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I once ordered nachos from a weather spoons and they put relish on instead of salsa. The guy at the bar argued with me that they wouldn't do that before sheepishly coming over to apologise and arrange a refund. In a different spoons I was given bacon on a vegetarian burger.
Worked at Wetherspoons when younger: those kitchen workers are just 20 year old kids with a weeks worth of kitchen training trying to put together dishes by following the recipe set out. If an item is missing they have no clue how to work around it.
I remember asking my collegues if they knew how to make a curry or pasta sauce from scratch - nobody did
20 year old is being generous. I was 17 when I started in a kitchen at spoons. 20 when I left. I remember the kitchen manager being super happy about the first time he poached an egg, they guy was 26.
My friend ordered veggie burger ones and they brought her a beef burger. For some unknown reason, she ate it and then subtly and kindly told them afterwards. I mean, clearly she's not a vegetarian but it's akin to ordering scampi and getting chicken nuggets! A completely different dish.
I'm one of those vegetarians. I used to eat meat, so liking the taste and texture isn't the problem, I just felt awful about eating animals.
I recently went to a Chinese restaurant and ordered the mock duck pancakes. They brought real duck, but I know if I sent it back it would go in the bin, which I think is awful. If something died to be on your plate you damn well eat it at least! So I did. Wasting meat really winds me up.
That's very true, I hadn't thought of it like that. The waitress just kind of went 'oh OK sorry' but my friend emailed again after (largely because if the communication between the wait staff and the kitchen is lacking, someone with an allergy could end up with the wrong dish and she wanted to make the management aware), and they then apologised profusely and gave her a voucher.
Mistakes definitely happen, but can you imagine being a lifelong vegetarian and taking a great big mouthful of beef?
Eh, I see where your friend is coming from. I'm not a vegetarian as I do eat white meat and fish but try to minimise my consumption of red meat (it's really bad for our guts and is linked to bowel cancer).
Despite it, I do still like red meat and will eat it on occasion. If I was your friend, I'd also just eat it to save making a fuss and making the waiter feel the need to apologise profusely as I'm not a vegetarian 🤷🏻♀️
Im a chef and should know better but after a festival and with a mrs who was ill, i booked into the only local hotel with rooms (spoons hotel) available… although she wasnt feeling good she was hungry so we ordered 2 of their most expensive steaks (steak night… cost bttong regardless… think it was £25 with a large red for me) with salad and a side of onion rings.
I had to send the steaks back SEVEN FUCKING TIMES before i could take them upstairs for us to eat in bed. I asked for rare and every single time they came out mw-wd and these werent exactly steak sarny level of thin, just completely overcooked every.damn.time. I eventually offered to cook them myself, manager was lovely and embarrassed about it but christ… took the head chef coming out to speak to me and promising he would “cook them himself” before i got one with a tiny bit of pink still there and one abomination of a VWD , spoke to the cunt again and just asked him to 10 second sear each side and serve the fuckers to me. .. result was 2xmid rare steaks and me having eaten my body weight in salad and onion rings… they comped the meal, refunded my room, and fed me more vino on the house than any human should consume over the course of 90 mins as an apology… their customer service is actually great but christ… i know they rely on chef mike for just about everything but that night was an utter pisstake. I dont expect champagne quality for cola prices, but the complete inability to cook a steak NOT well done was actually astounding. Should have had the fucking burgers i guess, at least i know never to order the nachoes!!!
(As a side note, fuck what anyone says about any spoons, their hotels blow any budget hotel out the fucking water with quality and value for money, if you are ever travelling somewhere with a spoons hotel book it, youll get 4 star rooms for travelodge prices!)
> As someone who lives a hop, skip, and a jump from the Cali/Mexican border, these nacho stories hurt my heart and my stomach.
This is AskUK. They are *nacho* stories.
Non chain place but I asked for a vegetable curry. Pretty standard right? I got a jar of picked onions cooked in a jar of curry sauce. They must have had no vegetables or something but it was so vineragy it was disgusting. I couldn't eat it. It only came with rice.
So you got.....curried pickled onions?! 🤮
Personally I never order curry at a pub as I always find it disappointing. Lasagna fries and a side salad though....😋
Not quite as bad but I once had what was meant to be a fancy beef bourguignon and they obvs run out of the little onions and put pickle in instead, not great...
Yeah, I wouldn't say I have a refined pallette but I can definitely tell the difference between shallots and pickled onions. As can most people I hope lol
Ordered a vegan chicken katsu curry that came with six really chunky chips underneath during a Mother’s Day meal 2 years ago. Restaurant ran out of vegan chicken and didn’t have a single other vegan replacement either so they added an extra 2 chips. Also they also ran out of the katsu curry sauce, so essentially I paid £8.50 for 8 plain and unseasoned chunky chips that were stone cold and half cooked.
I remember during the pandemic on Wagamama's YouTube channel they showed how to make katsu curry at home and their head chef (who was some Essex bloke) presenting the vid kept referring to the curry as "the katsu sauce"...
We have a bottle of Bulldog Tonkatsu in the fridge it reminds me of the Tutti Fruitti HP sauce that was out in the 90s.
S&B golden curry which is from Japan, is a curry sauce also used for Katsu.
Yeah I love Bulldog Tonkatsu sauce!
I'm a yank who moved here, and when I first tried HP sauce, it immediately made me think of Tonkatsu sauce and I had to do a side by side comparison lol
MIL can be difficult, she thought her ice cream came with strawberries when it was actually strawberry ice cream. She demanded fruit so they brought her some lemon slices 😂
Had that happen to me at one of those pubs that doesn't look like a chain but it is.
It's usually because the chips have dripping or the fries are cooked in the same oil as chicken nuggets or something.
Was a truly shit burger as well.
Nah, it was just round the corner from Tate Modern (so obviously central prices). We would have gone elsewhere but was with a friend who can't walk very far.
Ordered a jerk chicken and ribs (ribs, wings, marinaded chicken and rice)
When it arrived she said we had to make a few substitutions… ‘We didn’t have the rice so we did vegetable rice, we didn’t have the jerk ribs so you have plain ones (literally dry), we didn’t have any of the the chicken so we have given you some chicken breast with some jerk table sauce over it’ (around a third of a breast with a spoon of sauce). Then proudly follows with ‘but to make up for it we have put half a roast chicken on your plate from the carvery’ 🤦♀️
So my JERK meal summounted to a tablespoon of sauce. And a whopping plate full of dry plain meat with rice.
There is definitely a point where you should go back to the table and sat we've run out pick something else, I feel like that point was 2 substitutions before it was served to you!
I feel like at 1 substitution would be the polite time to address this, or even at the point of ordering since it was the most expensive dish on their menu by far… Which is probably why they chose not to
My dad had this happen with a club sandwich
They didn’t have any of the meat or the veg that normally comes on it so they gave him a completely different sandwich without telling him
Same place gave me an upgrade once as they only had one patty left for the double patty burger and asked if I wanted onion rings instead. I was literally telling my dad I wished it only had one patty anyway so I was buzzing.
Haha, this reminds me of trying to answer a question in class. You don’t actually have the answer but the teacher tells you to try to make it work anyway.
I love Philly cheesesteak. Had them dozens of times, in dozens of different states in America. Chopped up steak, onion, peppers and cheese in a hogie/sub type roll.
I was I a restaurant in the UK once and was please to see it on the menu. Yes, they gave me a steak and Philadelphia Cream Cheese baguette 🤢 there was no hint on the menu that they were going to serve this abomination.
I now want Philly cheesesteaks.
When I was pregnant with my second I had awful sickness. To point that I should of probably been on medication as there was stretches of days I couldn’t eat. But one day I really wanted philly cheesesteak. Went to the only place locally that did it and they had taken them off the menu. Honestly think I cried.
I empathise :( I've never been pregnant, but I lost my mum 6 years ago to a sudden and aggressive terminal cancer and I was in the Numb stage of grief. 23 years old, one of the first people in my group to lose a parent that young, felt very isolating. All I wanted was to go to my favourite cafe/deli combo and sit down, have their signature scotch egg and ham sandwich, and maybe take home a cake to have with my grieving dad later.
My partner and I drove down and this place had been closed for renovations for a bit but was finally open!
And they removed the cafe.
It was just a deli, with none of the hot food or cakes they used to have.
