Out to Lunch
 

or out to dinner, take your choice.:)

Going out to eat is a real treat. With everyone going out of town this week and me staying in away from Summer's heat, we decided to go to Cheesecake Factory for dinner.:)

So the dining experience begins...

I ordered the appetizer chopped salad. It is really a meal for three, portions are so big. I am looking forward to taking at least half of it home.

I love this salad with its bleu cheese, apples, walnuts and avocados. I like bacon, just not on my salad.

When served, my waitress makes sure to let me know she put the order in correctly.

On the first bite, I knew it had bacon but I thought I was paranoid. On the third bite, I got a huge piece of bacon so I send the order back.

No problem, just a mistake.

She comes back and says, "The chef looked through your salad, he says there are no bacon bits and he had me bring it back."

Huh?

After I pick up my jaw from the table, I just told her to take it off my bill. If the chef thought there was no bacon in it, he was welcome to eat it.

She calls in the manager. I tell him it was crazy to serve the same salad and tell me I did not taste the bacon.

Seriously, I had only eaten THREE bites. I sent back the whole thing, really.

I had thought the manager would throw in a dessert. No offer.

Now for dessert. We are at the Cheesecake Factory. CHEESECAKE! My DD and I are splitting a Cookie Dough cheesecake and DH wants a little carrot cake.

The carrot cake comes with so much whipped cream that I ask for a plate to scrape it off. I love whipped cream so I plan to eat some of it.

(I am splurging, we are out to eat, spending $$$)

Our waitress seems to be taking a lot of time. This causes me to look around in search of her.

We are sitting with a perfect view of the waiter/waitress station. I see her talking, I think she may have forgotten I wanted a plate.

She has a plate in hand and with her FINGERNAILS she is scraping the plate to take off hardened food bits. Then she clutches the plate to her chest.

DH has his back to the scene. DD is seeing it happen. I laugh and say that I sure do hope she is not going to bring that plate to my table.

She did! Dried food, fingernails and her shirt on that plate!!!

If I was a food critic, this place would get an F!!!

Ewwww!!! :eek::eek::eek: And to think -- we almost went there for our Phoenix GTG!!!

Yuck!

EWWW!! is right .. how sad tho!!

well, if they are the famous 'cheesefactory' they may have a website ... I would post exactly what you told us!! this is not right - and send a copy to your state's (YES, your state's) food commissioner at your state capitol ... ya gotta do it!!

hopefully, you'll have another time to enjoy a time out together!!

I second that EWWWWW!!!!!! Forget the free dessert -- I say that a free meal for two is in order!!!! :eek:

http://www.thecheesecakefactory.com/...estinquiry.asp

:Soapbox: That's absolutely disgusting and quite seriously, letting your voice be heard is the only way to stop the madness!

Go get 'em, Aarcyn!!

Vonn, LOL, we cross-posted. What can I say, great minds...:wink::D

Now, that's disturbing! One just never knows~~~~

I AM NEVER EATING OUT AGAIN!!!!

DOUBLE EWWWWWWWW

mel

Ewwww, Beary! Why would you want a free meal from the same place that grossed you out? :confused:

Irony
 

Funny you should say that, Rochelle!

Part of actually having the "straw that broke the camel's back" in forcing me to do something about the mystery of my broken body that was dx'ed as MS

was food poisoning!

DH called the restaurant (it had been a Mother's Day treat...:eek:)

We got $75 dollar gift certificate from the restaurant...not the Cheesecake Factory!

I just hope no restaurants have the famous 5 second rule.

