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


BDuncan

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On my street there is this amazing little Thai restaurant (Bangkok Thai) just a stones throw from where we live. My gf and I (used to) frequent on random dinner occasions when we are too tired/hungover to cook or just in the mood for some great Thai cuisine. One random Wednesday back in May we called in an order for carryout. Twenty minutes later and very excited, we arrive to pick it up. Its pouring down rain so we drove and burst in the door to find the tiny (5' x 9') waiting area packed with people. We walked right into the middle of the very quiet quasi-circle (only space available)...standing room only (4 chairs against the window were already taken).

"OK, time to find the host/ess and inform them that we are here for our order", I think to myself. SOP, no? Well, it isn't long before I spot a 'thai-looking' man directly facing and looking at me with what I interpret as a 'what can I do for you facial expression'. Before realizing that he isn't wearing any distinguishing employee clothes, I look him in the eye and blurt out, "I'm here to pick up a take out order for <my last name>". He looks at me puzzled for a second and then replies, "I don't work here".

Embarrassment immediately sets in and everything and everyone in the room becomes a blur. Thump-thump... Thump-thump... Thump-thump -- I can here my heart beat. Are my eyes watering? I can't see anything. Does my girlfriend feel the water dripping from the palm of my hand holding hers?

5 minutes later (a second or two in reality) a big middle-aged man with a beard sitting with his blond haired wife just beside me, who apparently read the situation the fastest, bursts out with laughter. Senses return and I make an attempt to regain composure and utter as best of an apology as I can muster up at the time..."I'm very sorry". He nods and silence returns to the waiting area. It is 8 minutes later (after standing next to each other the whole time) the 'thai-looking' man and his buddy get their food and leave.

Needless to say we have never returned...

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I have a similar experience like Dividend - only mine involved our ex-President Cory Aquino. I was a member of the Philippine Centennial Committee and hosted a fancy dinner for all the political bigwigs in a fancy hotel. I was seated at the long table with the past presidents and some senators. Along came our drinks server who proceeded to walk behind me with a tray of drinks. The tray tipped and all I heard was the clinking of the glasses and the cold hand of death on my back. The tray tipped and all the glasses and the drinks poured down my back in a shower of sticky juice, beer and slushies.

Everyone, including President Aquino, turned shocked and looked at me. It felt like time stood still until President Aquino said "Are you ok?" I was promptly whisked by a flustered banquet manager and very apologetic server to a vacant hotel room upstairs where they had me stay while they dry cleaned my clothers. I came back to the dinner an hour later mortified but in relative dry, freshly cleaned clothes. When all the guests were leaving, President Aquino stopped by my side and told me that she was sorry it happened to me and I handled it with such aplomb and grace. It's a story I plan to tell my grandkids in the future.

Doddie aka Domestic Goddess

"Nobody loves pork more than a Filipino"

eGFoodblog: Adobo and Fried Chicken in Korea

The dark side... my own blog: A Box of Jalapenos

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Not a restaurant and I wasn't embarassed as a result, but I'll post it anyways because it makes me laugh.

Around Sept 19th of this year on my 23rd birthday, my boyfriend decided to take me to Fenway Park for a baseball game. Of course the game sucked, because they weren't going to make it to the playoffs, but hey we went anyways. Of course we needed something to eat along with our $7 coors lights so we opted for an italian sausage complete with peppers and onions. We get in line and wait till our turn. When it's my boyfriends turn he gets his sausage and waits in line to pay. Of course he thinks he should eat it before he pays, so he obviously needs to scarf it down fast. Don't worry he was going to pay for it, he just wanted to keep his hands free. So he takes his first bite into his sausage and all of a sudden the sausage escapes the bun and goes flying into the air landing on the floor. All the people in line start laughing at him, including myself. I try to pick up the sausage, but he wants nothing to do with it and tells me to leave it there. Some people behind us are telling us to pick it up and ask for another one, so we do and we get another sausage.

This story of course wouldn't have been as funny as if he were eating a hamburger or a sandwich. The fact that it was a sausage is the best part

eta: I picked up the once airborne sausage so he could throw it in the trash, not so he could eat it :wacko:

Edited by SheenaGreena (log)
BEARS, BEETS, BATTLESTAR GALACTICA
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  • 9 months later...

Last night, I went out with a friend for sushi. One of the rolls we got was gigantic....much as you could try, it was too much to cram in one go. I was relatively successful in 2 rounds of biting cleanly and having an intact remnant, while he was having a more difficult time. For the last piece, he nudged it toward me and told me he wanted to watch my technique...

Of course, you know it ended up being a mess and the piece fell apart. But to make a mess even messier, when he commented playfully on my "finesse", I started laughing.

I happen to laugh through my nose on some level, and since my mouth was obviously occupied, all the laughter came out of my nose. Along with the sushi. I dropped my head down and covered my face too late.....

When I looked up, I had literally SPRAYED him and his side of the table with deconstructed sushi. All over his clothes, in his hair....I think I even got the window behind him. He looked slightly stunned. And to make matters worse, at the sight of it, I only started laughing harder- like tears-rolling-down-the-face, can't-hardly-breathe laughter.

I was very lucky that he found the situation funny too! (Once the stun wore off.....) He even picked up the tab!