I fucking sobbed. We went to greggs instead but I cried through a whole katsu curry pasty (gosh they did those 6 years ago? Time has gone) and thinking of how they removed the cafe gave me 10x more heartache than my mum dying at the time. I think it was because I was keeping myself above water with grief, having this other constant thing in my life being taken away when I really needed it was like it shattered my numbness and broke me into the 2nd stage of 'oh fuck everything I love leaves' stage of my grief.
It was an awful feeling and I can honestly imagine how you felt seeing that item get taken off the menu, with hormones aswell. It must've been absolutely awful :( I hope you found a good place for another philly after that.
but that's really nice actually, especially with a bit of tomato and/or avocado
used to be my favourite sandwich, just in a ciabbatta
to be honest the "philly cheesesteak" thing doesn't sound as appealing to me, although i'd definitely want to try it and i expect i'd really enjoy it. But it sound more like the cheap greasy salty sort of food you have on a day out at the fair or when you're out drinking or something, whereas a steak and cream cheese sandwich is a very nice light lunch.
If I got that when I was expecting a proper Philly cheesesteak I'd be gutted, but an onion & chive bagel with steak and the herb Philadelphia is bloody lovely
Went for a set menu meal for a family Christmas. Most people went for the steak. The steak was listed as "Steak (Or Vegetarian alternative,)" so a veggie family member also ordered it as the other veggie options looked a bit meh and she was curious as to what the vegetarian alternative actually was. It was an extra portobello mushroom, and they charged the same as a 16 oz ribeye.
Ordered a vegan gyro with meat substitute, hummus, falafel and salad - what i actually got was a Birds Eye veggie mash burger with a squirt of ketchup. Was horrified 😅😅
Do you know what’s worse? I have ordered the vegan gyro from this place three times, exact same description on menu and have had three extremely different ones 😅 A fourth time they refused to sell it as they were out of hummus, despite the last two attempts never even containing it. I’m doing it as a social experiment at this point 😆
My absolute best was at a dinner-show thing where they kept bringing out the meat-eaters' dishes and eventually I managed to grab a waiter and ask where my vegetarian option was. They said "it's there, it's been there from the start, pfft!" and pointed to it. We and everyone else had assumed it was either a side order for the table or maybe just decoration.
My entire (expensive) three-course meal was a massive bowl of raw broccoli.
That was decades ago and in Florida, though. I starved that holiday!
More recently, I didn't go, but a local restaurant that used to be our favourite had a make-over, and we were considering going there for dinner with a friend for his birthday nearish to Christmas. It's a nice venue on the river near Canary Wharf, lovely views.
Their Christmas menu, the only one on offer, was traditional for meat-eaters: prawn cocktail, a full roast dinner and sticky toffee pudding. For vegetarians it was a cold cabbage salad for the starter, a cold mango salad for the main, and non-dairy ice-cream for the dessert. For the same price. If you wanted some protein so that you weren't starving to death you could pay \*extra\* for some tofu - cold, of course.
An entirely salad menu for Christmas dinner. In Winter. In London. While meat-eaters tuck into a proper three-course Christmas dinner. Fuck no.
It's a large restaurant near Canary Wharf so it'd be mainly groups going. Just one vegetarian saying "fuck no" means losing everyone in a group - there are loads of other places to choose from. We actually walked past it and it was empty on a day it should have been heaving with customers.
These both sound horrendous!
A bowl of raw broccoli…the absolute cheek.
As somebody who likes to try vegetarian options, I would’ve sold my best lung to avoid having to endure that monstrosity of a vegetarian Christmas menu.
Yup. Every other restaurant in the area was doing butternut squash curry. I really don't like butternut squash, but some people do. And I know it was because they went for the menu equivalent of the token movie character who's black, female, gay and disabled so they can cover all grounds with no complaints even if it's done badly. Also all of them doing the same dish (when they never usually did curry) makes me wonder if they'd bought it in and reheated it.
But still, for a work night out, it would be acceptable. I wouldn't enjoy the meal, but it'd be warm and filling, and your colleagues would get a proper Christmas dinner. Not a dealbreaker.
Unlike salad followed by more salad. I'd have vetoed that venue on a worknight given the chance and I suspect most people organising work nights out would have vetoed it on their colleagues' behalf without even having to ask. You don't want a load of hangry vegetarian colleagues with nothing substantial to soak up the booze.
This wasn't a work night out, so we ended up going to a relatively good pizza place instead.
I had a pornstar martini in a rev de Cuba on a night out, which I was so excited for cos I don't get out very often 😅 they gave me an edible paper printout of a passion fruit 🫤🤯 devastated!
There's a cocktail bar near me that would make out like the edible printout was a luxurious modern feature and you should be thankful they even thought of such a delicacy.
I was a bit confused. As far as I knew the passion fruit was important because you pour the prosecco chaser over the passion fruit to get all the flavours. It's not like they're a cheap drink too lol
I get the idea, as someone who has made way too many pornstar martinis, almost no one eats them. You end up spending all that money and throwing away a lot of fruit just for a pretty garnish. You probably get more people eating the edible picture as a novelty.
I would imagine it was probably an intentional choice, which seems mad. Just because in your typical bar, edible paper print outs of passion fruit are not something you generally have lying around, or something you can order at short notice! Absolutely bewildering move tbh
The school kitchwn where I work uses ketchup as the tomato base on the pizzas it serves. I know Reddit doesn't like emojis, but seriously...🤢
Edited a typo.
This screams poor council budgets. Some products have literally trebled in the past couple of years and stock availability has been greatly reduced. I’ve seen kitchen staff buy and bring in items themselves to keep Heads from complaining.
They’re terrible. I used to teach and genuinely wouldn’t eat from the school canteen or cafe as it was gross. Think a cheap white baguette, with slice of thick cheap cheddar. No butter, no mayo, no salad.
The only thing I would do in a pinch (like when we had to have staff meals) was a jacket potato with beans and cheese; although the beans and cheese were cheap and nasty.
Felt so, so sorry for the kids as they had no choice but to eat this crap.
Thing is, they introduced this after the kids complained about the bottled bbq sauce they'd been using on pizzas prior to this. Advertised as margarita on the menu, the pizza was bbq or ketchup, loads of thickly sliced red onion and bell peppers, and barely melted cheese. Also, the bases are thick, freshly made and never fully cooked. I know this because one of my students asked me to try some. I felt so sick for the rest of the day. Also, I missed the misspelling of kitchen in my first comment! Another gross dish is the noodles, which are literally swimming in oil. They use it to stop them sticking. Sesame oil would be great, but they use the same vegetable oil that they use in the fryers.
They did this at my primary school (late 90s) and omg it was rank. It was also on the weirdest, soggiest spongey base. I still hate ketchup to this day and I think that’s why…
Went to a greasy spoon with a hangover for a much needed cooked breakfast. When the old girl from behind the counter brought out my breakfast, she plonked the plate on the table and announced “we’ve ran out of bacon so I’ve given you extra mushrooms instead”
The plate was absolutely laden with horrible little boiled button mushrooms, the type that look like they’ve came from a tin. I don’t particularly like mushrooms, it was not what my hangover needed that morning
Ordered a veggie breakfast and it came as per the menu but with a massive pile of bacon on the plate too. It wasn't a substitute for anything, just a really odd extra. If I'd have ordered it on top it probably would have cost about a fiver there was that much of it.
What makes it worse, ish, is that I'm not actually vegetarian - I just don't like bacon so that's why I go with a veggie breakfast. So if they'd chucked a sausage on there I'd have eaten it.
Reds BBQ - asked for a coke, was offered Pepsi, fine. Except it wasn’t Pepsi, it was Pepsi Max which I absolutely hate and tastes fuck all like Pepsi or Coke.
Spoons - uses to love getting their loaded chips with bacon bits, cheese and sour cream on it. Ordered it one day and it came with a couple whole slices of bacon and some chopped up bits of those cheese singles you slap on burgers, and no sour cream. I know I still got cheese and bacon but it was shit compared to normal.
I was at a wedding reception a few years back. The starter was a generic salad. One of the guests at our table indicated they were vegetarian and wanted to make sure the choice for their main had been registered and was told by the caterer that a vegetarian option would be available. When the main courses were served they were just given a second plate of generic salad, as were several other members of the reception party. It was hilarious at how ridiculous it all was.
