So angry and disappointed!

[mouse_chalk]

So, I've been feeling a bit down this week (still mourning the loss of my independance and possible loss of my driving licence, but that's another thread!) and Steve has been working stupid hours, because he has 3 websites due to be finished by Monday..... I think. He's doing so much work that I don't know what's what anymore lol. So we decided we needed a bit of a break and an hour or 2 out of the house, and we should go out for dinner.

So we were heading to Pizza Express, which is a chain restaurant over here, which we go to quite often. But we felt like a change, so I suggested an independant Italian that I used to go to all the time with my parents, and remembered to be really nice. Steve agreed, so we went.

As we sat down, it flashed through my mind (and Steve's, as I later found out) that we had made the wrong decision, and should I suggest making a run for it? But I thought we'd stick it out....


Anyway, Steve ordered garlic bread, which arrived seriously burnt, and very dry. I ordered a dish of aubergines (eggplant) baked in tomato sauce and mozzarella. I know it was supposed to be hot, but the roof of my mouth is now blistered and sore, and it was all just mush with tons of chewy cheese on top :grumpy: Our pizzas were HUGE- and I had capers on mine. Now I love capers, and could happily eat them all day long, but seriously- you couldn't see the pizza for capers. It was WAY too much saltiness. Plus, there must have been 3 tons of garlic on it- I can still taste garlic now. And normally I love garlic! Just not more garlic than pizza dough please!


That wasn't the worst either. Halfway through our pizzas, it transpired that we were the only customers in the place. The only waitress then decided she was off to the shop to buy cigarettes or something. Me and Steve realised we couldn't finish our pizzas and wanted to get out of there quick-sharp, but there was no waitress to take our plates! We sat there for 15 minutes, until eventually the chef came to take our plates. The waitress came back a further 10 minutes later, and we thought she would ask us about deserts or something. But NO! She went straight to the kitchen, and proceeded to talk loudly about some idiot or something that had held her up, scoffing crisps the whole time! She eventually reappeared to get herself a drink, completely ignoring us. Steve interrupted her and asked for the bill. While he was paying, I was on my phone, furiously texting. She commented how I was really fast at texting, and it must be very important, whatever I had to say. Little did she know I was updating Twitter to say what an awful experience we'd just had!!!


Horrible. Really horrible. What a waste of money. We just wanted a nice pleasant evening, but it was horrible!!! :grumpy:



What a rant! Had to get that off my chest though!

 

[JadeIcing]

That is nuts better bet I would have said something.:X

 

[Bo B Bunny]

I have written, emailed, called, etc. when I've had bad experiences. I would tell the owner EXACTLY this story. Explain that you had fond memories of it and then that happened..... how disappointed you are.

You might get the meal paid back or a free one to redeem themselves, but if nothing else..... you'll feel better!

 

[mouse_chalk]

JadeIcing wrote:

That is nuts better bet I would have said something.:X

I know! I WISH we had said something.... But it's that politeness, that you don't want to cause a fuss? Beside, she didn't seem like she would have cared....



OH! I forgot to put this. As she was making up our bill, the waitress shouted to the kitchen....

'I saw that Jamie Oliver the other day. He put lemon juice, vinegar, OLIVE OIL and walnuts in a salad. What on earth was he thinking? That sounds disgusting!'


This is an ITALIAN restaurant. :shock::shock::shock:


I make salad dressings at home with olive oil, vinegar and lemon juice!




Also, at some point when there were still customers in the place, she came out and started telling someone about how she was sorry she was so long but they were all watching some TV show in the kitchen shock::shock. THEN she went on to tell what the show was, and it turned out to be one of my favourites, that we had recording, while we were out eating their rubbish food. Then she went back into the kitchen and shouted at the chef so the whole place could hear; 'OH MY GOD! HE KILLED HER?!' So that ruined my favourite show. :grumpy::grumpy::grumpy:


Honestly, I couldn't have made this stuff up! The whole thing was so bad it was laughable!