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My husband and I had taken a ride into downtown Chicago from our home in the suburbs with our 2 year old daughter who I had just recently finished potty training. Since it was a Sunday afternoon and downtown restaurants weren't very crowded we braved having a fine dining experience with our 2 year old. The meal went just fine. Near the end I decided to take my daughter to the bathroom before the long ride home. Obviously I went into the stall with her. She was at that age where she knew enough about talking to try to mimic mommy and daddy whenever she wanted to feel grown up. So out of the blue she said (as I apparently had said to her on more than a few potty training occasions) "Oh MOMMY. THAT'S OK IF YOU POOPED IN YOUR PANTS A LITTLE BIT" at the top of her little lungs. There was dead silence in the bathroom for about a half a minute. Then I could uproarious laughter coming from all the other stalls. I wanted to flush myself down the toilet.

Cindy

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In college years ago, I went to a BBQ place in Des Moines with a friend and her boyfriend. He was one of those manly types, who likes to proclaim his manliness to anyone who would listen.

This bbq had several sauces, one of them super hot, that was quite famous. I think they had a shirt you could buy if you actually managed to eat something with the sauce on it.

Anyways, manly-man proceeded to put a whole lot on his sandwich and sides, all the whole talking about how tough he is, how he loves spicy food, how he and his brothers and father love to eat jalepenos by the bushel full.

So as he's shaking the sauce onto his sandwich, a bit flies on his face, after a couple seconds his eyes start watering and he rubs the sauce into his eyes. Commence screaming :shock:

He goes into the bathroom to wash his face, evidently he didn't wash his hands and thought, what the hell, while I'm in here I'll go to the bathroom. I've never quite heard a man scream at such a high pitch.

After a little while he comes out, tears in his eyes and says "its time to go"

I think he had enough when I asked "do you want to take your food for later?" :biggrin:

We were poor college students after all.

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Recently while at Pizzera Bianco I asked the server if she had any suggestions or recommendations. What is embarrassing about that? Well I already ordered everything on the menu prior to asking.

Luckily I could blame it on the Phoenix sun. :laugh:

Robert R

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My husb., 2 teenage kids and I were in Madrid for a foodathon a few years ago and had eaten a vast number of superb dishes at La Broche for lunch (started early at 1pm, ended typically at 530pm.)

At 10 that night husb and son decide to go to our local tapas bar for a snack, daughter and I flagged it away, so I repeated 'angulas' several times to husb. as that was his particular craving.

According to son, they got to the place, only a few metres away, husb. was given a menu by a server, took out his glasses, perused it knowledgeably for several minutes and then ordered the' leetle white feesh'. Son tried to fold his not inconsiderable height under the table while waiter repeated 'leetle???.........feesh???' with a bemused non-English speaking look on his face. He eventually got what he wanted, son so embarrassed he has never been back, the story has entered the annals of family legend (husb. is an admitted linguaphobe who after 20 odd yrs in HK still uses the cantonese for good morning as an all day greeting, saying to me that they know what he means,.... and to think we are shorty moving to France.....) which reminds me that when we were there last week he thought the French for 8 was oeuf....I pity his future French teacher :biggrin: I have refused as I laugh so much he gets extremely annoyed :smile:

Edited by insomniac (log)
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  • 5 months later...

I have to start this out by admitting something that is quite embarrassing in these parts: I had dinner at Olive Garden. Sorry! I was starving, just got off the plane, it was convenient, blah, blah, blah :raz:

Anyway, I've been there a few times, and it's never great of course. I imagine OG is fertile ground for bad experiences. But this time the server's handling of the wine was the funniest I can remember. First, I ordered a glass of zinfandel, and he asked me to repeat myself. I did, and pointed to the one I wanted from the list. He replied, "oh! The red zinfandel! Yeah, red zinfandel is a brand new thing they just came out with!" Ack. Anyway, he brings it out, and pours a larger portion than normal into my glass, emptying the bottle. I figured he just didn't want to leave a tiny bit in the bottle. But then he said, "oops! I'll open another bottle to top you off!" :laugh: And top me off he did, he came back and filled the glass all the way. So full that I could barely lift it without spilling. Unfortunately, it wasn't very good wine, so the extra portion wasn't as enjoyable as it could have been...

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I recently ate at a local northeast ohio chain that has respectable dishes. Normally I'll go for one of their sandwiches, but upon looking over the menu, I noticed they had a fried fish dinner that came with shoestring fries and cole slaw. So, that's what I ordered.

When the dinner finally came out, there was no side of cole slaw. After getting the waitress's attention, I asked if she had forgotten it.

Her response was classic.

"You know, I get asked that question all the time when people order this. This dinner doesn't come with cole slaw."

I asked her to look at the menu and pointed out that yes, indeed, it does come with cole slaw.

I'm thinking the tip-off for her might have been all the other poor customers who may have asked for, but never received their cole slaw.

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Here's mine:

I went into a very upscale Jersey diner some years ago, the kind that tries to pretend it's a restaurant, and I think I was fooled by the decor, and the fact that they had a blackboard with daily specials, one of which was "blackfish", something I hadn't heard of at the time. So I asked my waitress what it was. She excused herself and went to ask an older waitress (who looked the part of a Jersey diner waitress), and I could see our young lady nodding, and ticking off the answers on her fingers so that she'd remember them all as she came back to our table, which she did with a look of concentration so intense on her face that I thought smoke would come out of her ears.

And as she arrived at the table, using her fingers to count off all the answers, she said:

"It's a white fish; it's very mild; and it's in the fillet family."

Overheard at the Zabar’s prepared food counter in the 1970’s:

Woman (noticing a large bowl of cut fruit): “How much is the fruit salad?”

Counterman: “Three-ninety-eight a pound.”

Woman (incredulous, and loud): “THREE-NINETY EIGHT A POUND ????”

Counterman: “Who’s going to sit and cut fruit all day, lady… YOU?”

Newly updated: my online food photo extravaganza; cook-in/eat-out and photos from the 70's

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