet with my butter knife.

Same trip, different restaurant. We're feeling confident now so we up the ante and go to an even nicer restaurant. The place is full, and no, we don't have a reservation. Well, no problem, they are able to get us a table front and center (Literally!!) I still don't know if this was a compliment or insult. Throughout the dinner the waiter came by to sweep up our crumbs with a cool little sweeper, and then after the main course proceeded to change the tablecloth! We were moritified that, again, the boorish uncouth tourists were so sloppy as to warrant several crumb sweepings plus a tablecloth change. Felt better after we noticed everyone got the same treatment! Of course, dinner was great (langoustines = mmmmm).

I've been to fancy restaurants with family before, but I guess I just didn't remember that kind of service. Makes for fond memories anyway.

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I love my grandfather to death, but about ten years ago he got to the point where he will say ANYTHING to ANYBODY at ANYTIME. It's like that little part of your brain that says, "Hmmm, maybe I shouldn't say that out loud." just turns itself off.

About six years ago I had taken my grandfather to dinner at a local upscale restaurant that I frequented quite often. Most of the waitstaff had waited on me before and knew that I tipped well for attentive service. My grandfather's usual modus operandi was to talk to the server during the course of the meal ... most any question was game. Usually they were of the variety, "Where are you going to school?" or "What do you want to do with your life?" (I don't think he ever thought that being a full-time server was ever a life-long career option).

In any case, this one evening we had arrived at the restaurant and had gotten a server who had waited on me many times before. It wasn't long before gramps started the grilling process.

"So, what are you studying in school?"

"Opera performance."

"OPERA? What the HELL are you going to do with OPERA?!?"

I wanted to crawl underneath the table. Obviously the server got an extra nice tip that night.

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I don't remember any embarrassing restaurant experiences that I've had, which probably means a real doozy is on its way, but I did happen to witness one with a friend that I thought was marvelous.

Angie's parenting skills never amounted to much. I haven't seen her in years, and I've often wondered whatever became of that daughter of hers. When she lived here, I limited my time with her, because she always brought the kid along, and she paid little attention to the child, which resulted in a lot of obnoxious attention-getting behavior. I often thought about just offering to adopt her and take her off Angie's hands; I didn't because I think I was afraid she'd agree.

On one busy evening in a family dining restaurant, she's ignoring the kid, and said child --probably of boredom more than anything else-- announced she was going to the bathroom, and skipped off in its general direction. A few minutes later, there's Kiddo at the ladies' room door, yelling to her mother, "Mom! I've got toilet paper stuck in my butt and I can't get it out." All you could hear was silence and a few giggles. And Angie had to rise from her seat, cross the room in front of all those people, and attend to business in the ladies' room. It was then that I realized that lousy parents have their own special karma. :laugh:

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It was then that I realized that lousy parents have their own special karma.  :laugh:

I'm actually quite an attentive parent--probably too much so--but clearly I did something really bad in a previous life, as the following will attest:

The whole family has gone out to dinner at a new, funky restaurant. One of the specialties of the house is a kids' drink that's super bubbly and produces lots of smoke (courtesy of dry ice.) Naturally, my kids think this is the coolest thing ever.

My 7 year old daughter takes a sip of her green apple concoction and pronounces it "Yummy!" Then she burps REALLY loudly. (We try not to laugh, because we know it's not funny to be impolite--but we really can't help ourselves.)

Then my 5 year old son takes a sip of his bubbly, smoky, cherry drink. "Ooooooh," he says, a little too blissfully. "That's so good, it tickles my pee-pee!"

Needless to say, we made all the other parents feel very proud of their offspring.

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It was then that I realized that lousy parents have their own special karma.   :laugh:

I'm actually quite an attentive parent--probably too much so--but clearly I did something really bad in a previous life, as the following will attest:

The whole family has gone out to dinner at a new, funky restaurant. One of the specialties of the house is a kids' drink that's super bubbly and produces lots of smoke (courtesy of dry ice.) Naturally, my kids think this is the coolest thing ever.

