If I ever see pickled limes on a menu, I’ll be compelled to order them in tribute to Amy March.
How could you possibly know that the chicken was abused before it was killed?
Track marks
Right, I like vodka, and I like chicken jelly, but I’d think maybe gin would be a better mixer.
Was in Lewisburg, TN for work and hit a McDonalds for lunch. Ordered tea for my drink. In my neck of the woods, tea by default is unsweetened unless you specify otherwise. Not so in TN.
Worst restaurant meal ever was about 20 years ago at Zippy’s in Honolulu. I had salmon with green beans as a side dish. The salmon looked and tasted like it was Gorton’s, freshly microwaved from a grocery store’s frozen food section. The green beans had the mushy texture of something straight out of a Del Monte can. It was so bad I gave up after a few bites. Never before or since have I been served such a tasteless meal. (Looking at their menu now, it looks like their offerings may have improved a bit in the intervening years)
The flesh was seriously bruised, I bit into a spot that was purple like a bruise and was oozing bloody juice, kinda like you’d see if you cut into a raw bird, but it was much more so. The meat was terrible, but cooked. I talked to a butcher I know about my thoughts and he confirmed it. Since then, I’ve seen one of these bruises through the skin of some cut up raw chicken that had been donated to the local food shelf. And, yep, classic bruise. You wouldn’t believe some of the stuff we volunteers see.
BTW, donate to your food shelf please, we are very much in need of something other than Kraft Mac & Cheese. Beans, ham hocks, oxtail (if the place has a fridge or freezer) are great bases for filling, warming soups.
My wife likes to eat at hole-in-the-wall places in rural areas of Arkansas. Every great once in a while the food is good, but for the most part it’s mediocre at best but sometimes downright terrible. In Mountain Home, Arkansas there is a restaurant called Krispy House located fairly close to a Hardees, Pizza Hut, McDonald’s, and KFC. I ordered some sort of shrimp & fries basket and my wife got a grilled cheese sandwich and frieds. Keeping in mind I had low expectations going in, I wasn’t surprised in the least to see that my shrimp had come frozen out of a bag, but I was quite surprised that they managed to screw it up. The shrimp was so soggy with grease that it was essentially inedible and this was the first time in my life I threw shrimp out. My wife’s grilled cheese sandwich was likewise greasy beyond reason and she ended up eating about a quarter of it.
But at least we didn’t get sick.
Canada has many problems but ethnic foods are not one of them. First in the bigger cities, then even in many small towns, now even in most grocery stores, you can get passable versions of cuisine from many different countries. It might be one of the better things about having many immigrants.
Other countries? Their versions of American food can sometimes be surprising. Their versions of more exotic countries can be even further from the mark.
In particular, there are some bizarre versions of hot dogs and pizza served in India. Some are vegetarian, not all are recommended. Rural Mexico, surprisingly, is not always the best place to enjoy gourmet Thai or Japanese food (outside of resorts catering to an international crowd; some people do think it has a certain “rustic charm” if not verisimilitude).
Many places, especially located by touristy landmarks with no seated natives, are to be avoided. Foods tourists “must try” are the worst - fermented shark is much worse than it sounds; Japanese people often ask if you like their harsh fermented beans (natto - they do not expect you to like it, though most food in Japan is otherwise outstanding); screech and cocktails containing amputated toes are not that much better.
What did your uncle think of the squid ink pasta? I’ve had it, and didn’t think it tasted much different, except for a bit of extra umami, and probably just enough ink to color the pasta.
I first heard of the dish when I was taking college biology, and one of the animals we had to dissect was, you guessed it, squid. A classmate said he worked with someone who had worked at Sonny Bono’s restaurant, where this was a popular menu item (the class was in the late 1980s) and another classmate smiled and said, “Oh, really?” and the other classmate replied, “Yeah, the guy said he was an asshole.” And I always think of that conversation whenever I hear about squid ink pasta.
I haven’t had many really bad restaurant meals, but one that does come to mind was something I ordered, and turned out not to taste as good as it sounded on the menu. I was at a Thai restaurant, and ordered seafood, served with coconut in a pineapple. It smelled awful and tasted worse. I don’t remember exactly what species constituted the seafood, except that it did include either clams or mussels, in the shells.
So, what was the purple pepper there for? Was it garnish? Or like a bay leaf, put in there for flavoring?
I can’t remember the name, but I was told to try a Vietnamese restaurant in St Cloud Minnesota. I was severed a plate of some random vegetables absolutely swimming in oil and not very warm. I thought I had ordered something I had eaten before at Kim Son restaurant in Houston TX. But what ever it was, it was terrible.
also, the bathrooms did not have a changing table for my baby, were not very clean, and had concrete floors that were slippery when wet.
As I was gasping for air, I asked about that. I was told it was for flavor and a bit of color. I have no idea what kind of pepper it was, but I was told it turns purple after it is heated.
How do you know that the meat wasn’t damaged during processing after the animal was killed?
Goodness.
I’ve heard jokes (offensive ones, indeed) about what might be served at a bad “Chinese” restaurant, but raccoons have never been mentioned. This place must be a real trendsetter!
The worst I can recall, offhand, are also Chinese. Bear in mind, we have a very nice place just a couple miles from our house. The food may not be terribly authentic (we’ve taken Chinese students there, and they say there’s not much they recognize) but it serves very good Americanized stuff.
It has ruined us for other places.
