Worst restaurant violations?

[Cooking4Fun]

How many here have worked in restaurants and witnessed something gross that a coworker did that clearly they shouldn't have? Or something that is done by lots of people in the restaurant that is very iffy?

Where I currently work chicken wings have hit the floor after being cooked and the person just picked it up, threw it back in the fryer, then in the box. One of those people was an owner. Who knows what flavor we're adding to the oil.

And when I worked at a Taco Bell an inspector told the GM (different location from mine) that bags of chicken were expired, covered the bags with degreaser, then tossed them into dumpster (to ensure nobody would retrieve them). But alas, after inspector left they got the bags and used them anyway. The assistant GM spread the news about that secretly. Probably because that GM was dating the regional manager.

Anyone else have stories like that?

 

[GinnyPNW]

Not from an employee perspective, but from a customer perspective:

A few months back, we went to a nearby Asian restaurant for lunch(to be any more specific, would almost be to give out their name). I ordered the tempura lunch special. When it arrived, it was clearly a much lighter in color than usual, but I tired it anyway. The carrot, not cooked...then the shrimp, also not cooked. So, I told the waitress that it wasn't cooked enough and she took it all back to the kitchen. A few minutes later, she returned with my lunch...and it was easy to see that this was my original meal, just thrown back into the deep fry. Easy to see my bite out of the carrot and the shrimp too.

DH does not understand why I do not want to eat there anymore...no matter how many times I try to explain to him how wrong this is.

Now, the worst one I've ever heard about is THIS ONE about the Arby's manager peeing in the milkshake mix! Ugh! This WAS our go-to Arby's!

 

[Marlingardener]

We don't eat out at restaurants any more, but take-out we do occasionally. We ordered take-out at a local Chinese restaurant, and our order was wrong, and no one was wearing gloves or hair nets. We refused the order and they had the nerve to argue with us! Last time we'll order from this place.

 

[Aunt Bea]

 

[jennyema]

My first job a very long time ago was at Kentucky Fried Chicken. Some of the older, stupid guys used to bread their hands and stick them into the xtra crispy fryer. Until … one of them literally burned their hand off .

 

[Cooking4Fun]

Not from an employee perspective, but from a customer perspective:

A few months back, we went to a nearby Asian restaurant for lunch(to be any more specific, would almost be to give out their name). I ordered the tempura lunch special. When it arrived, it was clearly a much lighter in color than usual, but I tired it anyway. The carrot, not cooked...then the shrimp, also not cooked. So, I told the waitress that it wasn't cooked enough and she took it all back to the kitchen. A few minutes later, she returned with my lunch...and it was easy to see that this was my original meal, just thrown back into the deep fry. Easy to see my bite out of the carrot and the shrimp too.

DH does not understand why I do not want to eat there anymore...no matter how many times I try to explain to him how wrong this is.

Now, the worst one I've ever heard about is THIS ONE about the Arby's manager peeing in the milkshake mix! Ugh! This WAS our go-to Arby's!

DH means? Yeah the milkshake thing is pretty messed up.

 

[Cooking4Fun]

My first job a very long time ago was at Kentucky Fried Chicken. Some of the older, stupid guys used to bread their hands and stick them into the xtra crispy fryer. Until … one of them literally burned their hand off .

That's horrifying. But also evolution has its ways. Lol.

 

[GinnyPNW]

@Cooking4Fun - DH = Dear Husband

 

[taxlady]

We used to have a list of "Commonly Used Abbreviations". It was somewhere in the Tech support forum. When I search, all I find is some screenshots I took back in 2011 that showed how to find them. https://www.discusscooking.com/media/how-to-find-dcs-commonly-used-abbreviations.2644/

Is the list gone? Is the list hiding? Do we need a new list?

 

[dragnlaw]

I rather imagine that Dr. Google and Assoc. can cover any abbreviation lists. That's who I go to.
But I'm also (trying) to use fewer abbreviations for the sake of other languages that may or may not understand a lot of our idioms, etc.

 

[Rascal]

Not restaurant but kinda related. Mate of mine is a butcher and had a shop in a local mall. We both bred and raced standardbreds so we also knew the end of some slow horses. One day while in his shop I was watching daily events taking place. He was making beef mince in s mincer. Then I saw him empty a 5kg? Container of product labelled clover exports. I knew the company and I asked do you use horse meat in your mince. He covered his tracks and threw carton out. Never said a word about it. I never bought mince off him again.
Pretty bad in my opinion?

Russ

 

[dragnlaw]

Rascal, can you imagine the look on my face while in the local (big box) grocers I see Horse Meat, mince. Not bad in of itself, but considering the town is a huge big time horse country. Western, Hunter, Hunter/Jumper, Dressage - I'm sure those stables paid more than half the city's income of taxes. Never heard a word from anybody on it.

Didn't bother me but I wasn't going to purchase any. At least not and be able to look my beloved Porto in the eye next time I saddled him up.