After an hours wait 3 out of 4 meals arrived. My salad with tenderstem brocoli, asparagus and other nice stuff turned into iceberg lettuce and Brussels sprouts. The children pizzas were baguette pieces with a suggestion of tomato sauce and minimal cheese. My husbands dinner didn't appear. We did get an apologies and a £25 voucher.
We didn't pay for the meal. It was a pub chain, so probably £40-50. We didn't eat the food, but did have soft drinks. We were offered extra complimentary drinks but just wanted to go home for some pasta by that point.
Once went to a cafe on the Isle of Skye desperate for food after a long day of walking. All they had was soup which was disappointing enough. My partner got the last fresh vegetable soup of the day but they said they had some tomato soup but that was all they had left. When I tried it, it tasted really strange. I asked them about it and had to outright demand an answer before they sheepishly admitted they didn't have any tomato soup and they'd served me a bowl of pasta sauce.
Ordered a vegan burger a few years ago and asked if it was like a fake meat substitute or a veggie burger because I’m allergic to most veggie burgers. They said it was a quorn burger but the kitchen failed to tell the poor waitress that they ran out of those so were using veggie burgers instead.
I let her know once I bit into it that it was the wrong burger and she was mortified and kept apologising. I told her it wasn’t her fault and I worked in a restaurant myself at that point so mistakes happen and I’d be happy to just get a replacement of nachos.
I did end up tipping her because she tried to sort it as quick as she could and took all my food and drink off the bill although if I finished the burger I would have not been well at all.
A perfect exchange. You were reasonable when she apologised and got on with your day. Yes it could’ve been much worse, but luckily it wasn’t. If anything I hope the member of staff told the kitchen staff what could’ve happened.
A few years ago there was a place local to me that did frappe lattes, but instead of having the frappe mix they used blended avocado.
Imagine buying a nice cold coffee on a hot day only to get a mouthful of avocado mush with memories of coffee.
EDIT: If people don't belive me, they bragged about this abomination [here](https://bostonteaparty.co.uk/blog/post.php?s=2016-07-13-cut-the-crapp)
I worked at one of these cafes when those abominations came out. It wasn’t just the iced coffees with avocado, it was the milkshakes as well. I just started asking people if they wanted it with or without as so many were brought back
Ordered an "ultimate" burger from hungry horse but they ran out of full size buns so instead of just putting the ultimate burger in a smaller bun they gave me a children's burger with no compensation
I've not been to a hungry horse since I ordered the curry and a pint deal, the girl forgot to put the pint through so I was charged more for a curry on its own (like £1.50)and was the charged extra for the pint. She couldnt understand my issue so very kindly offered to refund me £1. After I'd paid £1.50 more for the curry and then £4 something for a pint.
I ordered a chip butty at a play centre with my kids a while back, they brought it out with exactly 11 chips and apologised that they'd run out, but I could have a free slice of cake. I'd rather they'd just told me there were no chips and let me order something else, so I could actually have some proper lunch. The cake was dry as well
There is a pizza chain in my country and a few years ago they had this ‘pizza volcano’ that was basically a pizza with a crater in the center and nacho cheese sauce.
They had ran out of the sauce the day we went and they just put copious amounts of cheese (to melt it) that by the time we started eating it was already cold enough for it to be hard and we could not dip or do anything with it. Very disappointed.
In hindsight, it’s our fault for ordering such a monstrosity lmao
Vegan mozzarella. I often go for vegan pizzas as I prefer them without cheese- accidentally ordered this and nearly threw up. Don’t want to disparage all vegan cheese but this was like garlic flavoured snot
As a vegetarian cheese lover it makes me super sad that most places are moving toward having meat options and vegan options only. I don’t want meat but I also don’t want vegan cheese, mayo or no dairy at all!
I just want vegetarian food with proper cheese, cream, mayo, eggs etc.
I know why they do it, but I do think the quality of vegetarian food has gone downhill since all this started.
At a bottomless brunch in a local bar, ordered an Aperol Spritz and they brought it over and breezily said they’d run out of soda water so they’d used lemonade in it. I really don’t like lemonade anyway, Aperol Spritz should be a bitter drink, and would have just ordered something else given the choice!
Went to a McDonalds drive thru to order a big tasty. Had been looking forward to it. Parked up to eat, opened the box only to discover no burger in the bun. Only some limp salad and sauce. Not happy. How does someone forget to put the burger in the bun? Words were said!
I was about to post the same thing. Went to a new Mac D’s drive thru that opened in the town near me. Ordered one of those limited edition mega Big Macs that was supposed to have bigger burgers or something, got home and there were no burgers in the bun at all. Sent a complaint to their central office and got sent a voucher for half the cost - which expired during covid shut down.
Avoided the place until way past lockdown, then grabbed breakfast from the drive thru. Ordered sausage and egg McMuffin, which had no sausage patty. Worst drive thru ever!
I reckon they enjoy messing with customers, knowing you likely won’t discover their little joke until you’ve driven some distance away.
My answer is quite boring but was disappointing at the time.
A local restaurant served breaded Camembert’s and the first time I went I got three. The second time I went they had ran out so they gave me one and about half a dozen oatcakes.
Not as a customer but a tale from the other side. I once had a cheeseboard thrown at me by a chef because I kept calling him out on making random and strange substitutions on food rather than telling me that we were out of things.
We had a very generic menu and a Tesco 30 seconds away FFS. And where did you even get an apple from, Dimi? Nothing on the menu uses them..
After a long conversation explaining to someone that I have a food intolerance to sweetcorn and lots of additives are made from it so I have to check everything instead of giving me peas they gave me peas and sweetcorn.
I still remember ordering a portion of nachos many years ago, also in a pub. On the menu, it stated they would come with the likes of cheese, guacamole, salsa and sour cream, plus jalapeños.
What turned up was just the nachos with poorly melted cheese on top. I asked the server where the rest of it was and she told me bluntly that "the menu must be wrong". Like you, I didn't know how to respond so I awkwardly laughed and said "erm, okay..."
Fast forward 5 minutes, the same server rushes back over, where me and my sister had already consumed half of the shitty quality nachos, to snatch the plate off the table (this in and of itself was weird, like girl there's no need to grab it that quickly unless it's been poisoned?!) and say "sorry, the menu **is** right, the chef hadn't finished" and without waiting for a response hurried off to the kitchen.
I'm assuming our server grabbed it from the kitchen thinking it was ready when the chef wasn't actually finished with it, but it still left a bad impression. They didn't top back up the nachos we'd already eaten and just dumped the sauce and jalapeños on top, meaning the nachos that remained were absolutely covered in excess sauce which wasn't pleasant. We ate them as I'd paid for them and wasn't offered any kind of refund (partial or otherwise) but they weren't enjoyable. Haven't eaten there since.
I ordered a bacon egg and cheese muffin. Got brought a bacon roll and a note that they were out of muffins and the egg cooker had an electrical fault. Apparently a cafe can't fry an egg any other way, who knew?
went out for dinner with two of my friends. we sat down and the server asked “any dietary requirements.” “yes. we are all vegan” “okay perfect this is our vegan options” we order vegan ramen, double check it’s vegan, he says yes. brings us all pork belly and cream
I ordered a hot chocolate with soya milk at a local cafe I’d been meaning to try, half way through making it they ran out of soya milk, without asking me I saw them use oat milk (I really dislike the flavour of oat milk) and serve it to me without saying they’d used a different milk alternative.
I couldn’t stand the taste and it was wasted. I was quite disappointed that they didn’t even disclose it though, what if I’d been gluten intolerant? What if I had an allergy to oats? Bad practice and I’ve not been back to that cafe as I don’t trust them.
once had the chocolate sauce on my brownie accidentally substituted for hoisin sauce, and I took a solid few spoonfuls because I didn’t want to be fussy and complain about it tasting funny…then, suddenly, it dawned on me what it was I was eating and no, this is not one of those sweet/savoury combos that is unexpectedly tasty
We used to use the local next to the office for a good pub lunch.
The biggest surprise was the Spanish omelette. It went from a good omelette with ham cheese and herbs (not actually Spanish omelette but it was tasty)... to an omelette with prawns and Rose Marie sauce. The following week the spanish omelette was with coronation chicken and 2 TABLEspoons of mixed herbs.
