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Once while eating lunch with a friend from work, I noticed a long hair wrapped around my burger. I was just going to set it aside, but my friend noticed and she caused a ruckus. Anyway, nice apologies all around, the meal got sent back and replaced and they didn't charge me for it. But I would still rather have paid!
I myself have never done this. Not that the food item did not warrant replacement or whatever. its just that I am not that picky of an eater and can eat just about anything served to me ( be it over spiced or over done or not cooked enough )
I am not a passive personality in any way shape or form ( actually quite the opposite )
I just prefer not to make a scene and will eat my meal and possibly mention it to the server if they check in that I am unhappy with it. But I have never actually sent it back to either be redone or replaced that I can recall.
Maybe because I typically order pretty standard entrees and do not frequent upper end high $$ places where I feel slighted by my $60 meal not being up to snuff so to speak. usually if I am eating out its a $12-15 menu item sitting infront of me ( hardly worth the effort to complain )
I recently ( past few years ) have really been doing the Yelp thing. And reading the reviews I notice its far more common for patrons to send things back to the kitchen than I thought.
Just curious everyones here experiences and thoughts on this issue
Poll added ( can you tell I like polls !! )
This is me. I will eat most anything but I do tell the cook or the server or the manager after I have paid the bill. I am not looking for a comped meal. Now, poor service will cause me to raise my voice slightly....<s> or somebody in charge that I complain to that blows me off.....
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bazzwell
Just a few times. Like you though, I don't frequent more than average priced places so I'm basically expecting hot when it should be, not moving anymore and not growing anything.
A salad at a Perkins, the cucumbers had mold on them. A fellow diner ordered a medium rare steak at Hoss's, still frozen in the middle. A "flame broiled" BK Whopper that somehow managed to come out almost stone cold. That's pretty much it.
ewwwww........
Quote:
Originally Posted by diva360
OMG, I don't feel so bad now. The only things I will send back, and I do it as soon as possible, is an overdone steak (medium-rare, please) and extremely overdone eggs (poached/over-easy eggs are among the easiest things to cook).
Mr. diva and I are good cooks, though, and mostly eat at home. I do not send things back merely for a menu misread or other error. I will, however, *inform* kitchen/wait staff if there is something like a bone fragment in collard greens or something like that merely because I know other diners could and will throw an absolute hissy fit. Otherwise, my attitude is laissez faire. We all make mistakes!
Also, me.
A lot of good posts on this thread. I do have a child, now middle aged and she and her dh would send something back every time or run the poor waitress ragged. We stopped going out to eat with them.
I've been through the hair thing in the hamburger more times than I can count. Found usually after I have taken the fast food home to eat....what are you going to do....? Yuk
This was so embarrassing! Last night in Italy before leaving on a cruise. Friends had arrived from Australia to join us on the cruise. My husband, Italian born but left as a young child, does not like pasta al dented in the modern Italian way. Always tells them he wants it cooked longer. Sends back his pasta. Chef storms out from the kitchen. Tells him in Italian that this is the way WE have it HERE. Etc etc Restaurant manager intervenes and takes it away. Rest of us nearly die of embarrassment. Pasta comes back sloppy, probably from the microwave but husband is happy. He observes that chef was obviously originally English, going by his accent.
I sent a fish dish back once at Bayona in New Orleans. It was extremely overcooked. At that price point, I'm expecting food art. It came back out a few minutes later up to their usual standards. They were apologetic. Everybody makes mistakes once in a while. It's how you recover from them that matters.
At a lower end place, I'll do things like send cold soup back asking them to nuke it. I was once at a lunch place I'm at frequently where my girlfriend's grilled ham & cheese was burned. Black charcoal-level burned. My "this sandwich is burned" was met with a blank stare. "Aren't you going to do something about it?" was received like a parent demanding a 12 year old clean their bedroom. The dramatic sigh and yanking the plate off the table. On the way out the door, I found the owner and had a chat. She wanted to comp me a meal the next time I came in. I said no, I just wanted the food and service to improve at a place where I eat frequently.
Of course.
BUT, only after talking to a waitress acquaintance that explained the restaurants want
you to!
What?
'The worse thing is someone passing around how something was 'bad'.
The competition is too great for the public's $$.
They are so happy to make it right...because that is what you will tell people.'
So, when under cooked, like chicken parmesan, once...the salad has old lettuce browned or the dish is truly nothing like what it was described and truly not good...like, sometimes the chef creates a 'new fangled', different version of a traditional dish I have.
I do respect myself and will not eat brown lettuce, ya know...I'm never mad...always
pleasant...it was an oversight.
I have but very rarely. I only have if something was drastically undercooked. If it is overcooked I will suck it up and eat it.
What I really hate though is going out with someone who always sends something back. I have a sister like that. At a really nice neighborhood pub she decided to try a new to her stout. She sent it back because she didn't like it. I was mortified! If I could have slid under the bar I would have. She pulls crap like that all the time. I try my best to not go out with her anymore.
Last week i ordered eggs over easy and they were more like hockey pucks. They were re-done immediately.
I once ordered eggs over easy and they scrambled them. So I sent them back, repeated- over easy. They came back scrambled again. They said they scrambled them easily. I ate the scrabbled eggs.
I sent a side dish of cole slaw back at a Bennigan's type, good restaurant...
I said, 'Taste it...a cook didn't follow your recipe.'
They did and said it was awful! I got a salad with blue cheese instead.
Just a few years ago, I would never send anything back...I was shy or something, thinking
it would make me look mean or a "problem customer'....Nope, not anymore.
When asked if everything is alright, I would tell the waitress, no, with a smile...something was indeed wrong...hairs, or something; a
friend would be mortified saying, 'it makes the waitress feel bad'. What?
'It's not her, it's the kitchen'.
I don't go out with that friend...way too co-dependent of a person...haha and I saw she cared way more about strangers, cuz could tell me I was doing something 'wrong' way too easily.. lol
Yes, I had a steak served to me that had black crusty char-broil all over it. They brought me the same steak back to the table. Evidently, they just scraped off the black crusty stuff.
We were young then and didn't know better to just get up and leave if they didn't make me a new steak. We never went back there though.
Another time, I ordered eggs over easy and a wonderful long blonde hair was cooked into it. Absolutely NO appetite after that even if they'd brought me another plate of eggs.
Edited to add: I sent a coke back with beautiful hot pink lipstick on the rim of the glass. Guess what colour of lipstick the server had on?
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I got a salad with blue cheese instead.
Absolutely NO appetite after that even if they'd brought me another plate of eggs.
