Your worst dining experience in Taiwan

Cuisine Greater Taipei Restaurants
1

CNN just ran a segment on bad dining experiences of viewers. The worst experiences involved waiters being less than polite, but it seems like we could do better here.

Three from me:

  1. I pointed out a cockroach leg in my noodles to the laoban, who just said “sorry.” When I went to pay I asked him why he didn’t charge extra for the cockroach. Believe it or not, he gave me a 25NTD discount.

  2. Found a long black hair in my wife’s noodles at a fairly nice cafe–my wife had short hair. We pointed it out to the waiter, who politely reached in with his bare fingers and pulled it out.

  3. At the Da’an night market we sat down for a late dinner at one of those steak and eggs places, one of the few places with an indoor eating area. We were enjoying it until the laoban’s daughter squatted down not three feet from us and emptied her bladder. She was at least 5 or so.

And one from the States…
My college roomate brought home a breakfast biscuit from a fast food restaurant. After taking a couple bites he he got a strange expression on his face and opened up the rest of the biscuit, revealing a mass of short, curly, black hairs. That was the same place where I got a nice carton of spoiled chocolate milk, and I haven’t been back in in over 15 years. Now that place in Taiwan with the cockroach leg–I went back the next week. :?

2

Both Saints & Sinners and the Shannon have been very very disappointing. No wonder they advertise so much - not many repeat customers.

3

If my friends and I had eaten the chicken Saints and Sinners presented us with we wouldn’t be here now.

4

Went to Napoli in Taichung one night a few years ago for a salad. Got 4 or 5 bites in to the thing and uncovered a bloody band-aid. I was very hungry, and the momentum of the meal was entirely messed up. They gave me another salad and some free pasta. Thanks! By then, had lost my appetite.

5

Not a restaurant experience, but related…

I was once plowing through a package of I-mei (Yimei) Chocolate Puffs (the ones in the little plastic tray, usually NT$18) and when I got to the bottom of the tray, I found a rusty razor/utility knife blade sitting there. Not in the puffs, just loose in the tray. I would’ve taken the package to Yimei and complained, but how could I have proven to them that I didn’t just put it there myself?

6

A few years ago my wife and I went to Friday’s one night about dinner time. I ordered a Caesar salad and soup, only to be told they didn’t have salad that night. So, I ordered a hamburger and a ginger ale. About 20 minutes later, the waitress comes out and tells me that they were out of hamburger! :shock: After a moment of uselessly pondering how that could be, I ordered a hot roast beef sandwich. Another twenty minutes goes by (I still haven’t gotten my ginger ale), and the waitress finally brings out my sandwich. I took one bite and put it straight down because not only was it cold, the bread was stale and hard as a rock. :smiling_imp: I sent it back and a manager came out, apologized, and asked if I wanted to order anything else, to which I politely replied, “No”. Interestingly, my wife’s order (noodles) came out in a timely manner and well prepared. The final straw was when just as my wife was finishing her meal (close to an hour has gone by since we ordered), a waitress (not the one that took our order), paused at our table to say that they don’t have ginger ale. We stood up, and without paying the bill, walked towards the door. No one stopped us.
I will say that we have since gone back and had some decent meals there with good service, but it was about year before we went back after that night.