My daughter lives in a small town in Vermont. There’s a Chinese restaurant not far from her place - so one time when we visited we got takeout from there. I could not finish my food, and I think I threw away the leftovers. It wasn’t disgusting, simply greasy and otherwise completely underwhelming.
My in-laws live in God’s Waiting Room (southern Florida). There used to be a place within about 2 blocks of their neighborhood, that they absolutely loved. We took them there on two separate occasions. Very much of a family place - when we went there for early dinners, the family’s kids were at another table doing their homework, and they seemed to know the in-laws. But the entrees were unmemorable, and the hot and sour soup… I could not finish it (and I LOVE h&s soup).
The place closed, or so we thought. Maybe they just moved location. But on our most recent visit, they wanted to order in Chinese - and wherever they ordered from was clearly channelling the former place. I ate about a third of my entree, and two spoonfuls of the h&s soup.
A couple of decades ago (at least) I was in a place called Salt Water Cowboy’s in Saint Augustine. I ordered alligator. I asked how much gator I’d get and the waiter said six big pieces. What I got were six silver dollar sized pieces of deep fried breading. Somewhere inside them were paper-thin pounded slices of something that slightly resembled meat of some sort. It was a busy Friday, so these abominations simply tasted like everything else that had been deep fried that day, mainly fishy. I have never been so disappointed in a pricey meal before or since.
Some years later I had the opportunity to order gator nuggets at another restaurant. While the meat was more identifiable as such than the previous experience, there was still no way to discern what gator tail actually tasted like.
I finally got to taste gator in its true yummy state from a food truck at a sweet potato festival. It was a grilled kebab of three chunks, each about one cubic inch.
More on Chinese restaurants:
There’s a small place very near our house, that does mostly takeout; they do quick meals only. I got hot and sour soup there that was actually burnt.
And a few occasions that do NOT reflect on the food itself, but rather my own expectations and lack of knowledge:
We were in Seattle, doing dim sum with a friend. This was one of the places where they go around the tables with carts full of various things. And at one point, they hadn’t been around for a while, and my husband said “I don’t care what comes next, I’m grabbing it”. A minute or two later, they came around with something we did not recognize, and a serving of it was placed on the table in front of us.
We could not figure out what it was at first. Then my friend looked at it and with dawning recognition said “I think it’s chicken feet!”. So we all tried nibbling on one, and found the experience utterly underwhelming (to this day, I do not know whether you’re actually supposed to be eating the skin, or just the batter and sauce).
Then I once ordered a “scallion pancake” at a local Korean-style restaurant. Turns out the printed menu was not complete - when I saw the version in the window afterward, it clearly said "SEAFOOD scallion pancake). But I ordered it, and started in on it, and wasn’t absolutely loving the taste, then I looked down and exclaimed “WHAT THE HELL IS THAT???”.
“THAT” turned out to be an octopus tentacle.
My husband and son finished off my food.
Not one single meal, unfortunately.
I once drove half way across the country and back with somebody who only wanted to eat at Cracker Barrels. The mediocrity of it was excruciating. Every meal was “I’ll eat this, but I’m not ordering it again.” I think I ended up hating most of the menu before we got home.
Later I took that same person to Hoover’s in Austin, said “this is what that kind of food is supposed to taste like!” And then we broke up.
At least that’s how I remember it.
Not in, a restaurant, but takeout.
Hot sushi from Kuru Kuru Sushi in Hawaii.
I ordered ahi (tuna) nigiri for takeout. I thought it was a bit odd that the bottom of the bag was warm. Got home in about 10 minutes and the rice was steaming hot! Hot enough to cook the bottom of the fish. Ate one piece and felt absolutely sick!
Went back and told the cashier I wanted a refund because the rice was hot. She was a Chinese national and said “Yes, that’s because it’s fresh!”. I blew and said “I’M JAPANESE AND YOU DON’T MAKE SUSHI WITH HOT RICE!”. Everyone was looking, but I didn’t care. The manager came out and refunded my charge.
Close to where I live, there’s a Korean chicken place called Itchy Butt. Their logo is a cartoon chicken scratching its butt. https://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/itchy-butt-honolulu-2?select=0ZSOYOHkG8A3X7htuf7-jw Yelp reviews were okay, so I thought I’d give it a try.
The “pieces” of chicken were the regular parts cut into half or thirds to count as X pieces (I think I got about 30 “pieces” in your order. First bad sign. I ordered half spicy and half Korean style, which is slightly hot and sweet.
My first bit of the Korean style and I almost threw up. It was sickly sweet and not hot at all. I then tried the spicy and almost threw up again. Not hot or spicy at all and both had an odd non-chicken flavor. Couldn’t bring myself to eat anymore and threw the rest in the freeze thinking I just wasn’t in the mood. Several weeks later, I took it out of the freezer. Nope, just as bad as I thought. Took a few bits and tossed the rest.
I have absolutely no idea what people are raving about.
You can’t figure out whether pickled potatoes is the good or the pad part?
Sheesh.
Bad flashback. They pickled everything in Russia. Pickled onions. Pickled eggs. Pickled apples, pickled prunes. I think there might even have been pickled meat. Or maybe they just liked to serve the meat with lots of pickled stuff on top of it.
I used to think there ought to be weight loss trips to Russia. It’s a beautiful and interesting country, but there’s nothing to eat. Well, not in 1977.
There was this one diner where I liked the borscht, but I wanted the meat left out of mine once I found out it was veal. My mother said I had to get two pieces, and I could still get the sour cream. We never ate kosher in restaurants.