Thirteen for Thursday: Thirteen meals, remembered for all the wrong reasons.

1.  We were in Spain, well a small island, Menorca, it was a beautiful hotel, flash room, lovely town, and SO cheap we could not believe it, Boy we found out why at dinner. I cut into my scrawny looking half chicken, (more like an emaciated pigeon) and I found I was cutting into a hard CROP  not only was it a crop, it was full of corn! We ate out a lot that holiday.

2.  We were at this old country Inn for a celebration 12 of us ready for a good night. Sitting next to a pot belly stove and in almost total darkness the meals arrived. By the candle light I could see that the prawns in the cocktail had obviously committed suicide they drooped over the glass bowl amongst long dead green strands. The meal got worse, totally frozen fish, charred on the outside, and congealed blobs of fat pretending to be steaks. We got the delightful meal free in the end.
3.  Hungarian friends, soon to be relatives invited us for a meal, the pork scones were interesting and I quite enjoyed them, but the soup that followed looked like they had emptied the dishwasher. I tried very hard to convey delight but failed, Sadly,  the eventual marriage failed too.

4.  A friend of ours invited a university group, mostly hippies to cater for a big party. The night arrived, so did a bus stop which they put up outside; Vats of curry bubbled away and they fried mountains of Japatis. The party was quite amazing, music, wild dancing and a great success. But from all accounts I wasn’t the only one still trying to digest the Japatis three days later. They stuck in the gullet, neither up or down, like a spare Adams apple, unmoving.

5.  A meal in Colac was the most monotone I have ever had. Cauliflower, white fish and boiled potatoes, no colour, not even a leaf of parsley.. vaguely disturbing, and  hard to locate on a white plate.

6.  We stopped for a proper breakfast at a café with a good crowd outside drinking coffee, so thought it must be OK. Breakfast arrived, and one taste of the bacon had me grabbing the coffee cup. It had the horrible taste of slightly off meat. It might have been just not good bacon, but wish I had spoken up, instead, we slunk away, never to return.

7.  A party invite from someone we didn’t know well, said bring ‘something to go with rice,’ so I made a stroganoff. We arrived to find it in a scruffy backyard with a car tire being burned on a roaring fire. The rice when it came out on an enormous platter was a gluggy mass, and defied all attempts to cut into portions. Defeated  we left early, still hungry.

8.  The day was rainy and the pub we ducked into seemed dreary. As we asked the waitress for dish after dish, she told us they were ‘ off today’, each time she replied with a different endearment, “dearie”, “ducky”, “darling”…..we ordered all she had, which was Chow Mein, it arrived slopping about, some cabbage floating in a small sea, with tiny dots of grey meat. The café we found later did real food.

9.  Another meal we were invited to come for a pasta night. But JUST PASTA nothing else. The pasta was not accompanied by any adornment. We used a lot of pepper, and lost that person’s address

10.  A Sunday Morning cocktail party. The trendy couple; all wall to wall art and ornaments. They plied us all with drink and then we all fought over six sausage rolls and a packet of chips to soak it up. This was b
efore the drink driving rules, we all staggered home I think.

11.  The airline trip to Japan, When I thought I was biting into a delicious chocolate tea cake, it was seaweed!!! Can still taste that now on a bad day.

12.  The friend who proudly presented mussels in fish sauce, when I am unable to eat mussels anyway, and loathe strong fishy sauce. I bravely tried to eat it. But think I deserve at least an Oscar.

13.  The ‘supposedly’ fancy restaurant where they delivered three prawns and a lettuce leaf, and a miniscule piece of steak with no vegetables, for twice the price of the national debt.

Amazing we still like eating out.

What meals do you remember for all the wrong reasons… comment below.