My 7 year old daughter takes a sip of her green apple concoction and pronounces it "Yummy!" Then she burps REALLY loudly. (We try not to laugh, because we know it's not funny to be impolite--but we really can't help ourselves.)

Then my 5 year old son takes a sip of his bubbly, smoky, cherry drink. "Ooooooh," he says, a little too blissfully. "That's so good, it tickles my pee-pee!"

Needless to say, we made all the other parents feel very proud of their offspring.

wonderful!! simply wonderful!! you need to send that one into parenting magazine!! :laugh:

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It was then that I realized that lousy parents have their own special karma.  :laugh:

I'm actually quite an attentive parent--probably too much so--but clearly I did something really bad in a previous life, as the following will attest:

The whole family has gone out to dinner at a new, funky restaurant. One of the specialties of the house is a kids' drink that's super bubbly and produces lots of smoke (courtesy of dry ice.) Naturally, my kids think this is the coolest thing ever.

My 7 year old daughter takes a sip of her green apple concoction and pronounces it "Yummy!" Then she burps REALLY loudly. (We try not to laugh, because we know it's not funny to be impolite--but we really can't help ourselves.)

Then my 5 year old son takes a sip of his bubbly, smoky, cherry drink. "Ooooooh," he says, a little too blissfully. "That's so good, it tickles my pee-pee!"

Needless to say, we made all the other parents feel very proud of their offspring.

wonderful!! simply wonderful!! you need to send that one into parenting magazine!! :laugh:

Had us laughing!! Excellent! :laugh:

Edited by Katie Nell (log)

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It was then that I realized that lousy parents have their own special karma.   :laugh:

I'm actually quite an attentive parent--probably too much so--but clearly I did something really bad in a previous life, as the following will attest:

The whole family has gone out to dinner at a new, funky restaurant. One of the specialties of the house is a kids' drink that's super bubbly and produces lots of smoke (courtesy of dry ice.) Naturally, my kids think this is the coolest thing ever.

My 7 year old daughter takes a sip of her green apple concoction and pronounces it "Yummy!" Then she burps REALLY loudly. (We try not to laugh, because we know it's not funny to be impolite--but we really can't help ourselves.)

Then my 5 year old son takes a sip of his bubbly, smoky, cherry drink. "Ooooooh," he says, a little too blissfully. "That's so good, it tickles my pee-pee!"

Needless to say, we made all the other parents feel very proud of their offspring.

OMG, that's too funny (I'm the mother of a boy a little older than yours, and trust me, it doesn't get any better in the coming years either!!!) I'm still laughing.... :laugh:

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The whole family has gone out to dinner at a new, funky restaurant.  One of the specialties of the house is a kids' drink that's super bubbly and produces lots of smoke (courtesy of dry ice.)  Naturally, my kids think this is the coolest thing ever.

My 7 year old daughter takes a sip of her green apple concoction and pronounces it "Yummy!"  Then she burps REALLY loudly.  (We try not to laugh, because we know it's not funny to be impolite--but we really can't help ourselves.)

Then my 5 year-old son takes a sip of his bubbly, smoky, cherry drink.  "Ooooooh," he says, a little too blissfully.  "That's so good, it tickles my pee-pee!"

:shock::laugh:

Hey, you could have made it into a pedagogical exercise.

"Now, Son...can you say 'aphrodisiac?' "

Edited by Fresser (log)

There are two sides to every story and one side to a Möbius band.

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An ex was horrified in a Japanese restaurant that the lady at the next table was using her hands to dip and eat her sushi, and exclaimed to our server that not all white people were such slobs and ate with our hands, and that he was very cultured and refined blah blah blah. When our Japanese server explained that it was perfectly acceptable to eat nori rolls with your fingers, my ex proceeded to scream at  our Japanese server that he didn't know the first thing about Japanese culture and was a poseur. And by scream at I mean rant for a good 3 minutes at the top of his lungs. :wacko:

Your ex is lucky the Japanese waiter didn't return to serve him a kimura.

There are two sides to every story and one side to a Möbius band.