Well, you do have a point, Rochelle! Perhaps it was the relish with which Aarcyn described the salad and cheesecake that made me think that they would someday return. :D In any event, I say throw it out there and see what happens! At the very least, an apology is in order and most importantly, hopefully the restaurant will clean up their act! If they do issue a certificate to make up for their bad experience and Aarcyn and DH don't want to use it, perhaps they can give it as a gift. (Maybe to someone they don't like. :p)

All restaurants have good employees and bad ones, but for this kind of service from such a high priced establishment, I am shocked, I would keep pushing the issue with district managers or who ever you can to get justification. Good luck and I think we all know the valuable lesson, our GTG's will stay at Famous Dave's"

:)

I worked for a short time for a place that catered meals. The boss made me help her pick up a couple of pounds of grated cheddar cheese that had spilled on the nasty cement floor -- then she put it in the casserole!!! :eek:

When I was a young teen, my first job was working for a drive-inn. That boss had me collect the used french fry sacks that littered the parking lot. Then she would use them to weigh and store 6.5 oz. portions of frozen fries!!!

Cleanliness was the #1 lesson I teach my grandkids about baking cookies with Grandma. We wash our hands every time we touch a doorknob or our hair, etc. We sneeze in our elbows away from the food. We lick the scraper when we're done scraping the bowl!!!

How about we have the next one at your house? ;)

oh no, not Famous Dave's again!!!

I am so eewww with your first job!!!

I think it was an episode of Hell's Kitchen where one of the contestants picked food out of the garbage to finish a dish -- I can't remember exactly what it was but I THINK they had run out of spaghetti or something.

EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!

um....sure, lets do that. sure

I would guess that each state's department of health has a website where you can check every restaurant's latest inspection score. I'd start there!

And it COULD be just that one waitress. I got talked into going to a "wonderful" local joint years back, and the waitress picked up a fork that she had dropped on the floor, wiped it on her apron, and set it in front of my daughter, who was about six or seven.

I handed it back, and my former in-laws were so ticked at me for "making a fuss". Oh, and my glass was dirty also. Bleah.

The five-second rule only applies at one's own home, and it depends whether or not your pets go outside and roll in stuff.

I hardly ever eat out anymore - only time is if someone has invited me and is treating!!

But....this is one of the reasons I don't really miss it. If we could see how our food is prepared at any restaurant we would probably not ever eat out again.

At least at home I know where my hands (and food) have been! :p

I used to work in restaurants.....ive seen much worse. Dont get those
chefs mad......the customer pays for it.

thats why I like to stay home and eat food prepared by me.:D I
cant even eat at potlucks unless I really KNOWWWW the people.

I think they owe you your money back....cuz I sure wouldnt want a
free dinner for 3 at that place.:eek::mad:

Good luck, the customer is always right. why do they always forget
that?????:rolleyes:

When we used to go to Friendly's and got the Jim Dandy sundae with 3 toppings, one of the toppings was pineapple. I hate pineapple!!! So DH and I always made a big hu-hah about how I was allergic to pineapple. I think they understood I would roll on the floor if I got pineapple so I never did. I would have too. Sorry you got idiots. We went shopping for a washer and dryer, but I knew much more than the salesman and refused to return to salesman for final purchase. He sent his card,a Thank-you and asked us to call him and he'd meet us anytime to close the deal. HA! Loss of commission hurts, but he was almost useless.

Ugh! what a bad experience. :(

I've learned to never send something back to be fixed at a resturant. It usually doesn't work out well for me. I only ever had a good experience doing that once. :(

I hear ya.......I remember the potlucks we used to have at work. I made sure I knew who made what - 'cause I saw how these people were and I knew the ones who didn't wash their hands before coming out of the restroom!! Sort of gave me an idea of how they lived at home. :eek:

I think that Anthony Bourdain's book "Kitchen Confidential" covers some of these restaurant atrocities. I absolutely adore him but I think I'm too scared to read the book, LOL!

The 5 second rule??? NO SUCH THING except in our minds!!! I can't recall the name of the show but Ted Allen (from "Queer Eye...") has a new show about dispelling food myths. I caught the preview episode last week and one of the things they covered was the "5 second rule". (That was actually the first time I heard of it!) They threw candy and shrimp down on the street and on a kitchen floor and had a microbiologist examine the results. The segment was kind of like a mini-episode of that "How Clean is Your House?" show. The "evidence" was certainly there! YUCK.

dirty dining
 

I have gone out to eat many many times in my half decade of life.