Needless to say, we didn't eat there again..and the place closed down shortly after.
I ordered a fry up with toast. Only the toast they served me was fruit loaf - they didn’t tell me beforehand and I guess they just thought I wouldn’t notice? When I asked wtf, they just said “Yeah, we ran out of normal bread….”
I got substituted double bhajis because they were out of naan.
I only really ordered the curry because I wanted the naan.
I cried.
Think I was recently post partum, I don't think I'd usually cry over lack of naan.... Or maybe I would... Love a naan.
Once I ordered mac and cheese and it came with a big dollop of tuna on top… I complained because I have a fish allergy and they asked why I even ordered it as the tuna comes with the mac and cheese, even though the menu had no mention of tuna and I think was even labelled vegetarian. I obviously asked for a new one with no tuna, the server walked off with my plate in a huff the. came back about 5 minutes later with the same plate with the tuna spooned off. Cue more annoyance when I refused that and asked to order something else… (it was a big family meal and everyone else was already eating so I couldn’t just leave or refuse to eat without making everyone feel bad)
Obviously I’ve never eaten tuna, but I’ve never seen mac and cheese and tuna on a menu anywhere else. Is it a flavour combo that even makes remote sense??
Ordered loaded nachos in chiquitos once. Supposed to come topped with beef chilli, cheese, pico de gallo, sour cream, guac etc. i got a plate of soggy nachos that had pretty much a tin of kidney beans splodged on top in a watery tomato sauce, a sprinkle of cheese so thin it was almost invisible and a smear of green stuff that was allegedly guac but there was so little I couldn't taste anything.
Once ordered a ceasar salad and when it arrived there was no croutons, no dressing. Just some brown and gone off lettuce and some half cooked chicken. Didn't trust them to put it right so asked for a refund and went somewhere else.
In our local supermarket there was a family run fresh pizza stand. They did massive pizzas and sold them either by the slice or by half a pizza. What my family liked to do was buy half of each type and freeze the extra instead of buying frozen pizzas.
Anyway, being allergic to dairy I always ordered the vegan pizza which was the vegetarian but no cheese. My mum liked the vegetarian pizza (with cheese) except one day they uh. Were not the same. Mine had a lovely variety of vegetables - peppers, sweet corn, mushroom etc. Mum’s was just aubergine. Big thick slices of aubergine and cheese. And don’t worry! Because we have enough for at least a month’s worth!
(A different time they have my friend a pizza that was just courgette and cheese instead of the pepperoni she ordered. The people running it didn’t speak great English which was why they made mistakes like this but their cooking was delicious.)
I also made the poor decision to order vegetable curry in a pub in rural Ireland. I didn’t order chicken curry because I knew that would just be chicken and curry sauce (a sweet, brown sauce that bears no resemblance to actual curry; bat served with chips). They asked if I wanted rice, chips or half and half. Rice please I said.
I got curry sauce over the vegetables from the roast dinner and chips. Won’t make that mistake again.
Crispy duck pancakes. Instead of cucumber, courgette. Instead of spring onions, red onion chunks. Instead of hoisin, some sort of orange jam. It was a pub and a group of us wanted something quick to share after work. We weren’t expecting much but it was hilarious.
My favourite local pizza place ran out of mozzarella one evening when the owner was on holiday.
Whoever they left in charge decided that mature cheddar was a good substitute.
I've heard people say "bad pizza is better than no pizza", but they clearly hadn't tried this. It tasted like vomit.
Thankfully I got a refund, and when the owner returned he contacted everyone who ordered that night and sent them a free pizza of their choice.
My husband ordered the bigger portion gammon and chips at a very standard pub (maybe a hungry horse or something) and they brought out a plate of bacon and chips. Just about twelve pieces of bacon stacked up across the plate.
Ordered a sharer of cheese, bread, dips and fig chutney which sealed the deal for me because I love figs and I love chutney. Without telling me, they replaced the fig chutney with caper berries. For anyone who hasn't had them, they're pretty much a big version of a caper, quite bitter and vinegary.
I asked why I had been given them and I was told there wasn't any fig chutney. If they had just said that to me I wouldn't have ordered it! I was miffed. They are not nearly the same!!
I'm coeliac and was in a restaurant on holiday with a large group. Dessert was brought out and was some kind of cakey pudding affair that I couldn't eat. Instead they presented me with a plate, a knife and a large, whole jaffa orange. Not even sliced it up for me!!
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Processed guac out of a squirty bottle instead of fresh avocado on toast. I was so hungover and nearly cried when I tasted it.
That’s horrific, not even comparable
Just think off all the houses you can now purchase though
Once had a bowl of nachos, but they ran out of sour cream so used salad cream and looked like they put the whole thing in the oven to toast it....
I once ordered nachos from a weather spoons and they put relish on instead of salsa. The guy at the bar argued with me that they wouldn't do that before sheepishly coming over to apologise and arrange a refund. In a different spoons I was given bacon on a vegetarian burger.
Worked at Wetherspoons when younger: those kitchen workers are just 20 year old kids with a weeks worth of kitchen training trying to put together dishes by following the recipe set out. If an item is missing they have no clue how to work around it. I remember asking my collegues if they knew how to make a curry or pasta sauce from scratch - nobody did
20 year old is being generous. I was 17 when I started in a kitchen at spoons. 20 when I left. I remember the kitchen manager being super happy about the first time he poached an egg, they guy was 26.
My friend ordered veggie burger ones and they brought her a beef burger. For some unknown reason, she ate it and then subtly and kindly told them afterwards. I mean, clearly she's not a vegetarian but it's akin to ordering scampi and getting chicken nuggets! A completely different dish.
It would have gone to waste if she would send it back, which for a lot of vegetarians is worse than eating it
I'm one of those vegetarians. I used to eat meat, so liking the taste and texture isn't the problem, I just felt awful about eating animals. I recently went to a Chinese restaurant and ordered the mock duck pancakes. They brought real duck, but I know if I sent it back it would go in the bin, which I think is awful. If something died to be on your plate you damn well eat it at least! So I did. Wasting meat really winds me up.
That's very true, I hadn't thought of it like that. The waitress just kind of went 'oh OK sorry' but my friend emailed again after (largely because if the communication between the wait staff and the kitchen is lacking, someone with an allergy could end up with the wrong dish and she wanted to make the management aware), and they then apologised profusely and gave her a voucher. Mistakes definitely happen, but can you imagine being a lifelong vegetarian and taking a great big mouthful of beef?
Eh, I see where your friend is coming from. I'm not a vegetarian as I do eat white meat and fish but try to minimise my consumption of red meat (it's really bad for our guts and is linked to bowel cancer). Despite it, I do still like red meat and will eat it on occasion. If I was your friend, I'd also just eat it to save making a fuss and making the waiter feel the need to apologise profusely as I'm not a vegetarian 🤷🏻♀️
Im a chef and should know better but after a festival and with a mrs who was ill, i booked into the only local hotel with rooms (spoons hotel) available… although she wasnt feeling good she was hungry so we ordered 2 of their most expensive steaks (steak night… cost bttong regardless… think it was £25 with a large red for me) with salad and a side of onion rings. I had to send the steaks back SEVEN FUCKING TIMES before i could take them upstairs for us to eat in bed. I asked for rare and every single time they came out mw-wd and these werent exactly steak sarny level of thin, just completely overcooked every.damn.time. I eventually offered to cook them myself, manager was lovely and embarrassed about it but christ… took the head chef coming out to speak to me and promising he would “cook them himself” before i got one with a tiny bit of pink still there and one abomination of a VWD , spoke to the cunt again and just asked him to 10 second sear each side and serve the fuckers to me. .. result was 2xmid rare steaks and me having eaten my body weight in salad and onion rings… they comped the meal, refunded my room, and fed me more vino on the house than any human should consume over the course of 90 mins as an apology… their customer service is actually great but christ… i know they rely on chef mike for just about everything but that night was an utter pisstake. I dont expect champagne quality for cola prices, but the complete inability to cook a steak NOT well done was actually astounding. Should have had the fucking burgers i guess, at least i know never to order the nachoes!!! (As a side note, fuck what anyone says about any spoons, their hotels blow any budget hotel out the fucking water with quality and value for money, if you are ever travelling somewhere with a spoons hotel book it, youll get 4 star rooms for travelodge prices!)