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Heh. Any time I dine on soup or a saucy dish, I stand a great risk of getting at least one splatter on the front of my shirt. This might not be quite so embarrassing if the front of my shirt were not so, erm, prominent. :laugh: This propensity increases at Asian restaurants--I'm fairly decent at chopsticks, but they do seem to up the odds of getting drips on my person. Getting out of, and home from, a restaurant when your blouse has started looking like a map of various Indonesian island chains can definitely be an exercise in humility (or something). :blush:

I have the same problem. ;-)

Edited by tryska (log)
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Heh. Any time I dine on soup or a saucy dish, I stand a great risk of getting at least one splatter on the front of my shirt. This might not be quite so embarrassing if the front of my shirt were not so, erm, prominent. :laugh: This propensity increases at Asian restaurants--I'm fairly decent at chopsticks, but they do seem to up the odds of getting drips on my person. Getting out of, and home from, a restaurant when your blouse has started looking like a map of various Indonesian island chains can definitely be an exercise in humility (or something). :blush:

I have the same problem. ;-)

For this exact reason, I wear either black shirts, or busy shirts.

My "Parent of the Year Award" moment, at a busy resturaunt comes from when my son was about 2. We were in a very popular neighborhood Mexican joint, eating a little late that night. My son was verging on meltdown, he was squirmy, in one of those standard wooden resturaunt high chairs, and getting a little whiny. We were waiting for our check. Our places hadn't been cleared, and the service was really slow coming, so we were getting antsy, ourselves. The scene was going from "resturaunt" to "bar" pretty fast, and it was noisy and crowded, so we wanted to get the hell out of there.

Boy Wonder figured out how to do exactly that.

He leaned waaay back, arching his back like only toddlers can, so much so that I put my hand on his back, to steady him, and as I leaned forward, to support his back, he switched modes and plunged face first into his dish, in front of him. SPLAT! Right into his plate of beans, rice, broccoli, and melted cheese, hands'a flailing, he cleared a water glass, as well. He sat up, with the food plastered to his face, with this look of abject horror, and at that moment...the resturaunt seemed to go silent, many eyes were already on us...and then he burst into this lovely siren wail. It ascended, even, starting with a low ahhhhh and cresting at a glass breaking shriek.

I'm still horrified, I think people thought I smashed him into his plate, because I leaned forward with my hands out, the moment he swan dove into his quesadilla.

The check arrived with the 3 waiters, and the towels they brought to help us clean up.

Edit: I forgot to add, the kid, with the tickly drink. I laughed long and loud at that one, so much so that I had to read it out loud for family members, thank you so much, we all got such a chuckle. Sometimes, it's nice to know that things like this happen universally.

Edited by Lilija (log)
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I'm still horrified, I think people thought I smashed him into his plate, because I leaned forward with my hands out, the moment he swan dove into his quesadilla.

I think I know this kid's sister. Somewhere around age 2, she began rebelling against high chairs, and especially when her parents secured the straps that hold the child in. When my co-worker picked up his little daughter and began to lower her into the high chair in a restaurant where they dined often, she began yelling, "No, Daddy, don't tie me up again!"

:blink::laugh::laugh::laugh:

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When my co-worker picked up his little daughter and began to lower her into the high chair in a restaurant where they dined often, she began yelling, "No, Daddy, don't tie me up again!"

Oh. My. God. :laugh::laugh::laugh:

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I'm still horrified, I think people thought I smashed him into his plate, because I leaned forward with my hands out, the moment he swan dove into his quesadilla.

I think I know this kid's sister. Somewhere around age 2, she began rebelling against high chairs, and especially when her parents secured the straps that hold the child in. When my co-worker picked up his little daughter and began to lower her into the high chair in a restaurant where they dined often, she began yelling, "No, Daddy, don't tie me up again!"

:blink::laugh::laugh::laugh:

Hahahaha! Yikes!!! :laugh::shock:

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Well, there was the time I didn't have the heart to tell my

friend, gulping the bowl of "hot lemon soup" that accompanied her

peel and eat shrimp, that it wasn't....

But travelling through Greece, my husband was well fed when,

due to translation confusion, I'd order an omelet, and he'd say

make that two. Well, guess how many omelets he'd get....

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