The Most Bizarre Hospitality Experiences
We can have a good laugh when hospitality staff spill the beans about their guests. But they can be quite something themselves, too. Of all the countless times we’ve eaten out, things have almost always gone well. But sometimes, very occasionally… Read on and shudder.
Like Rats in a Trap
Laura: “My brother and I went all out at the Chinese-Surinamese eatery Ah-Sin. Saoto soup, various sandwiches, Chinese beers to go with it—delicious. We had certainly eaten three-quarters of it when a large, loud-spoken man in a striking red jacket came in and strode purposefully over to the owner. “Good afternoon, ma’am, I’m just dropping by again to see how things are looking by now.” My brother and I exchanged questioning glances. After briefly visiting the kitchen, the man returned to the restaurant. While my brother and I continued eating, the man went on, somewhat threateningly: “Ma’am, you really need to start putting out more traps now. The rats are taking over your kitchen; this can’t go on any longer. Those traps need to be put down now—don’t catch them yourself. If they bite you, you could become extremely ill.” My brother and I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, but the thought of a rat’s tail in my soup made me instantly nauseous. We spent the rest of the afternoon drinking cans of Fernandes in the hope of killing the bacteria.”
No Hair—If Only It Had Been
Sharon: “The cute little lunch spot turned into a sandwich place from hell when I ate a tuna baguette there. After a few bites, I chewed on something I couldn’t quite identify. I wanted to pull it out of my mouth, but it turned out to be longer than I thought. No, not a hair—if only it had been. It turned out to be a garbage-bag sealing strip. And judging by the look of it, it had already been recycled. Now, I’m not the fussiest person, because hey, these things happen, so I discreetly walked over to the waitress and whispered softly, evidence in hand, that a very strange ingredient had somehow ended up in my sandwich. She took the thing, calmly said, ‘Oh, that’s not supposed to be there, is it?’, turned around and walked away, leaving me in total bewilderment.”
Fajitas with
Delilah: “We were sitting in a somewhat nondescript restaurant; it wasn’t in the capital and, above all, this was a long time ago—long before anyone really cared whether tacos were authentic or true to their recipe and origins. The restaurant didn’t want to be nondescript; it wanted to be vaguely Latin American—what country didn’t matter. There was a huge fake palm tree and salsa CDs were playing. An angry white chef was in the kitchen, the Arab-looking owner sat at the bar smoking cigarettes over a stack of receipts, and sweet teenage girls were working the floor. We ordered fajitas. A chafing dish was brought to the table. The blushing child whose section our table was in struck match after match in an attempt to light the tea light. She was incredibly slow and grew increasingly nervous, but not any faster. She succeeded; we waited. The chef barked at the teenagers and at one point slammed a little bell. Our girl grabbed a few tea towels and carefully wrapped them around the handle of a huge cast-iron pan from which ominous sizzling sounds emerged. All of this, incidentally, took place at the child’s eye level. She lifted the pan down with both hands (thank goodness) and shuffled more than 10 metres in our direction. When she got closer, we saw a kind of bubbling soup filled to the brim, curry-coloured, with lots of strips of chicken breast. She placed the pan on the chafing dish, her face showing extreme effort and concentration, a bead of sweat trickling down her forehead. She had done it! And then she drooled into the pan.”
Big Missteak
Marcus: “The place looked very chic, with lots of copper, gleaming mahogany and draped curtains. And then there was its reputation: Champany Inn, in Linlithgow, Scotland, was known nationwide for the purebred Aberdeen Angus steaks prepared over an open fire. It even had an in-house butcher who had cobbled together his own ageing cabinet in an adjoining shed. Proudly, butcher Billy told us that he aged his Aberdeen Angus steaks on hooks for no fewer than nine weeks. This immediately prompted suspicious looks from my butcher friend, who knew all about dry-aging and with whom I was taking this food trip. Dry-aging meat is an age-old technique that is currently very much back in fashion at hip butcher’s shops and trendy steakhouses. It refers to a decomposition process (‘ripening’) in which the meat is dry-aged under controlled conditions (specific humidity and temperature), generally over four to six weeks. It gives your steak extra flavour and makes the meat incredibly tender. The grassfed dry-aged Aberdeen Angus steak—beautifully marbled to the eye and served to us in the restaurant with a silver cup of béarnaise—did little to impress us from the very first bite. Before dessert, our stomachs began to rumble ominously. What happened during the rest of the evening and night? Exactly what you think.”
Taking a Call
Sabina: “A romantic dinner in a respectable restaurant. The tables are quite close together, so you try to more or less ignore the tables next to you. But that was difficult, because the woman next to us had already received two phone calls. She would go outside while talking and stay there for at least ten minutes. When she came back in after the second call, her date told her he really didn’t like it. Something about ‘paying attention to each other’ and how it could surely all wait. The phone was put away, accompanied by an apology and a sweet smile. But when their starters had been cleared, her bag buzzed again. The man and I looked at each other: what would she do? She answered the call and walked outside chatting. And her date? He went to the staff, paid and left. Apparently not entirely by mutual agreement, because ten minutes later the woman was standing bewildered by her cleared table. A heated argument with the staff, angrily putting on her jacket and stomping away. Of course, sometimes you do need to be reachable—if you’re a transplant doctor, for example, and have to transplant a heart; your shares are about to plummet; or perhaps you’re deeply involved in the drug trade, and that business never waits either. But I thought the romantic gentleman’s move was brilliant, and it made for a bizarre little scene right next to us.”
Cardiac Arrest
Vincent: “My worst hospitality experience took place at a cruising altitude of 10,700 kilometres. I had booked Singapore Airlines because of their fantastic service, but the plane bound for NYC had barely taken off when the portly, yellow-grey American in the seat next to me suffered a cardiac arrest. My aisle turned into an episode of E.R., but to no avail. A doctor pronounced him dead, after which the seat was covered with SA blankets and the entire family took turns sobbing their farewells. For seven long hours, the cabin crew came by with small and large meals. Chicken, sir? Chocolate, sir? Champagne, sir? But I couldn’t get a bite down, because I kept thinking I could detect the smell of a fermented lady and softly leaking faeces..”
Hospitality Jerks
Marcel: “Everyone knows them: the Hospitality Jerks. The type who have too much money and think that’s sufficient reason to behave like an arsehole—‘I’m paying, aren’t I!’ Sending a dish back because—despite having ordered it themselves ten minutes earlier—they don’t like the main ingredient. Or ordering the most expensive bottle of wine on the menu because it’s the most expensive bottle of wine. Or putting empty wine bottles upside down in the cooler. Snapping their fingers or otherwise behaving condescendingly towards the staff. Being so loud that the entire establishment knows they’re there. In short, the type who have ruined many a dining experience for all of us.”
Chickenling
Steffi: “A loooooong time ago, I worked briefly at a theatre. After the performance, the artists were naturally starving, so I went around with a tray full of kibbeling. A famous musical star asked: ‘What’s that?’ So I replied: ‘Kibbeling!’ to which he said: ‘Oh! Delicious!’ and put a large piece in his mouth. Less than two seconds later he said: ‘Ugh! This is FISH!’ and—I kid you not—took the (partly eaten) piece of kibbeling back out of his mouth and put it back on the tray. I was dumbfounded. What did he think it was?! And why spit it back?! And how can you not like kibbeling?! To this day, my only plausible explanation is that he thought I said “chickenling.” But even then: don’t be so weird..”
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