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My Five Cents

What Has Been Your Worst Restaurant Meal Experience?

I've eaten rancid food. Have you?
By Nancy Nichols |
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As many of you know, I was the restaurant critic for D Magazine for 18 years. I retired from my official duty as a critic a little over two years ago because I developed a treatable medical condition that prevents me from eating certain foods. I must say that my body functions much better without subjecting it to four or five large meals a week or six-to-eight-week eating marathons of barbecue or steak to write a best-of feature.

I happily handed the baton to Eve Hill-Agnus, and I never looked back. Then a few weeks ago, I stumbled upon a restaurant review in The Guardian written by critic Jay Rayner. The brazen writer ripped the teeth out of Le Cinq, the Michelin three-star restaurant in the George V Hotel in Paris. Snippet:

There is only one thing worse than being served a terrible meal: being served a terrible meal by earnest waiters who have no idea just how awful the things they are doing to you are. And so, to the flagship Michelin three-star restaurant of the George V Hotel in Paris, or the scene of the crime as I now like to call it. In terms of value for money and expectation Le Cinq supplied by far the worst restaurant experience I have endured in my 18 years in this job. This, it must be said, is an achievement of sorts.

After I read this, memories of nasty plates of food, lying servers, overpriced foie gras, and inflated chef egos swarmed my brain. Most of the guilty restaurants that “achieved” wretched taste memories for me are closed. But I can still see the face of the surly waiter at Clare de Lune who handed me a steak knife after I complained about the frozen duck a l’orange in front of me. Every time I get a whiff of putrid sewage water, I am reminded of the bowl of steaming rancid mussels set before me at Phil Romano’s Lobster Ranch. You must remember the rise of honeydew melon in fruit salads during the recession. What a useless fruit. 

The recollection of the filthy dining room at The Magic Time Machine wells up each time I spy a canister of Pledge. Exhibition kitchens are full of gory tales: two male chefs making out at Dish on Cedar Springs, a chef at CBD Provisions wiping the sweat from his brow with ungloved hands before he plated a chicken breast, and snacking kitchen help at too many places to name. Eve bravely revisited Le Bilboquet  years after I ingested a cold lentil salad that reeked of the distinctive odor of a urinal cake that sent me to my sick bed for three days.

Thanks, Jay Rayner, for jogging my memory. There is too much competition in the market to put up with substandard food at any price.

Now, it’s the reader’s turn. Give us a brief description of the worst meal you ever paid for.

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