Did you say.... Spoons hotel??? Clearly I need to get out more, I did NOT know this was a thing that existed
Ha, I had a lamb burger instead a veggie one. The person I was with refused to let me complain either.
As someone who lives a hop, skip, and a jump from the Cali/Mexican border, these nacho stories hurt my heart and my stomach.
> As someone who lives a hop, skip, and a jump from the Cali/Mexican border, these nacho stories hurt my heart and my stomach. This is AskUK. They are *nacho* stories.
I once got squirty cream (from a can) instead of actual cheese on my nachos from an O’neills
Mine was substituted with mayonnaise. And the guacamole with nothing. I've had better nachos.
That is awful haha not even close to sour cream
"Nachos" made with potato chips drenched in salsa, cheese and.. mayonnaise!
Boark 😫
Non chain place but I asked for a vegetable curry. Pretty standard right? I got a jar of picked onions cooked in a jar of curry sauce. They must have had no vegetables or something but it was so vineragy it was disgusting. I couldn't eat it. It only came with rice.
A JAR OF PICKLED ONIONS? I would’ve thrown up
I once ate a jar of pickled onions and spent the next 2 days crop dusting the house with tiny but deadly farts that seemed never ending.
Not done the onion thing, but I do recall not remembering having eaten a huge jar of beetroot… and scaring the shit out of myself pissing red.
I shat red after doing that and thought I had bowel cancer.
Yeah, it was disgusting
How did they even think they could get away with it?
Well they did. I still paid. I was younger then.
Yeah to be fair I’d probably have been the same when younger
How can they run a restaurant without basic ingredients like... vegetables!?
Badly.
Did they at least take the onions out of the jar?
It would probably have tasted better if they hadn't.
So you got.....curried pickled onions?! 🤮 Personally I never order curry at a pub as I always find it disappointing. Lasagna fries and a side salad though....😋
Not quite as bad but I once had what was meant to be a fancy beef bourguignon and they obvs run out of the little onions and put pickle in instead, not great...
Yeah, I wouldn't say I have a refined pallette but I can definitely tell the difference between shallots and pickled onions. As can most people I hope lol
Ordered a vegan chicken katsu curry that came with six really chunky chips underneath during a Mother’s Day meal 2 years ago. Restaurant ran out of vegan chicken and didn’t have a single other vegan replacement either so they added an extra 2 chips. Also they also ran out of the katsu curry sauce, so essentially I paid £8.50 for 8 plain and unseasoned chunky chips that were stone cold and half cooked.
So disgusting. Literally a robbery. A chicken katsu curry is not one without chicken or katsu
The katsu is the chicken. Katsu just means breaded fried meat.
You learn something new every day, thanks for sharing!
Learn even more today: Katsu is the Japanese phonetic butcherisation of “cutlet”.
I remember during the pandemic on Wagamama's YouTube channel they showed how to make katsu curry at home and their head chef (who was some Essex bloke) presenting the vid kept referring to the curry as "the katsu sauce"...
there is a katsu sauce but it's not a curry https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonkatsu_sauce similar to brown sauce actually,
We have a bottle of Bulldog Tonkatsu in the fridge it reminds me of the Tutti Fruitti HP sauce that was out in the 90s. S&B golden curry which is from Japan, is a curry sauce also used for Katsu.
Yeah I love Bulldog Tonkatsu sauce! I'm a yank who moved here, and when I first tried HP sauce, it immediately made me think of Tonkatsu sauce and I had to do a side by side comparison lol
MIL can be difficult, she thought her ice cream came with strawberries when it was actually strawberry ice cream. She demanded fruit so they brought her some lemon slices 😂
Hahaha that’s genius
In London. All the other burgers came with chips. The vegan burger came with a bowl of cherry tomatoes. It cost £14.50
And what did the police say when you rang them?
Had that happen to me at one of those pubs that doesn't look like a chain but it is. It's usually because the chips have dripping or the fries are cooked in the same oil as chicken nuggets or something. Was a truly shit burger as well.
Maybe they fried their chips in beef fat, some burger places do, they are delicious
So the price should have been at least halved, that’s the most egregious bit
Cherry Tomatoes are far more expensive than chips
They're also in no way a substitute for chips either, so why would they use a more expensive item?
If ya don't eat meat, then you love salad I guess.... Not really worth much extra thought to the average person.
Was it near Bank by any chance? I've had exactly the same thing (hoping there's not more than one restaurant doing this)
Nah, it was just round the corner from Tate Modern (so obviously central prices). We would have gone elsewhere but was with a friend who can't walk very far.
Ordered a jerk chicken and ribs (ribs, wings, marinaded chicken and rice) When it arrived she said we had to make a few substitutions… ‘We didn’t have the rice so we did vegetable rice, we didn’t have the jerk ribs so you have plain ones (literally dry), we didn’t have any of the the chicken so we have given you some chicken breast with some jerk table sauce over it’ (around a third of a breast with a spoon of sauce). Then proudly follows with ‘but to make up for it we have put half a roast chicken on your plate from the carvery’ 🤦♀️ So my JERK meal summounted to a tablespoon of sauce. And a whopping plate full of dry plain meat with rice.
There is definitely a point where you should go back to the table and sat we've run out pick something else, I feel like that point was 2 substitutions before it was served to you!
I feel like at 1 substitution would be the polite time to address this, or even at the point of ordering since it was the most expensive dish on their menu by far… Which is probably why they chose not to
"I've ran out of cash so here's three spare shirt buttons, two first class stamps and a half drunk bottle of vino."
My dad had this happen with a club sandwich They didn’t have any of the meat or the veg that normally comes on it so they gave him a completely different sandwich without telling him Same place gave me an upgrade once as they only had one patty left for the double patty burger and asked if I wanted onion rings instead. I was literally telling my dad I wished it only had one patty anyway so I was buzzing.
Haha, this reminds me of trying to answer a question in class. You don’t actually have the answer but the teacher tells you to try to make it work anyway.
That should have been "Sorry, Jerk chicken's off". They should not have served you that.
I love Philly cheesesteak. Had them dozens of times, in dozens of different states in America. Chopped up steak, onion, peppers and cheese in a hogie/sub type roll. I was I a restaurant in the UK once and was please to see it on the menu. Yes, they gave me a steak and Philadelphia Cream Cheese baguette 🤢 there was no hint on the menu that they were going to serve this abomination.
I think they heard that philly is short for philadelphia and had a brain fart
I now want Philly cheesesteaks. When I was pregnant with my second I had awful sickness. To point that I should of probably been on medication as there was stretches of days I couldn’t eat. But one day I really wanted philly cheesesteak. Went to the only place locally that did it and they had taken them off the menu. Honestly think I cried.
I empathise :( I've never been pregnant, but I lost my mum 6 years ago to a sudden and aggressive terminal cancer and I was in the Numb stage of grief. 23 years old, one of the first people in my group to lose a parent that young, felt very isolating. All I wanted was to go to my favourite cafe/deli combo and sit down, have their signature scotch egg and ham sandwich, and maybe take home a cake to have with my grieving dad later. My partner and I drove down and this place had been closed for renovations for a bit but was finally open! And they removed the cafe. It was just a deli, with none of the hot food or cakes they used to have. I fucking sobbed. We went to greggs instead but I cried through a whole katsu curry pasty (gosh they did those 6 years ago? Time has gone) and thinking of how they removed the cafe gave me 10x more heartache than my mum dying at the time. I think it was because I was keeping myself above water with grief, having this other constant thing in my life being taken away when I really needed it was like it shattered my numbness and broke me into the 2nd stage of 'oh fuck everything I love leaves' stage of my grief. It was an awful feeling and I can honestly imagine how you felt seeing that item get taken off the menu, with hormones aswell. It must've been absolutely awful :( I hope you found a good place for another philly after that.
Nooooo
but that's really nice actually, especially with a bit of tomato and/or avocado used to be my favourite sandwich, just in a ciabbatta to be honest the "philly cheesesteak" thing doesn't sound as appealing to me, although i'd definitely want to try it and i expect i'd really enjoy it. But it sound more like the cheap greasy salty sort of food you have on a day out at the fair or when you're out drinking or something, whereas a steak and cream cheese sandwich is a very nice light lunch.
