If I eat what I normally eat, and then eat it with the addition of, say, black pepper, and I then have 3 days of gastric distress, then I have a pretty good idea that it’s the black pepper that caused it. Especially if I get the same symptoms EVERY time I eat that particular ingredient.
Right now, I’m on about my fourth week of eating oatmeal, Cream of Wheat, and Slimfast almost exclusively. Yes, that means for lunch and dinner, too. My digestive system is really touchy, and if I try eating something more adventurous, then I develop horrid cramps and diarrhea. I’m slowly adding foods back into my diet. I had mashed potatoes tonight, yay! And a hamburger patty, double yay!
It’s a bit too 1998 for my tastes (plus I dig cilantro just fine), but I appreciate teh sentiment
While red meat may not carry the same salmonella risk as chicken/pork, E. coli is a menace in ground beef (remember the media freakout in the late 90s?) and I assume that rare steak is more likely to carry BSE. Granted, BSE isn’t anywhere near as common as the bacteria trapped in ground meat, and I may be wrong about steak altogether. But be assured that beef is no magically safe meat in and of itself. Some people who had the misfortune of eating at Jack in the Box 11+ years ago can tell you that.
That’s probably true; most people I’ve known who grill their burgers rare were just fine. That said…
Actually, cooking it medium well is a precaution against epidemics. E. coli is serious business. Think of it this way: you may grill a few thousand burgers in your life, but most fast food chains probably top that in a day. If every 100,000th burger in America* can kill someone when undercooked, you’ll probably never encounter it on your own grill, but a couple of chains that get into the habit of undercooking hamburgers can cause a health crisis.
Just to be crystal clear, I’m pulling that number out of my ass for argument’s sake.
I don’t think I’ve sent anything back unless its simply the wrong order. Most of my restaurant experiences have been very satisfactory, so maybe I’m just easy to please.
As for barfing:
I’ve gotten sick from bad clams in a chowder (process of elimination: I was the only one who got sick, and everything but my chowder was ordered by more than one person), but that was several hours after. I also react badly to mussels for some reason (which also takes a couple of hours).
I very nearly instabarfed from a dish called shiokara, which is a kind of slimy purplish pickled squid. It looks even more horrid than in the Wikipedia photo, and tastes worse. I tried two bites to be polite, and then refused any more on the grounds that emptying my guts at the table would be more impolite than refusing any more. It probably didn’t help that I was extremely drunk.
My only true “take two bites and barf” incident was, I am ashamed to say, a result of my own cooking. In my early days of Japanese bachelorhood, I’d received a package of somen noodles from a student. One night when there was no food in the house I found the noodles and figured they were supposed to be cooked hot just like spaghetti. After boiling the noodles, I realized I didn’t have any sauce. But wait… aha! I remember seeing people eating somen on TV and using a brown colored sauce with it. Brown colored sauce… asian cuisine… soy sauce! I pulled out a (year-old at least) bottle of soy sauce and dumped an unhealthy amount on the noodles. I downed two rather unpleasant mouthfuls before my stomach demonstrated it was the wisest organ in my body and rejected the whole thing. Defeat was admitted and I trudged to the convenience store for food.
I only sent food back one – at an IHOP, when they gave me the completely wrong item. Apparently, neither the server nor the cook were all that familiar with their menu.
Just had a latte remade yesterday – it smelled/tasted like some sort of fruit syrup had been added accidentally. The person who made it tasted it and agreed.
Before that I can’t remember the last time I sent anything back, though it was probably a beverage.
Never barfed immediately after eating something. I don’t have strong reactions to food, even if I don’t like it, except for walnuts. I did barf about an hour after being forced to eat walnuts once; probably this is connected.
I never, ever had to send my food back. Perhaps I am just lucky? Or perhaps I am very lenient.
Working in a restaurant as a server, I’ve seen people send back steaks that were cooked a shade off - say, a medium well steak that arrived medium. Now, if I had ordered a steak rare and it came out well done, I would probably say something.
In one instance, I remember getting a completely different dish than what I had originally ordered. It still looked fine, I ate it, enjoyed it, no harm done.
It helps that I’m not allergic to any foods, as it often comes down to minor ingredients (“Hey, I’m allergic to cheese, please hold the cheese!” Then the dish comes out lightly sprinkled with Parmesan cheese -> “Aw HELL NO! If I eat that, my throat will close up and I’ll DIE!”).
I can only ever remember sending food back twice in my life. Once was 14 or so years ago, when I was pregnant with my son. I ordered a tuna salad, not expecting the place to have added dill pickes to the tuna mixture. Dill pickles were one of two things I couldn’t eat at that point, and I was surpised they were in there. Celery, sure. Sweet pickles, fine. But dill pickles ruined the whole dish for me. I ordered something else.
