Dental Floss
OK... I just had the most unusual dining experience ever.
I went with some of the other first years to a Chinese restaurant that we had never tried before tonight for dinner. I ordered orange chicken. So far, so good. They brought out some plates for us. Oh, wait. There were not enough plates, and two of the plates they did bring out had a sugar packet burnt onto their surface so that they stuck together. A little weird, but not awful.
The waitresses were really inattentive, too. Ok, so they won't be getting a tip. At least the food was pretty good.
Well, it was until right when I was finishing up my orange chicken and discovered a bright blue ribbon of dental floss buried under some of the pieces.
Yes, dental floss.
Yes, I'm sure.
It was dental floss.
Dental. Floss.
I was so stunned that I picked it up and held it in front of my face just to make sure. Slowly, my compatriots stopped eating and started staring.
"Dude, where did you get that?"
"It was in my chicken."
"No way."
"Yes, that's where it came from."
"Is it string?"
"No, I don't think so."
"Why not?"
"Well, it's both flat and waxy. Sort of like dental floss."
"Dental floss?"
"Dental floss."
"Dental floss!"
Yes, dental floss.
Ok, I've had some bad dining experiences before. One time my family and I discovered a used hypodermic needle underneath our table at an Italian restaurant. Another time, we waited an hour before being seated... long after everyone who came in half an hour after us had been seated... and then the food we got took another hour to not show up before we stormed out of there. Another time, there was a living, crawling caterpillar in my salad. Just recently, in a small place in Oregon, there was a deep-fried housefly underneath my French-fries.
These mishaps I can understand. Sometimes people drop the ball when it comes to seating. Sometimes flies just get too close to the frier. Other times, caterpillars, animals that like to eat plants, end up on plants that we humans also just happen to eat. I do not hold the food industry to a perfect standard by any stretch of the means. Hell, I even forgave the fly incident graciously.
But DENTAL FLOSS?
Here's where I have to just step back and go "WHAT THE HELL?!?!"
Here's why.
In the basic hustle and bustle of a restaurant, how the hell does dental floss factor in to it all? Sure, some picky customers with OCD might floss after a meal in public, and the floss may be left on the plate. But would not that have been washed off or simply baked on to the plate rather than mixed in with my orange chicken?
Through no mishap of customer did this floss make it in to the place that it did on my chicken. The error had to have occurred in the kitchen.
But what the hell do you use dental floss for in a Chinese kitchen? Perhaps it is used for wrapping up meat in a certain way, or is used to tie together vegetables in a manner that I am entirely ignorant of, and if Knarf, who has had more restaurant experience than anyone I know, or SINGAPORE, who is from Singapore, can possibly offer some enlightenment to such a cooking technique, I would be completely pacified and will let the whole thing slide.
But barring such an unknown cooking procedure, the offending item, one strand of dental floss, makes absolutely NO sense as a useful object in a Chinese kitchen.
This leads my line of thought down a darker, more sinister path... the path that, in my mind, unfortunately, is the most likely to be the most accurate: The floss wound up in my chicken through some accident of good oral hygiene and poor awareness of where one throws things he or she is finished using and needs to discard.
More simply, someone was flossing in the kitchen. When they were finished, they decided to pull a Kobe Bryant and "shoot" the floss in the general direction of the trashcan. Unlike Kobe Bryant, they were most likely not looking where they were throwing it, and it wound up in one of two places: 1. Directly in the pot of chicken (and if that is the case, why the hell is it so close to the trash can?) or 2. Directly on something that was on its merry way in to the pot of chicken.
In either case, we have two more disturbing problems to contend with:
1. Why was the pot of chicken so darn close to the trash can?
2. Why didn't the cook or whomever look at the whatever that was bound to enter the pot of
chicken?
If the whatever was some sort of bowl of sauce, I could see how it, perhaps, was not examined in the fullest.
But, for whatever reason, a piece of dental floss wound up in my orange chicken.
And yes, I am pretty darn certain it was dental floss.
Dental floss.
You see, this is not simply gross. It is also funny as hell.
I mean... DENTAL FLOSS! The mind just buckles trying to think how it could have wound up where it did!
