…or that guy, you know the one, who goes out with family to a restaurant, orders his meal, and sends it back. I hate that gal, and hate being her (I grew up with an excruciatingly embarrassing one in my extended family) and I was maneuvered into being her yesterday. What happened was I ordered a hamburger as a rare treat (I don’t eat much red meat) and I ordered it cooked “rare,” which is how I like it, but when it came it was too rare—hardly cooked at all. I picked at it, and had eaten the cooked parts and the semi-cooked parts, about a third of the burger by the time my cousins had finished their meal. They spotted the uneaten burger on my plate, inquired, and summoned the waiter, who asked me what the matter was. “I ordered rare, but this is a little too rare for me,” thinking he’d have it cooked a minute or two further, but instead they served me another hamburger entirely, plus a new serving of side dishes, fries, pickles (which I’d already eaten) and then the captain came over and got into a conversation with me (“You did order a hamburger rare, did you not? etc) which I found embarrassing because I like to think of myself as someone who doesn’t send food back to the kitchen. I still do, but it’s harder for me to think of myself in that salutary way this morning.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with sending food back, if there’s actually something wrong with the food. If they served you raw ground beef, that’s a problem.
Also, they really could have just thrown what was left of your burger on the grill, or in the microwave, and rendered it edible. It was their choice to comp you a fresh meal.
Uncooked or under-cooked food is a health hazard.
By all means, send it back.
Improperly handled food, whether cooked or raw, meat or vegetable, is a health hazard.
(Going to Paris tomorrow, will be having tartare de boeuf.)
They do serve steak tartare. And I really had asked for a rare hamburger, so there was only the mildest disagreement about how my food was cooked, and not even with me but rather with my cousin. Without his input, I would have slowly eaten most of what I was served with a mental note to maybe order “medium rare” the next time I ate at that restaurant.
But she ordered it rare! For ground beef, that is by definition “under-cooked”.
The captain probably chatted with you to get a polling on what constitutes “rare” for their kitchen. One hundred people having a problem with it would probably give him pause to maybe tweak the menu.
Rare is going to be more challenging at a restaurant. The range of what is acceptable is going to be greater than something like medium-rare. Some people want rare to be just barely warmed up, while others want it to be one step below medium-rare. Restaurants should probably get into the habit of asking how rare they want it since there is a wider range of what customers want when they ask for a rare burger. If this restaurant serves steak tartare, their customers may be the type who prefer rare to be on the lower end of range.
I almost never send food back even if my order is incorrect, so when I break down and send food back that means something is really wrong with it. You did nothing wrong in my opinion, although I personally don’t get rare burgers, they should have no problem ensuring the food was made to your liking, it goes with the territory of running a restaurant.
The doneness scale in France is rather more clearly descriptive than in the US in terms of knowing what to expect.
bleu = blue, which means barely cooked, hammered on the outside but essentially raw in the middle. “Blue” might seem like a strange descriptor unless you imagine pretty dark game meat. Slap it on a scorching hot grill for a minute, flip it, another minute, take off heat and rest very briefly, then serve.
saignant = bloody. Speaks for itself. Very rare by American standards.
à point (pronounced approximately “ah pwah”) = “on point” = perfectly done by the chef’s standard. This is the most common way to order steak; it can be a little variable based on restaurant preference but generally sits around what an American would think of as the rare end of classically medium rare.
cuit = cooked. By American standards, between medium rare and medium.
bien cuit = well cooked. An American would consider this medium, not quite medium well.
très bien cuit = (waving chef’s knife) get the hell out of my restaurant you philistine. 
I always describe how I want it cooked - “mostly rare, but not completely raw, so maybe more like rare/medium-rare.”
Good thing I didn’t mention the dirty fork. 
My favorite line in a movie may be when Ringo Starr orders a Coca-cola bien cuit.
It sounds like you don’t like rare hamburger and if I were you, I wouldn’t order it that way again.
People who order rare burgers say they like it bloody for a reason. Rare is the lowest level of doneness you can get.
Rare burgers take around four minutes to cook. The goal is to raise the meat’s internal temperature to 120°F to 125°F. This cook time results in a red and juicy burger that will melt in your mouth.
Exactly- they weren’t mad at you for sending it back- if they were, I would think that a full new meal wouldn’t be likely.
And for all you know, it’s a new cook back there who hasn’t quite got the rare burger game down yet on the new equipment, so they’re fine with it as he dials his experience in.
The new meal is more of a sign that it’s a place you want to go back to- they’re committed to ensuring that you’re satisfied. I’d say that the real differentiator here is whether or not you were demanding about your issue, and how reasonable that issue is. For example, if you’re that person who asks for a medium burger, and then quibbles vehemently about whether that burger is medium or medium-well, they’re not going to like that. But if they legitimately might have made a mistake and they ask you about it like they did, then most people and restaurants are going to be pretty accommodating about it.