 

[Rascal]

Rascal, can you imagine the look on my face while in the local (big box) grocers I see Horse Meat, mince. Not bad in of itself, but considering the town is a huge big time horse country. Western, Hunter, Hunter/Jumper, Dressage - I'm sure those stables paid more than half the city's income of taxes. Never heard a word from anybody on it.

Didn't bother me but I wasn't going to purchase any. At least not and be able to look my beloved Porto in the eye next time I saddled him up.

I also bred German shepherds and fed them horse meat. But not for human consumption.

Russ

 

[taxlady]

I also bred German shepherds and fed them horse meat. But not for human consumption.

Russ

Why not for human consumption? If it is sold in a store or butcher shop, it should meet safety standards. I have eaten horse steak. It was delicious. Turned out that the person who served it had had a language confusion and assumed it was beef steak. Well, in Danish "bøf" pronounced like the French word "boeuf", just means a steak. It tells you nothing about what kind of animal the steak is from. He had mentioned which butcher shop he had bought them at and that they were inexpensive and labelled, "møre bøffer" which means "tender steaks". My mum confirmed that she had seen those steaks at that butcher shop and that they were horse meat. I told my friend, several days later. He went to the washroom and puked. I hadn't really expected that reaction and my first thought was that there was no horse steak in his stomach anymore, so no reason to puke.

I understand that it makes some meat eaters uncomfortable, but to me it's another living animal dying to feed us. That's something that I think about regularly when eating meat. It's an ethical question that we should all think about, make a decision, and act on that choice. It doesn't hurt to look at the ethics every now and again.

 

[pepperhead212]

I remember a place when I was 8 or 9 over in Spain, (Dad was in the service, which is how I traveled around, and sampled a lot of foods!) I was asked where I wanted to go for my birthday dinner, and I picked this place that had the best steaks, and they didn't let me down again! Years later, some friends of theirs that were still over there, in the late 60s, told them that the place was closed, for using horse meat! I wondered if that was why it was such a popular place for steaks, or if they did that after I had eaten there?

 

[taxlady]

If they were using horse meat and pretending it was beef, then yeah, they should be closed down. Do you know if it is legal to sell horse meat as food for humans in Spain. I have been told that there are specialty butcher shops here in Québec where you can get horse meat.

 

[Rascal]

Why not for human consumption? If it is sold in a store or butcher shop, it should meet safety standards. I have eaten horse steak. It was delicious. Turned out that the person who served it had had a language confusion and assumed it was beef steak. Well, in Danish "bøf" pronounced like the French word "boeuf", just means a steak. It tells you nothing about what kind of animal the steak is from. He had mentioned which butcher shop he had bought them at and that they were inexpensive and labelled, "møre bøffer" which means "tender steaks". My mum confirmed that she had seen those steaks at that butcher shop and that they were horse meat. I told my friend, several days later. He went to the washroom and puked. I hadn't really expected that reaction and my first thought was that there was no horse steak in his stomach anymore, so no reason to puke.

I understand that it makes some meat eaters uncomfortable, but to me it's another living animal dying to feed us. That's something that I think about regularly when eating meat. It's an ethical question that we should all think about, make a decision, and act on that choice. It doesn't hurt to look at the ethics every now and again.

It's not in our culture to eat horse meat. I'm aware of horse eaten in france etc.

Russ

 

[Cooking4Fun]

We used to have a list of "Commonly Used Abbreviations". It was somewhere in the Tech support forum. When I search, all I find is some screenshots I took back in 2011 that showed how to find them. https://www.discusscooking.com/media/how-to-find-dcs-commonly-used-abbreviations.2644/

Is the list gone? Is the list hiding? Do we need a new list?

Designated hitter was the first Google result. Lol.

 

[Cooking4Fun]

Not restaurant but kinda related. Mate of mine is a butcher and had a shop in a local mall. We both bred and raced standardbreds so we also knew the end of some slow horses. One day while in his shop I was watching daily events taking place. He was making beef mince in s mincer. Then I saw him empty a 5kg? Container of product labelled clover exports. I knew the company and I asked do you use horse meat in your mince. He covered his tracks and threw carton out. Never said a word about it. I never bought mince off him again.
Pretty bad in my opinion?

Russ

Horse meat is illegal most places? Wonder why. I imagine it would be pretty lean. Had Buffalo burger once. Not too bad.

 

[dr morbius]

Horse meat is illegal most places? Wonder why. I imagine it would be pretty lean. Had Buffalo burger once. Not too bad.

Horse meat is illegal in most places because the government has no regulatory system to ensure the quality of the meat, as it does for pork, beef, etc. It is illegal in the US to sell any kind of meat that hasn't been subjected to the process of inspection. They don't inspect all the meat; in fact, they inspect almost none of it. But because meat producers know the government CAN inspect it, theoretically the meat producers ensure the safety of their product. By law, horse meat must be inspected before it is consumed, but pretty much nobody is set up to inspect it. If you're interested, google the question.

By the way, I understand Gordon Ramsay has tips for cooking horse meat. Well, he's f---ing Gordon Ramsay. Of course he does.

Stores near me sell bison burgers and venison (bison all the time, venison in season), but the price is high.