Do you send back food?

[Stewie26]

I don't like to send food back. Remember the Domino's guy video putting his nose burgers in people's sandwiches.

You never know what they are doing back in the kitchen.

 

[MatticusMania]

My favorite is those who tend to do this, and try to include the rest of the table:

"Excuse me waiter, this half-eaten chicken is not to my liking. I demand to see the manager......and you won't be getting a tip. Wait.......is everyone's else's food ok? Anybody else want to send theirs back while we're at it???........We are all very upset and demand a free meal!!!!!"

My first wife's aunt was like that. Always trying to get a free meal...

 

[tastybasslines]

If they bring me a chicken sandwich instead of the steak I ordered, I just eat the damn chicken, not a huge deal for me.

Why eat out at all? For someone with such a wanton disregard for choice, just close your eyes with the menu open, spin yourself around 10 times, then plop your finger down and pick something at random - fun!

 

[tastybasslines]

I don't like to send food back. Remember the Domino's guy video putting his nose burgers in people's sandwiches.

You never know what they are doing back in the kitchen.

That's nothing. We used to giggle as we hid pubic hairs underneath peoples pepperoni, before we put the pizza in the oven.

Granted, more security now exists than back in those days though.

 

[buzzbass]

I'll send back food, no problem. But, I WILL NOT allow them to bring me "something else" instead. Because you never know what that "something else" may contain. If the food is not up to snuff, there's no way I'm going to eat it, or pay for it.

 

[Biggbass]

I sent back a chicken fried steak at a local Black Eyed Pea restaurant about 8 yrs ago.
The meat was almost impossible to cut thru, even with a serrated steak knife. So I called the waitress over to our table and said, "watch this"...then proceeded to saw away at it with the steak knife without success. I don't know what was inside the breading on that steak but it must have been the equivalent of saddle leather. That was the last time we ate there...haven't been back since.
Similar experience at The Olive Garden back in the late 90's. Found a live worm in our
salad. Didn't send that one back...just flagged the waiter down and showed it to him, got up and left. Never been back.
I eat lunch with a co worker who regularly sends back french fries if they are not piping hot and crispy right out of the fryer. So far no spit detected.

 

[bassbully]

If its bad its bad as is cold, cooked wrong, greasy. tastes bad I will. I don't do it allot but will if its not right.

 

[Tat2dHeart]

Tip from my ex girlfriend who was a pastry chef in a very high end restaurant: If you're ever dining alone in a schmancy joint, bring a small spiral pad of paper and a pencil, write the name of the restaurant at the top and leave it face up so the server can steal a glance of it when taking your order, and throughout the evening look around the restaurant, study your food and jot down your chore list for tomorrow on the paper. They'll assume your some kind of shadow critic doing a write up on the restaurant, you'll get top notch service and food.

Is that why I get great service? I never even put a restaurant name at the top of the notepad - or the iPad. I'm usually just making notes or writing.


I'm a picky eater and I have food allergies, so I always enlist my server early on to alert them to the allergies. I don't go overboard with the "picky" part, but if how something is cooked is really important, I let the server know what particulars I'm looking for and ask them to catch it at the pass. If the food isn't what I requested, I will politely send things back. I've never had a bad experience as a result of sending food back, but I'm not unreasonable when I make such a request.

 

[fourstringdrums]

How do you guys feel about restaurants being vague about what is in what you're ordering and then when you didn't get what you expect, they don't offer to do anything about it?

I went to a pizza place once and ordered a MEAT calzone. The menu didn't say what was in it, buttThe key word here is MEAT..so what would you think would be in it? That's right..MEAT! When I got it, it had onions, peppers, mushrooms and literally a few shreds of pepperoni. It was 95% vegetable. I was eating in the joint, so I called the waitress over and complained. I asked her if she gave me the wrong one and she said, no, that IS the meat calzone. She told me that she could get me something else but I'd still have to pay for that one. I asked for the manager and was told the same thing. Basically I had to suck it up and finish it, but she received a $.10 tip, which I was told is more effective than leaving no tip.

Funny thing is, I went there again a few months later against my will and they had changed the menu to give descriptions.

 

[tastybasslines]

How do you guys feel about restaurants being vague about what is in what you're ordering and then when you didn't get what you expect, they don't offer to do anything about it?