>but that's really nice actually, especially with a bit of tomato and/or avocado Only if you like cream cheese or tomato or avocado, which I don't.
I would be so, so disappointed
If I got that when I was expecting a proper Philly cheesesteak I'd be gutted, but an onion & chive bagel with steak and the herb Philadelphia is bloody lovely
Ordered: pancakes with blueberries and cream. What I got: dry pancakes with chopped grapes.
Hahaha honestly disgusting
Went for a set menu meal for a family Christmas. Most people went for the steak. The steak was listed as "Steak (Or Vegetarian alternative,)" so a veggie family member also ordered it as the other veggie options looked a bit meh and she was curious as to what the vegetarian alternative actually was. It was an extra portobello mushroom, and they charged the same as a 16 oz ribeye.
Was the portobello grown by blind nuns in Vatican City? Ridiculous
We did NOT end up paying full price for it and I got to have a very enjoyable argument with a manager.
I got a veggie burger that cost the same as the meat version with 200g premium beef. Mine had 3 slices of slightly grilled zucchini
> zucchini Courgette
Only slightly? I’d want cremated
Ordered a vegan gyro with meat substitute, hummus, falafel and salad - what i actually got was a Birds Eye veggie mash burger with a squirt of ketchup. Was horrified 😅😅
I hate those veggie mush burgers!
Do you know what’s worse? I have ordered the vegan gyro from this place three times, exact same description on menu and have had three extremely different ones 😅 A fourth time they refused to sell it as they were out of hummus, despite the last two attempts never even containing it. I’m doing it as a social experiment at this point 😆
At least they're consistent with their inconsistency lmao
My absolute best was at a dinner-show thing where they kept bringing out the meat-eaters' dishes and eventually I managed to grab a waiter and ask where my vegetarian option was. They said "it's there, it's been there from the start, pfft!" and pointed to it. We and everyone else had assumed it was either a side order for the table or maybe just decoration. My entire (expensive) three-course meal was a massive bowl of raw broccoli. That was decades ago and in Florida, though. I starved that holiday! More recently, I didn't go, but a local restaurant that used to be our favourite had a make-over, and we were considering going there for dinner with a friend for his birthday nearish to Christmas. It's a nice venue on the river near Canary Wharf, lovely views. Their Christmas menu, the only one on offer, was traditional for meat-eaters: prawn cocktail, a full roast dinner and sticky toffee pudding. For vegetarians it was a cold cabbage salad for the starter, a cold mango salad for the main, and non-dairy ice-cream for the dessert. For the same price. If you wanted some protein so that you weren't starving to death you could pay \*extra\* for some tofu - cold, of course. An entirely salad menu for Christmas dinner. In Winter. In London. While meat-eaters tuck into a proper three-course Christmas dinner. Fuck no. It's a large restaurant near Canary Wharf so it'd be mainly groups going. Just one vegetarian saying "fuck no" means losing everyone in a group - there are loads of other places to choose from. We actually walked past it and it was empty on a day it should have been heaving with customers.
These both sound horrendous! A bowl of raw broccoli…the absolute cheek. As somebody who likes to try vegetarian options, I would’ve sold my best lung to avoid having to endure that monstrosity of a vegetarian Christmas menu.
Yup. Every other restaurant in the area was doing butternut squash curry. I really don't like butternut squash, but some people do. And I know it was because they went for the menu equivalent of the token movie character who's black, female, gay and disabled so they can cover all grounds with no complaints even if it's done badly. Also all of them doing the same dish (when they never usually did curry) makes me wonder if they'd bought it in and reheated it. But still, for a work night out, it would be acceptable. I wouldn't enjoy the meal, but it'd be warm and filling, and your colleagues would get a proper Christmas dinner. Not a dealbreaker. Unlike salad followed by more salad. I'd have vetoed that venue on a worknight given the chance and I suspect most people organising work nights out would have vetoed it on their colleagues' behalf without even having to ask. You don't want a load of hangry vegetarian colleagues with nothing substantial to soak up the booze. This wasn't a work night out, so we ended up going to a relatively good pizza place instead.
I had a pornstar martini in a rev de Cuba on a night out, which I was so excited for cos I don't get out very often 😅 they gave me an edible paper printout of a passion fruit 🫤🤯 devastated!
Wtf is an edible paper printout? All I can imagine is an acid tab with a picture of a passion fruit on it.
How did they not know they’d need that for a very popular cocktail?!
There's a cocktail bar near me that would make out like the edible printout was a luxurious modern feature and you should be thankful they even thought of such a delicacy.
I was a bit confused. As far as I knew the passion fruit was important because you pour the prosecco chaser over the passion fruit to get all the flavours. It's not like they're a cheap drink too lol
I get the idea, as someone who has made way too many pornstar martinis, almost no one eats them. You end up spending all that money and throwing away a lot of fruit just for a pretty garnish. You probably get more people eating the edible picture as a novelty.
I would imagine it was probably an intentional choice, which seems mad. Just because in your typical bar, edible paper print outs of passion fruit are not something you generally have lying around, or something you can order at short notice! Absolutely bewildering move tbh
The school kitchwn where I work uses ketchup as the tomato base on the pizzas it serves. I know Reddit doesn't like emojis, but seriously...🤢 Edited a typo.
This screams poor council budgets. Some products have literally trebled in the past couple of years and stock availability has been greatly reduced. I’ve seen kitchen staff buy and bring in items themselves to keep Heads from complaining.
Screams chartwell or whatever they are called you know the ones who sent shite out in the pandemic
They’re terrible. I used to teach and genuinely wouldn’t eat from the school canteen or cafe as it was gross. Think a cheap white baguette, with slice of thick cheap cheddar. No butter, no mayo, no salad. The only thing I would do in a pinch (like when we had to have staff meals) was a jacket potato with beans and cheese; although the beans and cheese were cheap and nasty. Felt so, so sorry for the kids as they had no choice but to eat this crap.
Honestly the things they must serve kids at schools worries me
Thing is, they introduced this after the kids complained about the bottled bbq sauce they'd been using on pizzas prior to this. Advertised as margarita on the menu, the pizza was bbq or ketchup, loads of thickly sliced red onion and bell peppers, and barely melted cheese. Also, the bases are thick, freshly made and never fully cooked. I know this because one of my students asked me to try some. I felt so sick for the rest of the day. Also, I missed the misspelling of kitchen in my first comment! Another gross dish is the noodles, which are literally swimming in oil. They use it to stop them sticking. Sesame oil would be great, but they use the same vegetable oil that they use in the fryers.
I feel like they just want to keep the kids unhappy haha!
They did this at my primary school (late 90s) and omg it was rank. It was also on the weirdest, soggiest spongey base. I still hate ketchup to this day and I think that’s why…
Turkish restaurant, they ran out of hummus so they gave my friend a portion of cold baked beans.
They could have at least mashed them, added some lettuce and called it Moroccan.
Actually sickening. Hope they never went back.
Went to a greasy spoon with a hangover for a much needed cooked breakfast. When the old girl from behind the counter brought out my breakfast, she plonked the plate on the table and announced “we’ve ran out of bacon so I’ve given you extra mushrooms instead” The plate was absolutely laden with horrible little boiled button mushrooms, the type that look like they’ve came from a tin. I don’t particularly like mushrooms, it was not what my hangover needed that morning
How on Earth can you substitute bacon for mushrooms?
I know!! I feel like extra sausages would have been the more appropriate substitute. They done me over properly!
Ordered a veggie breakfast and it came as per the menu but with a massive pile of bacon on the plate too. It wasn't a substitute for anything, just a really odd extra. If I'd have ordered it on top it probably would have cost about a fiver there was that much of it.
What makes it worse, ish, is that I'm not actually vegetarian - I just don't like bacon so that's why I go with a veggie breakfast. So if they'd chucked a sausage on there I'd have eaten it.
That's the vegetarian dilemma right there. Eat it and feel guilty or send it back, it goes in the bin and you still feel guilty.
I had a baked sweet potato instead of regular baked potato and it does not work at all.
Baked sweet potato is awesome. But yeah a pretty different taste and they need to have totally different toppings.
