NFT: Worst meal you've ever had

something in there might jog my memory...

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Ordering scallops at promptly biting into a metal hook the size of a quarter. My wife ordered shrimp scampi and it smelled horrible. Couldn't leave fast enough...

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Im with my family and a cpl of relatives at The Atlantic Grill on the ues, which is a nice place. So we're about halfway thru dinner when i notice a large roach crawling along the banquette. Not wanting to freak out my old uncle or my daughters i surreptiously roll up my napkin and just subtly crush the sucker. Then I see another one. And another one. Its a fucking hatching. My tween daughters realize and start screaming. We got the hell outta there asap.

was Chili Macaroni in the military. I was on KP for the day. The ground meat was Grade E with a stamp on the side of the packaging stating the lowest grade for human consumption. There was visible pieces of bone and I swear hair. We had to use 1 commercial size container of chili seasoning for every 10 lbs log of "meat".

When I relate this full story to people they are in stitches. I don't have the patients to tell the whole story here but I'll tell you just one aspect of it to give you an idea. My wife ordered a filet of Red Snapper which was on the menu. After quite a wait, the waitress came out and sheepishly told us that the cook did not know how to filet a fish, could one of us kindly tell him how to do it. We described the procedure and waited for our dinners. When we were served, on my wife's plate was not a filet, but a fish head that was not a red snapper. I shit you not, and this was only a small aspect of the entire experience which was truly bizarre.

first and last time I ever ate at Olive Garden was at one in Florida when I was 17, on a baseball team trip.

Ate a full meal of pasta, salad, and bread...the whole meal was crap and spent the next 24 hours sick as a dog and vomiting and shitting on the hour

All due respect to those of you who enjoy such exquisite cuisine, but I wouldn't even eat at a restaurant that's next to an Olive Garden, much less ever walk into another one of those hell holes

MRE's were just being rolled out- I think we had 4-5 "choices" at the time.

Try eating dehydrated meat patties or god help me chicken ala king out of a pouch for weeks on end at times.

That's why I never complained about Spam and fake eggs whenever we got them in the field.

Puke.

...cook and to this day - at 69 years old - still has no idea all of her children feel this way.

Tuna Noodle Casserole was one of her staples when I was growing up.....it was about 3 levels below Tuna Helper. I'd just salt and pepper the living shit out of it.

and it wasn't the worst thing in the world. However, it will be another 12 years before I go back. Unless, that is I get forced to go do something stupid like a family gathering.

between EVERY TIME I ate at my mother in law's house.

In comment 11949099 Ryan said:

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...cook and to this day - at 69 years old - still has no idea all of her children feel this way. Tuna Noodle Casserole was one of her staples when I was growing up.....it was about 3 levels below Tuna Helper. I'd just salt and pepper the living shit out of it.

Loool

friends wanted to get some food there too, everyone sent their dishes back. They even managed to fuck up an ice cream sundae.

I was so sick my parents put a trash bag over my mattress for me to sleep on. I must've been 8 or 9 years old.

My mother comes home one evening with a package of pre-marinated chicken from the butcher labeled Hawaiian Chicken. I'm sure there was pineapple involved and some marinade, so you can get an idea and figure it can't be that bad. We all took 1 bite, my mother included, and spit it out. My father, who was never quick to spend money, declares, "We're ordering pizza for dinner."

Absolutely the worse for the money meal I have ever had. $65 for 2 people that had one coffee and egg sandwich each.

at Cedar Point. Truly horrid

on a trip to monument valley, ordered chicken parm and it was still hard as a rock frozen.

at a Schoney's.

They even managed to screw up toast.

Anyone from Brooklyn should be familiar with this place. for those of you who are not, it is a local place about a step up from a fast food place like McDonald's known for their roast beef sandwiches and cheese fries. Growing up in the 70s and 80s both my wife and I had been there dozens of times.

When my wife was pregnant with our first (so, just over 10 years ago), we were staying by her Mom in Manhattan Beach one weekend, which is right near the Sheepshead Bay establishment. Neither of us had been to Roll N Roaster in many years and she was eating very healthy for the most part, so it was surprising when she declared she was craving it.

I cam home with a killer order of roast beef, burgers, and cheese fries. We were enjoying it in a very guilty pleasure kind of way. Then we each got so sick with the worst stomach cramps and truly horrible and disgusting shits. It was so bad that we briefly thought the baby might be in danger. Needless to say, we have never gone back to this Brooklyn staple since.

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but in the US Thanksgiving 1989 stands out as one of the worst. My girlfriend's mother had 12 people for thanksgiving, they had one turkey breast, no stuffing/dressing, a side of wild rice that was undercooked, no potatoes and only broccoli. No bread and no gravy. The food ran out and she didn't have dessert. They were on a low salt, low sugar, low calorie diet which was curious because they were skinny and the family was fairly wealthy. We went out to the movies after dinner and ate a lot of popcorn and beef jerky from the gas station.
My current mother-in-law is a close second with her re-re-cooked ham and fuzzy green beans.
As far as restaurants go, Pei Wei- I found a band aid in the meal they put on our table, which was wrong and the person who the meal belonged just picked it out and ate it. We asked for a refund and skipped lunch.
Golden Corral- The restaurant smelled so bad it activated my gag reflex. It was summer and it reeked of sweat, diapers, ammonia and fat people. My wife who is painfully clean found a pile of something we assumed was human hair in her food and she screamed and we ran out of there.