I went to a pizza place once and ordered a MEAT calzone. The menu didn't say what was in it, buttThe key word here is MEAT..so what would you think would be in it? That's right..MEAT! When I got it, it had onions, peppers, mushrooms and literally a few shreds of pepperoni. It was 95% vegetable. I was eating in the joint, so I called the waitress over and complained. I asked her if she gave me the wrong one and she said, no, that IS the meat calzone. She told me that she could get me something else but I'd still have to pay for that one. I asked for the manager and was told the same thing. Basically I had to suck it up and finish it, but she received a $.10 tip, which I was told is more effective than leaving no tip.

Funny thing is, I went there again a few months later against my will and they had changed the menu to give descriptions.

This happened to me. Here is my review from Yelp when my wife and I went.

"However, we also got an anti pasto salad for $7 bucks and it was TERRIBLE. I cannot emphasize this enough. With an anti pasto salad, you expect to get meat and cheese as this is it's name! We got, count em, ONE slice or salami, One slice of cheese and one slice of mortadella and that was it. No kidding. We looked at each other and laughed when we opened it. Furthermore, the rest of the salad was lettuce and BAGGED wavy carrots and cauliflower. The house dressing was terrible."

I wouldn't leave a tip either. That's almost bait and switch to me. Since I wrote that review, we haven't gone back and they got a bad review, so that's how I give feedback, with my wallet.

 

[matante]

That's nothing. We used to giggle as we hid pubic hairs underneath peoples pepperoni, before we put the pizza in the oven.

Granted, more security now exists than back in those days though.

:scowl:

Is this a cry for help?

 

[tastybasslines]

:scowl:

Is this a cry for help?

What can I tell you, we were 16. I'm not the same person today. No internet, no social media, not even video games too much. Mostly we were out creating havoc so I guess this was funny then. We also took "dough hits", popping holes in the huge bags of dough and sucking out the fermented air. We got high for about 30-45 seconds.

 

[marchone]

You've never worked in food service, have you?

29 years as a chef in high end restaurants. Most of that time as an executive chef.

The implication in tastybasslines's post was that there is a uniform national health code prohibiting the recooking of customer's returned food. There isn't. Common sense it may be but the overwhelming majority of restaurants will take a returned steak or other protein and cook it further to meet the customer's expectations.

Because I have worked only in (or owned) high end restaurants, policy was always to replace a dish if it was returned. Unfortunately, it not the norm.

Basscooker posted a lot of good facts. Many other posts are conjecture and misstatements. What is disturbing is how many posters confessed to working food service jobs where they purposely contaminated customer's food with contempt before sending it to them.

 

[tastybasslines]

Marchone is right. There is no code prohibiting the returning of meat to the grill. Everything I found followed his logic and that you would be treating the returned piece of meat the same as if it was a raw uncooked piece of meat. This makes sense.

Still, there is something deeply disturbing about the idea that the returned piece of meat could contain fecal matter and yet, is still being cooked on a grill that the entire restaurant is eating from.

 

[Eric Perry]

I was out once at a new high end place that opened not long before. I ordered the Skate (it's a fish). The fish was rotten. Rotten, as in spoiled. How fish that past it's usable life got past the executive chef is beyond me. Bad fish smells like ammonia, and is generally slimy in raw form. I'm convinced the chef knew, and tried to just pass it off. I absolutely sent it back! By that point I had completely lost my appetite and didn't want anything else. I have never gone back there.

 

[marchone]

Still, there is something deeply disturbing about the idea that the returned piece of meat could contain fecal matter and yet, is still being cooked on a grill that the entire restaurant is eating from.

I don't follow. How would the returned steak (or other protein) contain fecal matter as returned to the server for further cooking?

 

[tastybasslines]

I don't follow. How would the returned steak (or other protein) contain fecal matter as returned to the server for further cooking?

It could be done on purpose, or perhaps someone's child was playing down there and got some on the steak...Strange things happen.

 

[fourstringdrums]

I don't quite follow how "contaminated" food that is returned to the grill could pose a threat for anyone else eating off the grill? Wouldn't the high heat basically kill anything?

 

[tastybasslines]

I don't quite follow how "contaminated" food that is returned to the grill could pose a threat for anyone else eating off the grill? Wouldn't the high heat basically kill anything?

Well that is the idea, but still.

 

[Simo98]

I don't quite follow how "contaminated" food that is returned to the grill could pose a threat for anyone else eating off the grill? Wouldn't the high heat basically kill anything?

I'm guessing the meant that sterilized baby **** probably still tastes like baby ****.


I guess it's a matter of overall quality rather than what may or may not be healthy. If my piece of steak is dropped on the kitchen floor prior to cooking, I'd expect any decent restaurant to get a fresh one, not whack it on the grill anyway because it probably not going to kill anyone. In the case of returned food being re-cooked it's a little different, but it still puts me off a little to be honest.