 

[mouse_chalk]

Bo B Bunny wrote:

I have written, emailed, called, etc. when I've had bad experiences. I would tell the owner EXACTLY this story. Explain that you had fond memories of it and then that happened..... how disappointed you are.

You might get the meal paid back or a free one to redeem themselves, but if nothing else..... you'll feel better!

We normally do complain, without hesitation. I doubt she would have cared much if we'd complained on the spot, although I will see about writing a letter though.... Although we'd never ever go back there. The memories of that place have just been ruined now! I should have realised it was going to be bad when I thought they had served me a glass of malt vinegar in place of the house red wine I'd ordered :grumpy::grumpy:

 

[NZminilops]

That IS bad! I'd have sent the food back and asked for replacements, that's what you do around here.

What a horrible waitress and crappy restaurant!.

 

[JadeIcing]

NZminilops wrote:

That IS bad! I'd have sent the food back and asked for replacements, that's what you do around here.

Ditto!

 

[devotedmommy]

I have had experiences like that too. But, nothing tops the night that my husband and I went out for dinner and the food was horrible the guy brought us the wrong receipt and I just gave him my card without looking and when he brought it back to be signed I told him that it wasn't what we had ordered it was $80 and ours should have been around $40. So, he admitted the mistake and charged us for our food and then he said only the $40 would go through. We asked to speak to the manager and he said he would cover our meal because it was such a bad experience. Needless to say the next day I called the bank and we had paid them $120!!!! So, we called the restraunt and two weeks later the money was refunded! What a fiasco I never went there again! The coincidence it was an Italian restaurant!! LOL I still call it Old Sh*tcago (Old Chicago) it is a chain in the state we lived in at the time!

 

[Pet_Bunny]

Last Friday was my birthday and we had plans to go out for supper. All I had to do was decide which restaurant. I had two in mind. My first choice was Red Lobster, because I wanted steak and lobster. The alternate was The Sawmill or The Moose Factory for their steaks. I decided not to go to Red Lobster because we would arrive there at the peak dining hour and have to stand in line for a table. Instead I made reservations at the Moose Factory.

Not a bad place. Only thing, it was so dark inside, I couldn't read the menu. :coolness: At least I got to take pictures in the dark. Anyways, I wanted steak and lobster which was not what they had unless I ordered it separately, so I ordered steak and king crab legs instead. Here is the picture of my dinner. Yum Yum... the steak was very tasty and done to my liking. But one of the crab legs was empty, there was no meat inside. :?

My aunt's meal was worst. First she ordered coffee. When it arrived, she had to ask for a second cup because the first one tasted stale. She ordered the same steak as me, but her steak was so tough, she couldn't cut it with her knife. :X

By the time the hostess came by to see how our meal was most of us were finished eating. We told her about my crab legs and my aunts steak and she offered to replace them, but we declined because we didn't want to have another long wait for the food to come out again. We just wanted to let them know how the meal was and leave it at that. Anyways when it came time to pay for the meal, they gave me $20 off for my birthday and took 10% off the bill. :biggrin2:

 

[BethM]

One time I was visiting my mom and her boyfriend, they wanted to eat at a place they really liked, some locally owned place with Cajun food. When the waiter brought our drinks, he tipped over one of the ice waters, and it all ran into my lap. :shock:
Then, the food was awful. It was supposed to be Cajun, but there was absolutely no spiciness to the food whatsoever. No heat, no flavor, the food was just bland mush, as if it hadn't been seasoned at all. There were very few customers that day, but that awful waiter was slow.
Then, at the very end when all we wanted to do was pay and get out of there, the waiter tried to offer us a free dessert (just one, for a party of 4), as an apology.

If it was just me and my husband, I would have made a stink, but I didn't want to cause a scene in front of my mom. We just paid and left. Will never ever go back there again.

 

[BSAR]

Wow those are horrible experiences!! I would tell the people right away!

Me, my sis and my dad had an experience about a month ago.
We went to Sizzlers which apparently we had been there before a long time ago when we were little.