I was staying at the best hotel in that hell-hole of a city of 22 million and figured the restaurant would be safe. As I was about to bite into some kind of meat, I saw what looked like rice but began to wiggle. Yep, it was a maggot. Politely excused myself and sustained myself on beer the rest of the trip.

In comment 11949236 muhajir said:

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In comment 11949099 Ryan said: Quote: ...cook and to this day - at 69 years old - still has no idea all of her children feel this way. Tuna Noodle Casserole was one of her staples when I was growing up.....it was about 3 levels below Tuna Helper. I'd just salt and pepper the living shit out of it. Loool

Same scenario with our family, but our staple something unrecognizable that we just referred to as "Beef Shit"

Thread.

Ugh

They had this rice casserole in the buffet. Dished it up along with some other stuff. Found a cockroach in the rice. I just about puked right there at the table.

I always had a good experience at Shoneys...

In comment 11949293 rebel yell said:

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I was staying at the best hotel in that hell-hole of a city of 22 million

holy crap.

In comment 11949323 Chef said:

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I always had a good experience at Shoneys...

I had a bacon BBQ chicken sandwich there once during spring break, stoned as fuck -- and I declared it was the best meal Id ever had.... At that time.

In comment 11949018 MaineGiantFan said:

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If this is an effort to bail out olive garden, don't bother

I had some mayonnaise-based potato salad at a family picnic. I was a kid. 5-ish maybe. Tasted all right going down, but I ended up pretty sick, I guess, and wouldn't for the next forty-something years touch potato or egg salad in any form again. Only in the last decade have I been willing to try potato salad again.

Not good poisoning, but a similar experience with gin. Never really recovered from a 19-year-old's binge. Won't drink the stuff. Ever.

poisoning.

Ugggh!

In comment 11949331 mattlawson said:

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In comment 11949018 MaineGiantFan said: Quote: . If this is an effort to bail out olive garden, don't bother

Hahaha! Absolutely not

In comment 11949354 Ira said:

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Ugggh!

White Castle is great

Don't remember the name. Came highly recommended. We didn't even get to our meals, the place smelled like urine and was overpowering.

God bless him and may he rest in peace, but what a horrible meal.

It was during Lent, so right away I knew there would be no meat, which is a nightmare for someone who isn't a big seafood fan. I went with what I considered to be the safest option, which was a "fried fish & chips" meal.

The batter on the fish was greasy and soggy, the fish itself was slimy and raw. Took one bite, spit it out, and moved on to the fries, which were also cold and disgusting. It's like they were trying to punish us for being younger than 70 - my brother had the same thing, and the other fish dishes ordered by my cousins were equally terrible.

Never have I been happier to see an Applebees, which was in the same complex as our hotel. That was like eating a gourmet meal compared to the crap we'd been served at the party.

parents before we married. Now, I love all things turkey. My dad was a great turkey roaster and made the best stuffing in the world. My wife's turkey and stuffing etc is a very close second.

Her parents, not so much. They boiled a turkey. Boiled it. Boiled turkey looks and tastes grey.

Buca di Beppo in Dupont Circle, in Washington DC. Tasted like vomit.

begged and convinced us to host her birthday lunch at the local Chilli's in El Dorado Hills CA. Never have I seen hamburgers so small, overcooked, and dry with rather pathetic fries and condiments all around. Never been back to any Chilli's.

In some nameless local joint in a nameless town outside of Bordeaux somwhere might have been worse, but at least I wasn't paying for it as it was a work trip...

In some nameless local joint in a nameless town outside of Bordeaux somwhere might have been worse, but at least I wasn't paying for it as it was a work trip...

up in Wells, NY while camping one year. It was raining hard so we couldn't really cook out. We got pizza. There was about a 2 inch glob of government cheese on top of nasty canned tomato sauce. Just awful, couldn't even force it down at 15 years old.

there is a mexican restaurant at an outlet mall (probably closer to ft myers). on top of just the laziest most inattentive service i've ever received, the veggies in our fajitas were charred beyond recognition, cheese was missing and it was top to bottom just a sad experience. however, because of the lack of food options, the restaurant had a 1/2 hour wait list.

In comment 11949684 bob in tx said:

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parents before we married. Now, I love all things turkey. My dad was a great turkey roaster and made the best stuffing in the world. My wife's turkey and stuffing etc is a very close second. Her parents, not so much. They boiled a turkey. Boiled it. Boiled turkey looks and tastes grey.

i boil/poach chicken for my toddler because of the health benefits but agree it is very nasty looking and bland.

The food over there tasted nothing like the Olive Garden and the pizza paled in comparison to Sbarro's

and I forget all the names of places in Bordeaux that I have been.

Oh wait, what is the question again?

--SophisticateLou

with a best meal, it's harder to come up with a worst one.

I'm generally not picky and normally if I go out even if I don't like something I still eat it. And even if I don't, after having worked in the restaurant industry as a youth, I will almost never ever send something back. Under any circumstances. In fact I cannot imagine any situation where I'd send a meal back to a restaurant kitchen I don't care what I am paying or what the problem is.

I did have a girlfriend in high school whose mother reminded me of the mom in Better Off Dead. She was a terrible cook, but that's not why I was there so I didn't care. I did make the tactical mistake of one time telling her how much I liked her spaghetti and canned clam sauce (the red clam sauce) (it was brutal, but she loved the compliment), so practically every time I ate dinner over there after that (which was often) she made that same thing and i had to eat it.

Otherwise I got nothing.