Worst thing you've had in your mouth 2006

[SheenaGreena]

this is actually from an earlier post from another egullet thread, so I will cut & paste

this was at a brew pub in Vermont

"....After looking at the menus I decided on a cup of the seafood chowder and the cajun calimari (don't ask) and my boyfriend ordered the boneless buffalo wings (he orders this EVERYWHERE he goes). The seafood chowder came out all greasy and creamy leaving the color a little on the green/yellow side. The "seafood" in the chowder was actually imitation crab meat and minced clams. There were also HUGE chunks of unpeeled & uneven russet potatos and large rings of carrots. I took two bites and gave it back. My calamari came out with a brownish black coating. It looked burnt, but in fact was covered in "cajun" seasoning. Apparently cajun means dowsing calamari in only cumin."

Edited December 17, 2006 by SheenaGreena (log)

[Teri Everitt]

I love stinky cheese. Love it, love it, love it. But, a few years back I purchased a soft cheese at Whole Foods that could best be described as tasting like electric feet -- funky and acidic. I had to had to gargle with a glass of Sancerre for 15 minutes just to survive. 

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I've eaten a cheese like this....it wasn't the same cheese because it wasn't soft but electric feet is a really good description.....it not only tasted terrible, but it actually made my mouth tingle, and NOT in a good way. I can only describe the taste by imagining what it would be like to go to the dirtiest dive bar in town and licking the floor. Ewwwwwwwwwww! I wonder if there is a specific cheese mold or bacteria that causes the tingly feeling in your mouth?

[Teri Everitt]

hmm, I can't remember if it was this year or possibly late in the last, but it was beef with hijiki seaweed puree at wd-50.  It was like licking the inside of a dirty fish tank, a filthy dirty fish tank. I couldn't imaging being a cook there and having to check the seasoning on that one every time it went out. Maybe it wasn't worst of all time but when you're in a  cuisine driven restaurant and all the ingredients are put together with such precision and care, presented so nicely, one doesn't expect such a sucker punch. I had invited a friend, we both had the same dish, and we both fell silent after the first bite.  Our eyes fell to do some inspecting and suss out the situation, when we had the second que'd up eye contact was made and we both kind of dared each other to go for it. We were playing chicken with the beef.

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I've arbitrarily decided to declare THIS post the winner, for several reasons. One, the description "like licking the inside of a filthy dirty fish tank" kinda made my stomach clench up. Secondly, the description of the highly anticipated dish as a "sucker punch" and thirdly because obviously chankonabe and guest were in elegant surroundings and therefore unable to spit out the offending food without causing a scene.

Honorable mentions go to Begerka because I had to look up the dish in her post and it sounded pretty much as described, and to Sus because the thought of having a big mouthful of pork fat is completely scary.

[tsquare]

Sorry you alredy awarded the winner. I was at an event with lots of restaurants offering fabulous bites. I kept seeing this cotton candy like confection, but couldn't get my hands on any. Finally, as I wsa ready to leave, I found their table (Seattle diners might be able to figure out who's highly regarded place this was). I discovered it was fois gras wrapped in homemade spun sugar. Uhm, well, I gave it a try. The center was cold. I ate it, but looked for something to wash the flavor out of my mouth. This was a really bad food idea.

[Mallet]

My choice (by unanimous decision) was a desert I had at Luke's, a local restaurant. I like going there because the food is always creative and the chef tries really hard (sometimes too hard...). For desert we were served a smoked banana ice-cream topped with unweetened parsnip purée with a chocolate sauce that was spiked with a ridiculous amount of smoked paprika and topped with another smoked paprika cholocate tuile (which was really just a mushy wafer). I can't describe what an unholy mix of flavours this was, and was unquestionably the most vile thing I put in my mouth this year.

[purplewiz]

For desert we were served a smoked banana ice-cream

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You lost me right there. That sounds positively awful, even without all the rest!

Marcia.

[A Patric]

I don't know what it was called...

It was constructed in a container that looked like a very large brandy snifter...

It had alternating layers of:

chocolate Jello pudding

light Cool Whip

Pillsbury brownies

Raspberries with no hint of sweetness or flavor

...oh, and a bit dollop of love

It still sucked

[fatmat]

The trump card... And in shockingly bad taste - do not read on if you are squeamish....

Don't say I didn't warn you!!!

I've spent a period of time in hospital during recent months. I ended up being tube fed through my nose. They feed you a brown mixture of pre-digested protein and carbs with other mixed 'nutrients'. Even tube fed, you still kinda get a taste. This is the worst 'food' I have ever 'tasted'.

To follow, I vomited up five tubes in total. Not quite a ward record, but pretty good going!! So firstly you get to taste the pre-digested c**p they've put in your stomach. Then you are left with a tube going up through your nose and hanging out of your mouth...Choices...Do you a)wait for the nurse to come and cut it off at your mouth and pull the tube out of your nose? or do you b) bite off the tube yourself and pull it out of your nose yourself? - Option b) was the least unpleasant as far as waiting time is concerned.

Sorry to be gross guys, but sometimes you just gotta share (Perhaps this wasn't one of those, but hell, it was cathartic )

Edited January 14, 2007 by fatmat (log)

[Teri Everitt]

The trump card... And in shockingly bad taste - do not read on if you are squeamish....