The other time was at least 20 years ago. I ordered mussels in red sauce in a funky Italian restaurant. They brought me mussels in white sauce. The server argued with me that I must have ordered wrong, which didn’t go far in impressing me. She finally brought me a dish of mussels in red sauce…garnished with a long black hair in it. I sent it back and declined any other food from the kitchen.
I find it funny people are complaining about wanting their steak rare and getting it well done. I have had the opposite problem. I like my steak well done, and many waiters assume that means I really want it medium…uh no, every waiter in the history of Outback Steakhouse…I want it well done. I feel really bad about sending food back and have done so only on a rare occassion, which has almost always been at an Outback. Consequently, I don’t eat there anymore because I hate having to hold up everyone else from feeling like they can start eating or feeling like I have to eat my food and not enjoy it.
I have gotten violently ill eating just-this-side-of-raw chicken at a restaurant, so I have sent this back on a few occassions. Something I watch out for is the ‘asshole in a suit’ at a chain restaurant, that often causes this problem. He is there to improve efficiency and quality often standing around with a clipboard, which the kitchen staff interpret as “get the food out faster” - if that means less time on the grill, so be it. These people are absolutely deadly when they show up in a fast food restaurant. The only time I got an undercooked chicken at a McDonald’s, suit guy was there.
My wife sends back food all the time because she always asks for her food without cheese of any kind, and makes a point when ordering to always say that at the beginning and end of the order. If it is something that ordinarily comes with cheese on top, 90% of the time, the waiter and/or kitchen screws it up.
I can still get a rare hamburger in most places since this is one area where I like living dangerously.
I even got one at the LAX Marriott last year, which suprised me since I think it’s illegal in CA. I ordered it from room service expecting them to say no when I asked for rare, and when they didn’t say no I was half expecting to get a fully cooked burger anyway but it was rare and bloody and yummy.
I don’t think I’ve ever sent back a restaurant meal. I almost did once, in a very favorite restaurant…because my burger was medium+, not rare. It was so far off I knew it was an “order entry error” not the cook. I had been very much in the mood for a RARE burger…the reason I ended up NOT sending it back was simply because the friends I was dining with were in a bit of a rush…the well cooked burger was good, BTW…just not what I ordered
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I won’t hesitate to send food back when it’s either obviously bad (as in some rank/rancid shrimp on a salad) or a specific, easy request I made was not honored (potato dripping w/butter/sour cream when I asked for plain or salad drowning in dressing when I asked for it on the side.) These things are so simple, yet I’m always amazed at how often this happens. I always make sure that at least one other person at the table hears my order so that I don’t feel like a jackass. I will also send back cold food (unless it’s supposed to be cold! ;))
I couldn’t even guess how many times I’ve dined out. It’s got to be thousands.
I can only recall sending something back three times.
When I was a kid, my meal came with hash browns. They were frozen.
I once got a pork chop that was still pink in the middle. I was unaware at the time that raw pork was no longer death on a plate. I made them cook it until it was dry and tough.
I ordered a seafood dish that tasted like a dirty ashtray. It was probably fine, but to me it tasted disgusting. They let me order something else at no extra charge.
On the rare occasion (I think there have been 3 or 4?) that I have sent food back, I asked them not to return it to me. I simply told them that I didn’t care if they charged me for it or not, but I didn’t want it and I didn’t want anything else – in those cases the food was bad enough that I could only assume anything else from the kitchen would be equally bad.
The one caveat was the time I asked them to cook my son’s steak a bit longer – we had both ordered steak, mine medium, his well. They both came out medium, so I asked them to just cook his a bit longer, easy mistake, no one was upset.
If I bite into an unexpected bone or gristle I will immediately begin gagging and have at least once puked while at the table, because I couldn’t stop it. It’s just one of those things
A medium-cooked steak is different enough from a rare one that it falls into the “not what I ordered” category. I was at a group event with my boyfriend and we both ordered rare steaks. I got served first and my steak was medium (at minimum). I sent it back. They brought me a rare steak and gave the medium one to my boyfriend.
I had a friend pick up a roti for me at a take-out place where I hadn’t eaten before. I had met the owner in different circumstances and she was really friendly and helpful, and I like to support local small businesses. (I especially like to support local small roti businesses.)
At the time I was vegetarian so I ordered a veggie roti. (Ingredients for these vary, but I was expecting something along the lines of spinach, chick peas, potatoes, perhaps peas and carrots, cabbage, squash, etc.) I discovered to my horror that it contained giant pieces of TVP. For those not familiar, this is a common (and incredibly cheap) vegetarian protein source which is fine if properly prepared. However, on its own, it has the taste and mouthfeel of chewy, flavourless meatloaf (or perhaps a piece of wet foam rubber), and large chunks of it are among the last vegetarian items I was prepared to see in a vegetarian roti. (It’s also cheaper by far than meat/spinach/chick peas/etc, so if it turns up in my meal I expect the price to be significanty lower than the menu items that do not contain it.)
