I was actively disappointed. It was a cafeteria sandwich. I don’t think I even finished it.
I agree. I’d heard of them and read about them on this board, but until we passed through CA on our way to the Southwest, I’d never had one. One of our RV campsites was right across the highway from one, so off we went. Totally underwhelmed. The burger was bland and the fries were crap. I had no idea there was something called a “secret menu” that people rave about. I was also completely disappointed in White Castle burgers. Steamed hamburgers? Am I back in bootcamp? I guess you have to grow up with them.
So many things in this thread I really like, including Turkish Delight, though, admittedly, I would not sell my family for that. For me, deep-fried turkey comes the closest. I’ve had it a couple of times, and both times I thought it was good, but not the tastebudmindfuck everyone made it out to be. A properly oven roasted turkey was just as delicious as far as I’m concerned.
Here’s something they taught us at USAF Survival School back in the day:
Q: What’s a good survival food?
A: Anything that runs slow enough to catch. Slower the better.
Oysters run very very slowly. Good thing.
I feel the same about smoked turkey.
Oysters got legs!?
</BC reference>
I always wanted to try Limburger cheese, after hearing all the jokes and references in cartoons and such. I like strong tasting blue cheeses, and thought that Limburger was something like that. When I finally bought some and opened it, I threw it away without even tasting it. It took days for that nauseating odor to clear out of my kitchen.
Escape rooms. 
Okay, this will get me murdered by some of you, I know.
I went to a friend’s wedding in Philadelphia. The father of the bride took all the guys in the groom’s party to Sonny’s for cheesesteaks, and insisted the only way to have them was with Cheese Whiz. He was buying, so we took his advice.
Now it wasn’t bad, by any means. The meat was tender, the break good, the onions added a nice touch, but the “cheez” was gloppy, went everywhere, and to me tasted and smelled like plastic. That took what was an okay sandwich (B+, maybe A-) and turned it down to a C+ at best. I finished it, thanked our host for the meal, and quietly though to myself “If this is one of best 5 cheesesteaks in Philly (and possibly the world) then I’m NEVER having one elsewhere, because it’s going to be terrible!”
I do sometimes think that I could make, using quality ingredients, one nearly as good, and put a much more tolerable cheese [ I’d like to try with a smoked gouda!] and maybe redeem the sandwich as a whole. And I’m sure the leadup and hype around them made the mediocre experience far worse overall, as others have mentioned upthread. But it still left me so disappointed and disillusioned.
[ I pre-emptively bow my head before the more knowledgeable types that about to tell me I did it wrong, should have gone with provolone, or that Sonny’s is more for tourists who don’t know better or similar ]
I’ve mentioned cheesesteaks in threads about disappointing regional foods. Mine wasn’t lauded as Top Five Global but it was from a family style restaurant we otherwise have luck at and it’s not all that difficult a concept. It was extremely mediocre though.
The whiz part of a cheesesteak is authentic 1950s US cuisine. Which era’s cuisine fucking sucked as a matter of record. The same sandwich with almost any real cheese is a vastly better experience.
And although I’m no Philly native I’ve eaten a bunch of them at various downtown & near downtown eateries in Philly. As well as all across the country, since they’ve been popularized for decades now. It’s a nice hot sandwich. But it’s not all that.
And never was. The discussion just above here about Turkish Delight and postwar British tastes is applicable. Most of American food in the first half of the last century was pitifully bland and uninteresting and stereotypical. Not so much out of a shortage of food as in the UK, but rather as a shortage of imagination and communication.
In that bland world of unseasoned boiled beef served with unseasoned boiled potatoes and a white bread biscuit, a Cheez Whix cheesesteak would be bursting with flavor and culinary innovation and exoticness. Now? Spare me the fake ecstasy.
Yeah, you can add smoked turkey to my list too. I love most things smoked, but not so hot about smoked turkey. Just give me regular oven roasted turkey.