So we ordered our food, I had fish and chips and my dad had some type of chicken with cheese or whatever, and my sister had salmon.

It took them at least 30 minutes to just cook our meal! We waited forever! My fish (cod) tasted like tastless mush, literally had no flavor at all, which usually it has a bit. My sis said her salmon was fine, the tartar sauce tasted like potato salad. My dad said his chicken was just cheap store bought fillets MICROWAVED with cheese on top!
He said if he hadn't been so hungry he would have ordered it back.

We aren't going there again.

 

[mouse_chalk]

Wow! What horrible experiences you guys have all had!

The thing that gets me with things like this is, that generally people don't go out for meals very often. Me and Steve probably go out more than most- once or twice a month, but when we do, it's purposely to give ourselves a treat, to relax and have a nice time together. Meals out aren't usually too cheap, you want it to be nice and a real treat. It annoys me that some places just don't seem to care about this and only care about getting hold of your money- they don't care if it's a special occasion, birthday etc that they're ruining. They don't care if they prepare their food so badly it makes you ill (as both me and Steve were last night and this morning!!). That just really ANNOYS me.

:rant:

 

[naturestee]

What is it with Italian restaurants? lol There's one by us, the onlyItalian placein town, and James and I tried it once. It was moderately busy but not that good for a Friday night at 6 pm. James got spaghetti, and his sauce tasted like a whole container of sugar had been poured in! Now, if you make the sauce from scratch you do usually put some sugar in. Like a few teaspoons, depending. Not this much! I had a creamy tomato sauce with a bunch of veggies. Well, mine was also over sugared but not as bad, I think they just took the marinara sauce and added cream to it! The veggies looked like they were just heated up from a freezer bag, but they tasted like they were heated up in SALT BRINE.

We then watched another table send a dish back to the kitchen, and the chef threw a fit as if he was running a 4 star restaurant. "My food is perfect, blah blah blah." We had the waitress bring complaint cards for us to fill out. We barely ate our food and asked for it to be tossed. She was very understanding, I guess she got those same complaints a lot! Poor kid, I'm guessing she was a teen who couldn't drive to work at a farther away place.

I warn everyone away from it now.

Edit: Oh and yes it was a supposed to be a nice date for us.:X

 

[slavetoabunny]

naturestee wrote:

We barely ate our food and asked for it to be tossed. She was very understanding, I guess she got those same complaints a lot! Poor kid, I'm guessing she was a teen who couldn't drive to work at a farther away place.

I feel sorry for the server. Even though she may have given great service, I'm sure her overall tips suffered because of the bad food.

 

[naturestee]

Patti, I think we gave her a slightly larger tip just because of that.

 

[devotedmommy]

I know how it feels because we have to find someone to watch our kids and money is tight so when we go out we don't want it ruined by poor service! All these stories made me think of another funny one hilarious to me actually. My mom and I drove to my dad's work to take him to a special treat lunch on his lunchbreak at a local casino. My mom ordered iced tea and there was a spoon in her drink apparently the spoon was shorter than the glass so when it fell in the cup the staff didn't feel like getting a new one they left the spoon in there. Then she ordered a sandwich and when it came the wrapper was still on the sliced cheese. I told her to say something but because it is a small town and jobs are hard to find she didn't want anyone to get in trouble, I understand. But, a wrapper still on the cheese! Her face was hilarious as she took a bite of it! I am laughing now remembering!!

 

[slavetoabunny]

naturestee wrote:

Patti, I think we gave her a slightly larger tip just because of that.

I didn't mean to say that you didn't tip her well, but most people wouldn't.

 

[kherrmann3]

I am always afraid of sending my food back because I fear that they will try to "sabotage" my food. If I do send it back, I pretty much act like the new plate is a crime scene. I investigate EVERYTHING.

If the service really sucked, we tip like crap. If it was REALLY bad on the suckage scale, then we complain to the manager. On the other hand, if service is awesome, we tip wonderfully, and compliment the manager if everything went very well.