I nearly gagged when my teeth hit this piece of grossness (partly from the surprise, and partly because giant unseasoned chunks of TVP are nasty under any circumstances). I was prepared to throw it out and make a pot of ramen instead but my devoted friend took it back to the store for me.
The roti lady was most unsympathetic and refused to offer a refund or alternative. Fair enough, since I was the one who ordered it. I just never went back for more wet sponge roti.
Once I ordered a butter tart to have with my coffee. They brought the coffee right away, but didn’t bring the tart until long after the coffee had gone cold. Also, for reasons still incomprehensible to me, they microwaved (!) the butter tart, and then slathered it in whipped cream (!!). (I am lactose intolerant.) I sent it back.
I never send food back, and having worked in a restaurant for years, can easily brush off any number of over/undercooked food and wrong orders. I figure that most people are trying to do the best they can, and if its a busy night, one or two orders will be screwed up and if I’m the one that gets it, its not a big deal
I’ve gotten overcooked steak before at Black Angus, but since I can eat steak at whatever degree of preparation, I just shrug it off and enjoy it. I figure that I’ll enjoy it less if I send it back and have to wait another 15 mins than if I just ate something that is cooked more than my preference.
The only time in which I’ve eaten dangerously undercooked items is bacon, and that was on a dare, and even though I got food poisoning, it was still worth it
I never vomited from food either, even when it was from the above mentioned food poisoning. I have a pretty good stomach I guess, and things tend to get inside and stay inside. Since I tend to stay within what I enjoy, I’m usually not put in the position of eating something new that disagrees with me. I hate cilantro though, and I will spend 10 minutes carefully picking out every piece of cilantro from a dish before I start eating it if I have to.
I prefer my burgers rare, but will settle on medium. If a place will only serve burgers well-done I’ll just order something else. I do however get really pissed if I order a rare burger and the waiter doesn’t tell me they only do well-done. This happened the second-to-last time I went to Crapplbees. I order a rare burger, the waiter took my order, and the burger came medium-well. When I complained he said it was the best they could do; apparntly it didn’t occur to him to come back out and ask if I wanted something else when he tried to put the order through. He then acted like I had two heads when I asked for the menu to order something else.
It depends on the place. I’m a major foodie and home cook, but I don’t eat exclusively at The French Laundry-type restaurants.
If I’m in a chain restaurant, I know what my standards are for a meal. If it’s too far below that, say I was at Outback and ordered a medium-rare sirloin that came our medium-well, I’d send it back. If it were just medium, I wouldn’t.
The higher the quality of restaurant, the lower the margin of error. If I’m paying $100 for my meal before the bar tab gets factored in, I’d send the steak back if it hasn’t been properly rested, etc. Luckily, the upside of when I do occasionally eat in a very nice restaurant is that the chef usually has the standards set highly enough that I don’t have to worry about things like that.
I don’t think I’ve ever sent something back at a good restaurant, but I’ve cycled plenty of overcooked steaks and cold burgers back through Outback, TGI McFunster’s and the like.
It’s lose-lose sometimes for the server. I know someone who likes to order rare burgers and I have to repeatedly remind her she probably isn’t going to get a rare burger, but she’s always prepared to bitch even after I explain the laws. The server can either explain they can’t give you what you want, or not explain and just give you what they can give. Servers vary on when they want to get bitched at and stiffed on the tip.
As someone who has been a server himself, I usually put it out there. “You can’t have it rare, sorry. Deadly disease and the law and all that.” Then I take the indignant bitching and figure that tip is up for grabs, but I might be able to wrangle something out of it. It’s usually the guy who tips, and the woman who stiffs because she wasn’t satisfied.
I’m never an ass about it. I hope. As long as the staff corrects the issue I don’t take it out of the tip or anything. My big issue is the proper “doneness” of meat.
Within the last year:
At Vegas, I forget the restaurant. Nice steakhouse though. My requested “medium” steak came out well done. Staff was apologetic, manager came out and apologized, no problem. They comped me the steak (a new one, cooked properly). Good service, IMO. I was happy to forgive this.
Local brewpub - burger requested medium came out bleeding. I’m a semi-regular, so the waitress, cook and manager were all falling over themselves to apologize. Again, no harm no foul. I think they probably should have offered me something, but I like the place so no complaints.
Local up-scale breakfast-lunch joint - I got completely the wrong order. This one actually got me a bit miffed. First, the order is just way off. Since it was just lunch I ended up sitting on my hands while the rest of my party ate. They were nearly finished when I finally got what I did order - and then what I did order had been overcooked. We were already late so I just it go. Didn’t tip on this meal.
