Worst experience ever

So last night I told my wife I'd like to try something new/different for dinner date. Talked about area Mexican restaurants, a little steak house,..
Came up with a little restaurant 20 minutes out of town on the way to white pass(ski area, mountain pass). In a little town Naches. 60's theme, music, décor. Old fashion diner looking. We get there, only afew customers, menu was basic: 8 dinner options, some typical sandwiches, afew burger options, 5 different salads, w/ breakfast all day, desserts, and side items. A real let down. Oh, "we're out of salmon and soup". My wife would have had the salmon.
I get the chicken fried steak dinner, she got the teriyaki chichen burger.
We got our salads ...
An earwig crawled out of my salad after I took 2 bites!
We were very cordial to them, they got us both new salads out of another batch.
Her Burger we sloppy, but tasted OK.
Mine was.... The baked potatoe was good.
Mushroom gravy was tasteless and there was 3 little mushroom stems in the gravy. The fried steak was not that good. My garlic toast....like they used garlic salt. Ewe.
At our house we do biscuits and gravy often...from scratch. Butter, flour, milk/cream, salt to taste.
Its Heavenly!
When we do spaghetti, I mix butter and Parmesan cheese, spread on bread and grill it in a pan.
Its awesome!
With 10 minutes in the kitchen, I could have shown them how to improve my dinner dish by 70%. Unfortunately, I couldn't do anything for the fried steak.

Now I know what your thinking;
You'd walked out after the earwig incident.
Frankly, we should have, but we were both exhausted after long day.....

I am very picky when I eat out, probably watched too many episodes of "Kitchen Nightmares", but I do not trust other people with my food. I have a set of rules that I follow when I need to eat on the road:

1. Never order fish except on Thursdays as most places get their fresh fish on that day. By the weekend, they are not worth eating.
2. Never order a steak well done, even if you want it that way. The more cooked you request it, the lower the quality of steak they will start with.
3. Skip the salads. More food illneses come from the salads and the newest employee is often given that job in the kitchen
4. I avoid anything with a heavy sauce. A heavy sauce allows them to hide a really unfresh food item
5. I tip the waitress up front for her advice on what are the "good" items on the menu.
6. I use the bathroom prior to ordering to inspect for cleanliness. After all, the employees will be using it too and hopefully washing their hands after.

I know, it sounds paranoid, but I don't trust others with my food. I order fresh items that would be difficult to hide poor quality. I will also order simple items that any idiot can cook (gourmet burger or something), but I skip the fancy stuff. You can't go wrong with a breakfast diner or a place with a really great BLT...it isn't a lavish meal, but I can still enjoy it without wondering what "skip" is doing in the kitchen.

The worst thing I have ever seen a business do food-wise was an Asian place near where I went to college. I was doing some work in the place and watched the owner mopping the kitchen floor. They had a bad roach problem and I was doing the extermination follow-up after a few days of spraying. This guy was using his WOK like a bucket for his mop as he cleaned up the dead roaches.

On this day, a customer walked in and began to order. This owner dumped the water that he was using to mop up the floor and set that same WOK right on the burner, threw in some stir fry and started to fill the customer's order. I was shocked and reminded the owner that he just used that WOK to mop up dead roaches and insecticide, but he just shrugged it off and kept cooking. I had to tell the customer to walk away before he was poisoned.

That restaraunt was shut down a month later by the health department, but then it was re-opned a week later by his son under the same name. It was shut down again after 3 months and re-opened under the daughter's name. That family probably re-opened 5-6 times over the next 3 years.

Trust me, they are out there folks and you need to take precautions.

I take the cleanliness of a restaurant VERY serious. I don't want to get sick or die.

If a bug had crawled out of my food, not only would I have left, I would never go back AND I would have told anyone with ears, how GROSS that place is.

There are many restaurants that are off my "list" for good. Doesn't matter if someone else would buy it, I'll never trust them.

That is also why I would never want to own one....it would be so difficult and expensive to do it right.

milspec6 wrote:That is also why I would never want to own one....it would be so difficult and expensive to do it right.

Which is why most, just don't....

Speaking of cleanliness..... While cleaning one client's house this Spring, their neighbors were out BBQing. I watched her drop two chicken legs on the concrete, pick it up, and put it on the grill.....
This is why I am picky about where and with whom, I will eat. That was just plain disgusting. Doesn't matter how much money someone has, that doesn't mean they are any cleaner than a pauper.

When I used to work at a hospital ER back in college, we would get food poisoning cases about once per week. In nearly every case, they knew exactly what the offending food was that made them sick. It normally started with them stating that it didn't tast right or they knew it was really old, yet they would all still eat the food anyway.

That was always the crazy part, they knew it was questionable and tasting strange yet they kept eating it. I am not that way, I will not eat anything that I have any doubts about. There are no left-overs in my fridge and I use the thermometer on everything that I cook except maybe toast and oatmeal.

I agreed with all of y’all.
I’m not sure how Bob would last in Asia though where they sell meat in traditional market unrefrigerated, not knowing how long the meat stayed in “room” temperature with a lot higher humidity.
That’s why my sisters and a couple of my Indonesian friends got sick when they go back to vacation or visit family, I was warned by my uncle ( he’s a doctor ) to be careful when eating street food, I was being careful but still ate or bought food from street vendors, however I always ask my maid or family member which vendors to buy from, I guess I have a stronger stomach, thank God I didn’t get sick nor ever see earwig crawled out of my food

Btw Matt, you should’ve checked their reviews on Yelp first before going, I would always check Yelp before trying new restaurants, trust me guys, if there is an earwick coming out of any food, you’ll see a picture of it on yelp.
I had a customer that told me once that he will never go to a restaurant that has less than 4.5 stars average on yelp, I was like wow, that’s very rare, he said well if I have to spend my hard earned $$ to eat out, they better be worth it, for me I’m willing to try as long as they have at least 3.5 stars out of 200 reviews or more, if less than 200 reviews, they have to have at least 4 stars average.

I spent some time in Thailand and ate a lot of "chicken" on a stick from street venders, but I was a lot younger and the alcohol probably saved me.

I don't use Yelp, but I do pull up the health department records which is often found online. A bad score and I avoid.