But I digress. I flagged down a waitress, who promptly ignored me. Fortunately, another waitress was passing by and thought I was calling to her. When she saw what I was holding high up in the air for her to see, she said, "what's wrong, sir?"
"This was in my food."
"What is it?"
"Dental Floss."
Bear in mind I said the part about it being dental floss pretty loudly. Those of you who know me know that my voice carries well in a small room.
She tried to offer me more food.
I at first accepted, but when she brought out the fresh plate, I had sort of changed my mind and told her that I wasn't hungry any more.
For real. The portions were huge, and I was getting full by the time I found the dental floss.
Well, that, and when she took off to get me more food she just left the plate with the nasty little strand sitting right in front of me.
That was weird.
Plus, it was enough to convince me I wasn't hungry any more.
She apologized again, and took away the fresh plate, leaving the defiled, strand-of-mysterious-dental-floss-having-plate-of-foulness still sitting in front of my face for THE SECOND TIME.
Finally, a waitress, speaking in very broken English, came to remove the offending plate. But, of course, not before confusing the hell out of us and offering me with a chance to say, "YES, IT'S DENTAL FLOSS" very loudly yet again.
In the end, I did not pay for my meal.
Oh, and they continued to give us crappy service by the way of not giving us enough boxes and by not splitting the bill when we asked them to do so two times at the beginning of the meal.
That was by far the worst dining experience I have ever had... and I try to be forgiving about those types of things. Not so much this time.
At least I got a great story to tell out of it. I think that's worth the price of "free". ;)
Dental floss... a quarter moment for the ages.
I went with some of the other first years to a Chinese restaurant that we had never tried before tonight for dinner. I ordered orange chicken. So far, so good. They brought out some plates for us. Oh, wait. There were not enough plates, and two of the plates they did bring out had a sugar packet burnt onto their surface so that they stuck together. A little weird, but not awful.
The waitresses were really inattentive, too. Ok, so they won't be getting a tip. At least the food was pretty good.
Well, it was until right when I was finishing up my orange chicken and discovered a bright blue ribbon of dental floss buried under some of the pieces.
Yes, dental floss.
Yes, I'm sure.
It was dental floss.
Dental. Floss.
I was so stunned that I picked it up and held it in front of my face just to make sure. Slowly, my compatriots stopped eating and started staring.
"Dude, where did you get that?"
"It was in my chicken."
"No way."
"Yes, that's where it came from."
"Is it string?"
"No, I don't think so."
"Why not?"
"Well, it's both flat and waxy. Sort of like dental floss."
"Dental floss?"
"Dental floss."
"Dental floss!"
Yes, dental floss.
Ok, I've had some bad dining experiences before. One time my family and I discovered a used hypodermic needle underneath our table at an Italian restaurant. Another time, we waited an hour before being seated... long after everyone who came in half an hour after us had been seated... and then the food we got took another hour to not show up before we stormed out of there. Another time, there was a living, crawling caterpillar in my salad. Just recently, in a small place in Oregon, there was a deep-fried housefly underneath my French-fries.
These mishaps I can understand. Sometimes people drop the ball when it comes to seating. Sometimes flies just get too close to the frier. Other times, caterpillars, animals that like to eat plants, end up on plants that we humans also just happen to eat. I do not hold the food industry to a perfect standard by any stretch of the means. Hell, I even forgave the fly incident graciously.
But DENTAL FLOSS?
Here's where I have to just step back and go "WHAT THE HELL?!?!"
Here's why.
In the basic hustle and bustle of a restaurant, how the hell does dental floss factor in to it all? Sure, some picky customers with OCD might floss after a meal in public, and the floss may be left on the plate. But would not that have been washed off or simply baked on to the plate rather than mixed in with my orange chicken?
Through no mishap of customer did this floss make it in to the place that it did on my chicken. The error had to have occurred in the kitchen.
But what the hell do you use dental floss for in a Chinese kitchen? Perhaps it is used for wrapping up meat in a certain way, or is used to tie together vegetables in a manner that I am entirely ignorant of, and if Knarf, who has had more restaurant experience than anyone I know, or SINGAPORE, who is from Singapore, can possibly offer some enlightenment to such a cooking technique, I would be completely pacified and will let the whole thing slide.