Other than one food poisoning three years ago, I have survived whatever was put on the plate.

I used to have an annual party every year that was a potluck. Fun and good times, never got sick at one of those.

When I could stand for long periods of time, I loved to cook and bake.

My kids always groaned when DH left on a business trip because that was when I would try a very healthy recipe, i.e. mock mashed potatoes made with cauliflower. I put in too much milk. To this day it is a funny cooking disaster.

I have never had a chef look through my food and send it back. That was so funny.

And as for the young waitress, I believe she had no idea that she was really doing anything wrong. I took her aside as my DD and DH went to the car (they did not want me to say anything, weird). I told the waitress what I had seen, explained how dirty fingernails are, about hugging the plate against her chest. I told her she should have had the dish washed again.

This is her job, I do not want her fired. She wants to make money and get good tips. I am sure she was totally embarrassed by my motherly lecture. I do not believe she will EVER do that again.

Dirty dining can be anywhere. Upscale, McDonald's, Denny's and everywhere in between these, it can happen anywhere INCLUDING Famous Dave's!

I do love occasionally eating out, choosing something just for me. DH and I will share because portions are too big.

As gross as this was, it is just one time. I doubt I will go back to this particular Cheesecake Factory for a while. This was a treat, even if it was a bit gross!

Call me warped but what happened will last a lot longer than if it had been uneventful!:)

Well, have I got something funny to tell all of you.

I just met my friend Elly around the corner. She used to work at the diner that is 7 blocks from my house. She worked there 20 years until it closed down.

I told Elly about the waitress who used her fingernails to scrape off the hardened foods and then put the plate on her chest.

Elly's comment?? "you should be happy that's all she did".

I said: "What on earth does that mean?"

She said: "that's nothing knew, waiters and waitresses DO THAT ALL THE TIME, BECAUSE THE DISHWASHER DOESN'T CATCH ALL THE FOOD".

She explained that the food hardens and when they get a plate, MANY TIMES, they will used a fingernail to scrape off the food.

Then she said "dont' get me started on how many times they have to take a piece of food off the plate to put it in the microwave and re heat it.

I asked her "when a person sends a plate back do the waitresses touch the food?" and she laughed and said "you have no idea what goes on in the back of the cooking area"

Well, that did it for me.

I'm cooking from now on.

lol

that just isn't right.....

Aarcyn - that was nice of you to pull the waitress aside and talk with her. :)

My husband and I went to dinner at Pappadeaux's Restaurant in celebration of our wedding anniversary last October. Our finances were tight, but decided to splurge and savor the most expensive items on the menu.

We were just finishing up a most delicious meal, when the woman sitting next to us starts screaming "CALL 911 - MY HUSBAND'S CHOKING!" Sure enough, the man was starting to slump over onto the table. :eek:

My husband jumped up and gave him the Heimlich maneuver. Not only did the food pop out of the man's throat, so did the entire contents of his stomach - all over the table and splashing onto my husband's arms and clothing. :eek::p

BUT, the man felt better - just very embarrassed. My husband acted like it was nothing at all to have another man's vomit on his sleeve. As we waited for the ambulance to arrive, she told me her husband suffered from orthostatic hypotension. That's a problem I have too due to the amyloidosis. He choked on his food while he was fainting. I felt so bad for that man. :(

After they left, we asked for our bill so my husband could go home and shower. The waitress said "Your bill has already been paid by the couple who just left in the ambulance." Yikes, we added it up in our heads and the bill was HUGE. :eek:

My husband looked like a slob on the way home, and he smelled pretty ripe - but I had never been more proud of him. :hug:

re 5 second rule.

This does NOT apply to my kitchen! No matter how clean my floor may be, it is never clean enough for food or utensils once dropped.

:)

LOL. Aarcyn, I'm exactly the same way, even without ever having heard of the "rule" until recently!

Well, I guess we can (very) safely eat over at each others homes! :D