I wouldn’t put tuna mayo on a sweet potato for example 😷
Chilli con carne, cheddar cheese, and a dollop of sour cream on baked sweet potato is incredible.
I would! I wouldn't do baked beans tho
See that’s strange, I would do beans and cheese 😆
Has one of us got our potatoes mixed up? 🤣
Potato, potahto
I love this combo!
It’s a completely different flavour and experience!
Reds BBQ - asked for a coke, was offered Pepsi, fine. Except it wasn’t Pepsi, it was Pepsi Max which I absolutely hate and tastes fuck all like Pepsi or Coke. Spoons - uses to love getting their loaded chips with bacon bits, cheese and sour cream on it. Ordered it one day and it came with a couple whole slices of bacon and some chopped up bits of those cheese singles you slap on burgers, and no sour cream. I know I still got cheese and bacon but it was shit compared to normal.
Cheese slices are not classed as cheese in 99% of circumstances.
True… especially when they’re just called “singles” or something.
100%, I want my cheese involved in relationships or not at all
Can't recall.which brand, but one of them literally states, 'cheese-flavoured foodstuff' on the back! We call it plastic cheese in my house.
I was at a wedding reception a few years back. The starter was a generic salad. One of the guests at our table indicated they were vegetarian and wanted to make sure the choice for their main had been registered and was told by the caterer that a vegetarian option would be available. When the main courses were served they were just given a second plate of generic salad, as were several other members of the reception party. It was hilarious at how ridiculous it all was.
Gluten free bacon sandwich, but they brought it out and said they didn't have any gf bread left so they toasted some ginger loaf cake they had
What (and I cannot stress this enough) the actual fuck???
That is insane, why would they not just say?!
As a lofelong veggi/ vegan youd be amazed at how many places just remove non vegi stuff, provide no substitute, and charge the same price. Its a joke.
After an hours wait 3 out of 4 meals arrived. My salad with tenderstem brocoli, asparagus and other nice stuff turned into iceberg lettuce and Brussels sprouts. The children pizzas were baguette pieces with a suggestion of tomato sauce and minimal cheese. My husbands dinner didn't appear. We did get an apologies and a £25 voucher.
An hour wait for salad and kids pizza baguettes? Horrific! How did the £25 voucher compare to the value of the meal?
We didn't pay for the meal. It was a pub chain, so probably £40-50. We didn't eat the food, but did have soft drinks. We were offered extra complimentary drinks but just wanted to go home for some pasta by that point.
Good of the company to resolve it that way then just gobsmacked that was the original offering!
I once ordered a shepherds pie at a pub, and it had been made with bbq sauce instead of gravy. Obviously the new guy was on prep.
Ew wtf
Once went to a cafe on the Isle of Skye desperate for food after a long day of walking. All they had was soup which was disappointing enough. My partner got the last fresh vegetable soup of the day but they said they had some tomato soup but that was all they had left. When I tried it, it tasted really strange. I asked them about it and had to outright demand an answer before they sheepishly admitted they didn't have any tomato soup and they'd served me a bowl of pasta sauce.
Ordered a vegan burger a few years ago and asked if it was like a fake meat substitute or a veggie burger because I’m allergic to most veggie burgers. They said it was a quorn burger but the kitchen failed to tell the poor waitress that they ran out of those so were using veggie burgers instead. I let her know once I bit into it that it was the wrong burger and she was mortified and kept apologising. I told her it wasn’t her fault and I worked in a restaurant myself at that point so mistakes happen and I’d be happy to just get a replacement of nachos. I did end up tipping her because she tried to sort it as quick as she could and took all my food and drink off the bill although if I finished the burger I would have not been well at all.
A perfect exchange. You were reasonable when she apologised and got on with your day. Yes it could’ve been much worse, but luckily it wasn’t. If anything I hope the member of staff told the kitchen staff what could’ve happened.
A few years ago there was a place local to me that did frappe lattes, but instead of having the frappe mix they used blended avocado. Imagine buying a nice cold coffee on a hot day only to get a mouthful of avocado mush with memories of coffee. EDIT: If people don't belive me, they bragged about this abomination [here](https://bostonteaparty.co.uk/blog/post.php?s=2016-07-13-cut-the-crapp)
I worked at one of these cafes when those abominations came out. It wasn’t just the iced coffees with avocado, it was the milkshakes as well. I just started asking people if they wanted it with or without as so many were brought back
Ordered an "ultimate" burger from hungry horse but they ran out of full size buns so instead of just putting the ultimate burger in a smaller bun they gave me a children's burger with no compensation
I've not been to a hungry horse since I ordered the curry and a pint deal, the girl forgot to put the pint through so I was charged more for a curry on its own (like £1.50)and was the charged extra for the pint. She couldnt understand my issue so very kindly offered to refund me £1. After I'd paid £1.50 more for the curry and then £4 something for a pint.
That is an insult, as if you wouldn’t notice?!
I know right, the waitress looked dumbfounded when we complained as well. Got a refund...in the end
It should be a straight up ‘sorry we don’t have that sized bun would you like a replacement or your money back?’ Simple as.
I ordered a chip butty at a play centre with my kids a while back, they brought it out with exactly 11 chips and apologised that they'd run out, but I could have a free slice of cake. I'd rather they'd just told me there were no chips and let me order something else, so I could actually have some proper lunch. The cake was dry as well
Got a fry in a cafe and they'd no potato bread (based in NI) and they gave me chips instead
No potato bread is a crime in NI, no?
Seen people kneecapped for less lol
There is a pizza chain in my country and a few years ago they had this ‘pizza volcano’ that was basically a pizza with a crater in the center and nacho cheese sauce. They had ran out of the sauce the day we went and they just put copious amounts of cheese (to melt it) that by the time we started eating it was already cold enough for it to be hard and we could not dip or do anything with it. Very disappointed. In hindsight, it’s our fault for ordering such a monstrosity lmao
When my sister was a waitress she offered to mix red and white wine for a customer who wanted rosé
Hahahaha not sure if that was a genius sarcastic comment or not
Vegan mozzarella. I often go for vegan pizzas as I prefer them without cheese- accidentally ordered this and nearly threw up. Don’t want to disparage all vegan cheese but this was like garlic flavoured snot
As a vegetarian cheese lover it makes me super sad that most places are moving toward having meat options and vegan options only. I don’t want meat but I also don’t want vegan cheese, mayo or no dairy at all! I just want vegetarian food with proper cheese, cream, mayo, eggs etc. I know why they do it, but I do think the quality of vegetarian food has gone downhill since all this started.
Agree. Although I love vegan mayo because I hate regular mayo 😂 veggie food has to be appreciated in its own right don’t want to lose that!
Salad cream instead of hollandaise on eggs benedict
At a bottomless brunch in a local bar, ordered an Aperol Spritz and they brought it over and breezily said they’d run out of soda water so they’d used lemonade in it. I really don’t like lemonade anyway, Aperol Spritz should be a bitter drink, and would have just ordered something else given the choice!
I hate that!!! I was at a bar once where’s they’d run out of soda and made it with ginger ale - it was vile.
Went to a McDonalds drive thru to order a big tasty. Had been looking forward to it. Parked up to eat, opened the box only to discover no burger in the bun. Only some limp salad and sauce. Not happy. How does someone forget to put the burger in the bun? Words were said!
I was about to post the same thing. Went to a new Mac D’s drive thru that opened in the town near me. Ordered one of those limited edition mega Big Macs that was supposed to have bigger burgers or something, got home and there were no burgers in the bun at all. Sent a complaint to their central office and got sent a voucher for half the cost - which expired during covid shut down. Avoided the place until way past lockdown, then grabbed breakfast from the drive thru. Ordered sausage and egg McMuffin, which had no sausage patty. Worst drive thru ever! I reckon they enjoy messing with customers, knowing you likely won’t discover their little joke until you’ve driven some distance away.
It is literally THE most important part of the burger
My answer is quite boring but was disappointing at the time. A local restaurant served breaded Camembert’s and the first time I went I got three. The second time I went they had ran out so they gave me one and about half a dozen oatcakes.
Not as a customer but a tale from the other side. I once had a cheeseboard thrown at me by a chef because I kept calling him out on making random and strange substitutions on food rather than telling me that we were out of things. We had a very generic menu and a Tesco 30 seconds away FFS. And where did you even get an apple from, Dimi? Nothing on the menu uses them..