But barring such an unknown cooking procedure, the offending item, one strand of dental floss, makes absolutely NO sense as a useful object in a Chinese kitchen.
This leads my line of thought down a darker, more sinister path... the path that, in my mind, unfortunately, is the most likely to be the most accurate: The floss wound up in my chicken through some accident of good oral hygiene and poor awareness of where one throws things he or she is finished using and needs to discard.
More simply, someone was flossing in the kitchen. When they were finished, they decided to pull a Kobe Bryant and "shoot" the floss in the general direction of the trashcan. Unlike Kobe Bryant, they were most likely not looking where they were throwing it, and it wound up in one of two places: 1. Directly in the pot of chicken (and if that is the case, why the hell is it so close to the trash can?) or 2. Directly on something that was on its merry way in to the pot of chicken.
In either case, we have two more disturbing problems to contend with:
1. Why was the pot of chicken so darn close to the trash can?
2. Why didn't the cook or whomever look at the whatever that was bound to enter the pot of
chicken?
If the whatever was some sort of bowl of sauce, I could see how it, perhaps, was not examined in the fullest.
But, for whatever reason, a piece of dental floss wound up in my orange chicken.
And yes, I am pretty darn certain it was dental floss.
Dental floss.
You see, this is not simply gross. It is also funny as hell.
I mean... DENTAL FLOSS! The mind just buckles trying to think how it could have wound up where it did!
But I digress. I flagged down a waitress, who promptly ignored me. Fortunately, another waitress was passing by and thought I was calling to her. When she saw what I was holding high up in the air for her to see, she said, "what's wrong, sir?"
"This was in my food."
"What is it?"
"Dental Floss."
Bear in mind I said the part about it being dental floss pretty loudly. Those of you who know me know that my voice carries well in a small room.
She tried to offer me more food.
I at first accepted, but when she brought out the fresh plate, I had sort of changed my mind and told her that I wasn't hungry any more.
For real. The portions were huge, and I was getting full by the time I found the dental floss.
Well, that, and when she took off to get me more food she just left the plate with the nasty little strand sitting right in front of me.
That was weird.
Plus, it was enough to convince me I wasn't hungry any more.
She apologized again, and took away the fresh plate, leaving the defiled, strand-of-mysterious-dental-floss-having-plate-of-foulness still sitting in front of my face for THE SECOND TIME.
Finally, a waitress, speaking in very broken English, came to remove the offending plate. But, of course, not before confusing the hell out of us and offering me with a chance to say, "YES, IT'S DENTAL FLOSS" very loudly yet again.
In the end, I did not pay for my meal.
Oh, and they continued to give us crappy service by the way of not giving us enough boxes and by not splitting the bill when we asked them to do so two times at the beginning of the meal.
That was by far the worst dining experience I have ever had... and I try to be forgiving about those types of things. Not so much this time.
At least I got a great story to tell out of it. I think that's worth the price of "free". ;)
Dental floss... a quarter moment for the ages.
posted by Raoul The Destroyer at 9:05 PM
5 Comments:
This is not a great story. In fact I would take the offending article to the city of Pullman where they grant licensure to these places and give it to them with a registered letter. Then I would go to the local city council meeting and treat them to the story along with a piece of the floss. These poeple shouldn't be in the food business. This isn't funny at any level,and these people don't deserve to serve food. D.
eew. I was eating when I read this, and now I'm not eating anymore. Eew! Ah yes, I remember the waiting incident and the booger/cherry malt too... good times. I don't think I would go as extreem as the city thing unless it was a needle or something like that in the chicken, I would probably just tell everyone I know how bad it is. Word of mouth I think can be much more effective in some situations. Anywho, another lesson in checking your meal before you dive into it hu? sad sad sad... -B
raoul... remember all the times we would eat tons of friend chicken and drink ibc creams soda and then get really sick afterwards? ... okay that has nothing to do with finding dental floss in your chinese food but your story reminded me of other bad eating stories... ok, i'll leave now. ida125.
Oh, man... the glory of cheap fried chicken from Albertson's.
Dang, I remember how we both felt like we were going to die, we had eaten so much.
That was freakin' awesome.
Wow, that story would not be funny if it came from anyone other than you!
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