Don't say I didn't warn you!!!

I've spent a period of time in hospital during recent months. I ended up being tube fed through my nose. They feed you a brown mixture of pre-digested protein and carbs with other mixed 'nutrients'. Even tube fed, you still kinda get a taste. This is the worst 'food' I have ever 'tasted'.

To follow, I vomited up five tubes in total. Not quite a ward record, but pretty good going!! So firstly you get to taste the pre-digested c**p they've put in your stomach. Then you are left with a tube going up through your nose and hanging out of your mouth...Choices...Do you  a)wait for the nurse to come and cut it off at your mouth and pull the tube out of your nose? or do you b) bite off the tube yourself and pull it out of your nose yourself? - Option b) was the least unpleasant as far as waiting time is concerned.

Sorry to be gross guys, but sometimes you just gotta share (Perhaps this wasn't one of those, but hell, it was cathartic  )

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So was the "food" worse than whatever illness or trauma led to you getting your meals through a tube?

[MissAmy]

Ok, I think the "food" through a nose tube wins this thread.

I'll go ahead and throw in my two cents, anyway.

Another poster commented on a Lean Cuisine. I will second this emotion. I went to visit my mother, and because of work, she ended up not coming home until several hours after originally inteded. Hungry, I went rummaging through the fridge. The only thing that I found were several Lean Cuisines and a few cartons of cottage cheese. I should have just had the cottage cheese, but at the LC instead. What a mistake! It was a rubbery, salty, mass of goo. How do people eat those things?! I once worked in an office populated by Cosmo reading, silicone enhanced sorority girls who literally ate Lean Cuisine every single day at lunch. Every. Single. Day. At around noonish every day, the office would fill with the stench of microwaved Lean Cuisine, causing me to gag then escape to find sustenace. I guess they got botox injections into their tongues to deaden the taste buds or something.

A close second would be the inedible quesadilla I was served a one of those dinner and drinks movies theaters. Usually the food at that place, while not the best in town, is edible. This, however, was not. The quesadilla came out cold, the cheese wasn't even close to being melted, and there were large chunks of raw onion. I took a bite, then another to verify that it was indeed the worst thing I had ever put in my mouth, then sent it back and ordered something else. God! It was truly horrible.

[fatmat]

So was the "food" worse than whatever illness or trauma led to you getting your meals through a tube?

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Hell no!!

But to make things worse, my treatment killed my sense of taste totally - I couldn't taste a thing at all at the very end (sadly this wasn't the case during nose tube time). I even tried an MSG loaded, salt loaded noodle snack out of curiosity - It tasted literally of cardboard - I couldn't taste any of the flavourings at all.

As my sense of taste started coming back, savoury tasted bitter, everything tasted acidic.

It took six weeks for taste to even resemble normality.

[Kajikit]

The single worst thing I put into my mouth last year was a dish of 'beef curry' from a Chinese takeout that had changed hands... It should have raised our suspicions when it only took them ten minutes to have our meal at our doorstep, but we were a bit naive and we congratulated the delivery guy on his fast service. After all, the restaurant was right around the corner from our apartment...

Then we sat down to eat. The wonton soup tasted like dishwater, the rice was greasy, and the dumplings were underdone. But that wasn't the worst of the meal. It was a veritable delight compared to my curry. The curry sauce wasn't bad - a bit insipid and obviously out of a can - and the chunks of tomato and peppers were okay... but then I picked up a piece of the meat... It was tough as old boots, stringy and chewy at the same time, but the worst thing was that it tasted positively rancid. I spat it out and tried another piece in case it was just my imagination (I'm not very fond of beef...) Nope. Still terrible. So I asked DH to taste it (he'll eat anything!) and he confirmed it. It was so disgusting that I put the rest of my dinner straight into the trash and we phoned up the takeout to tell them that it was inedible. They offered us a credit for our 'next meal' and we were too polite to tell them that it would be a cold day in hell before we took them up on it!

PS. We were both afraid we were going to get food poisoning from the meal, but we got lucky... there were no ill-effects other than the fact that it put us both off Chinese food for a month!

Edited January 16, 2007 by Kajikit (log)

[Kajikit]

My choice (by unanimous decision) was a desert I had at Luke's, a local restaurant. I like going there because the food is always creative and the chef tries really hard (sometimes too hard...). For desert we were served a smoked banana ice-cream topped with unweetened parsnip purée with a chocolate sauce that was spiked with a ridiculous amount of smoked paprika and topped with another smoked paprika cholocate tuile (which was really just a mushy wafer). I can't describe what an unholy mix of flavours this was, and was unquestionably the most vile thing I put in my mouth this year.

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That sounds like something to end up on the 'Kitchen Disasters' show... I'm gagging just at the thought of it!

[PaniniGuy]

The single worst thing I put into my mouth last year was a dish of 'beef curry' from a Chinese takeout that had changed hands...

I was going to say the worst thing last year was a vastedda (spleen and ricotta sandwich) I had in Red Hook, Brooklyn, but I kinda figured I wasn't going to like that going in. But will try about anything once.

However, reading this one reminded me we had a pork lo mein from a place that supposedly one of the 10 best in town. We couldn't get through two forks. Wife and I both agreed it was bad - it actually tasted fermented. If it wasn't a 15 minute drive in the rain, we would've returned it.