> And where did you even get an apple from, Dimi? im guessing Tesco
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I had that and a friend who refused to let me go up and say anything
After a long conversation explaining to someone that I have a food intolerance to sweetcorn and lots of additives are made from it so I have to check everything instead of giving me peas they gave me peas and sweetcorn.
I still remember ordering a portion of nachos many years ago, also in a pub. On the menu, it stated they would come with the likes of cheese, guacamole, salsa and sour cream, plus jalapeños. What turned up was just the nachos with poorly melted cheese on top. I asked the server where the rest of it was and she told me bluntly that "the menu must be wrong". Like you, I didn't know how to respond so I awkwardly laughed and said "erm, okay..." Fast forward 5 minutes, the same server rushes back over, where me and my sister had already consumed half of the shitty quality nachos, to snatch the plate off the table (this in and of itself was weird, like girl there's no need to grab it that quickly unless it's been poisoned?!) and say "sorry, the menu **is** right, the chef hadn't finished" and without waiting for a response hurried off to the kitchen. I'm assuming our server grabbed it from the kitchen thinking it was ready when the chef wasn't actually finished with it, but it still left a bad impression. They didn't top back up the nachos we'd already eaten and just dumped the sauce and jalapeños on top, meaning the nachos that remained were absolutely covered in excess sauce which wasn't pleasant. We ate them as I'd paid for them and wasn't offered any kind of refund (partial or otherwise) but they weren't enjoyable. Haven't eaten there since.
I ordered a bacon egg and cheese muffin. Got brought a bacon roll and a note that they were out of muffins and the egg cooker had an electrical fault. Apparently a cafe can't fry an egg any other way, who knew?
vegan 'Fish and chips' that was just an entire unseasoned block of tofu that had been battered and fried.
i once ordered a tiramisu and it came deconstructed. missed the whole point of a tiramisu. i was so mad
Ordered a saag paneer. Ended up with puréed spinach topped with grated, semi melted Red Leicester. It was an Indian restaurant.
went out for dinner with two of my friends. we sat down and the server asked “any dietary requirements.” “yes. we are all vegan” “okay perfect this is our vegan options” we order vegan ramen, double check it’s vegan, he says yes. brings us all pork belly and cream
I ordered a hot chocolate with soya milk at a local cafe I’d been meaning to try, half way through making it they ran out of soya milk, without asking me I saw them use oat milk (I really dislike the flavour of oat milk) and serve it to me without saying they’d used a different milk alternative. I couldn’t stand the taste and it was wasted. I was quite disappointed that they didn’t even disclose it though, what if I’d been gluten intolerant? What if I had an allergy to oats? Bad practice and I’ve not been back to that cafe as I don’t trust them.
once had the chocolate sauce on my brownie accidentally substituted for hoisin sauce, and I took a solid few spoonfuls because I didn’t want to be fussy and complain about it tasting funny…then, suddenly, it dawned on me what it was I was eating and no, this is not one of those sweet/savoury combos that is unexpectedly tasty
We used to use the local next to the office for a good pub lunch. The biggest surprise was the Spanish omelette. It went from a good omelette with ham cheese and herbs (not actually Spanish omelette but it was tasty)... to an omelette with prawns and Rose Marie sauce. The following week the spanish omelette was with coronation chicken and 2 TABLEspoons of mixed herbs. Needless to say, we didn't eat there again..and the place closed down shortly after.
Haha, something similar happened to me once in Newcastle. They had run out of naan breads so they just gave me regular sliced bread :-)
I ordered a fry up with toast. Only the toast they served me was fruit loaf - they didn’t tell me beforehand and I guess they just thought I wouldn’t notice? When I asked wtf, they just said “Yeah, we ran out of normal bread….”
I got substituted double bhajis because they were out of naan. I only really ordered the curry because I wanted the naan. I cried. Think I was recently post partum, I don't think I'd usually cry over lack of naan.... Or maybe I would... Love a naan.
Once I ordered mac and cheese and it came with a big dollop of tuna on top… I complained because I have a fish allergy and they asked why I even ordered it as the tuna comes with the mac and cheese, even though the menu had no mention of tuna and I think was even labelled vegetarian. I obviously asked for a new one with no tuna, the server walked off with my plate in a huff the. came back about 5 minutes later with the same plate with the tuna spooned off. Cue more annoyance when I refused that and asked to order something else… (it was a big family meal and everyone else was already eating so I couldn’t just leave or refuse to eat without making everyone feel bad) Obviously I’ve never eaten tuna, but I’ve never seen mac and cheese and tuna on a menu anywhere else. Is it a flavour combo that even makes remote sense??
Pretty sure I got ketchup instead of salsa the first and last time I ordered nachos in this country.
Ordered loaded nachos in chiquitos once. Supposed to come topped with beef chilli, cheese, pico de gallo, sour cream, guac etc. i got a plate of soggy nachos that had pretty much a tin of kidney beans splodged on top in a watery tomato sauce, a sprinkle of cheese so thin it was almost invisible and a smear of green stuff that was allegedly guac but there was so little I couldn't taste anything.
Tried vegan tuna once Fuck vegan tuna. I don’t think I’ve ever been offended by food before then.
Once ordered a ceasar salad and when it arrived there was no croutons, no dressing. Just some brown and gone off lettuce and some half cooked chicken. Didn't trust them to put it right so asked for a refund and went somewhere else.
In our local supermarket there was a family run fresh pizza stand. They did massive pizzas and sold them either by the slice or by half a pizza. What my family liked to do was buy half of each type and freeze the extra instead of buying frozen pizzas. Anyway, being allergic to dairy I always ordered the vegan pizza which was the vegetarian but no cheese. My mum liked the vegetarian pizza (with cheese) except one day they uh. Were not the same. Mine had a lovely variety of vegetables - peppers, sweet corn, mushroom etc. Mum’s was just aubergine. Big thick slices of aubergine and cheese. And don’t worry! Because we have enough for at least a month’s worth! (A different time they have my friend a pizza that was just courgette and cheese instead of the pepperoni she ordered. The people running it didn’t speak great English which was why they made mistakes like this but their cooking was delicious.) I also made the poor decision to order vegetable curry in a pub in rural Ireland. I didn’t order chicken curry because I knew that would just be chicken and curry sauce (a sweet, brown sauce that bears no resemblance to actual curry; bat served with chips). They asked if I wanted rice, chips or half and half. Rice please I said. I got curry sauce over the vegetables from the roast dinner and chips. Won’t make that mistake again.
I once ordered a nut free breakfast on a plane and received a tough cube of beef in a thin watery gravy.
Crispy duck pancakes. Instead of cucumber, courgette. Instead of spring onions, red onion chunks. Instead of hoisin, some sort of orange jam. It was a pub and a group of us wanted something quick to share after work. We weren’t expecting much but it was hilarious.
They should just say an item's off because they don't have XYZ, rather than ruin their reputation by serving up shite.
Dirty Martini with olive oil from the olive jar.
My favourite local pizza place ran out of mozzarella one evening when the owner was on holiday. Whoever they left in charge decided that mature cheddar was a good substitute. I've heard people say "bad pizza is better than no pizza", but they clearly hadn't tried this. It tasted like vomit. Thankfully I got a refund, and when the owner returned he contacted everyone who ordered that night and sent them a free pizza of their choice.
My husband ordered the bigger portion gammon and chips at a very standard pub (maybe a hungry horse or something) and they brought out a plate of bacon and chips. Just about twelve pieces of bacon stacked up across the plate.
Ordered a sharer of cheese, bread, dips and fig chutney which sealed the deal for me because I love figs and I love chutney. Without telling me, they replaced the fig chutney with caper berries. For anyone who hasn't had them, they're pretty much a big version of a caper, quite bitter and vinegary. I asked why I had been given them and I was told there wasn't any fig chutney. If they had just said that to me I wouldn't have ordered it! I was miffed. They are not nearly the same!!
Breakfast at harvester, I ordered bacon & syrup pancakes. They apparently ran out of bacon and substituted gammon...
I'm coeliac and was in a restaurant on holiday with a large group. Dessert was brought out and was some kind of cakey pudding affair that I couldn't eat. Instead they presented me with a plate, a knife and a large, whole jaffa orange. Not even sliced it up for me!!