Worst food you’ve eaten on holiday?

[Ioki]

Following on from the worst restaurant you’ve eaten at thread... what’s the worst food you’ve eaten on holiday?

For me it was a... unidentifiable thing... from the hotel buffet we had in Spain. It was a cube, the colour and consistency of watermelon that sort of, disintegrated in the mouth... there were yellow and green chunks of again unidentifiable things inside the cube. The entire thing smelled and tasted like a sweaty gym sock and I swear I felt my tastebuds shrivel up upon tasting.

There was no card on the buffet to say what it was so to this day I have no idea but it remains the single most disgusting thing I’ve ever eaten, and I’m usually a really adventurous eater on holiday! :o

I wasn't on holiday but working and trying to eat some tofu pot from a street stall when I realised it was full of cockroaches, I felt so miserable

Cold mussels at a tapas place in Benidorm. Cold with Marie Rose sauce. They were grim and rubbery as hell. I was violently ill later that night. I was on a hen do and had to go home early, I got accused of not being able to handle my alcohol but I have no doubt it was the grim mussels.

Oh and stuffed squid in Tunisia. It sounded nice on the menu. Was horrible.

Durian is pretty high...smell, taste, and texture all from a special circle of hell. Ditto some durian flavoured boiled sweets someone brought back from Thailand.
Grew up in Hong Kong - the smell of deep-frying beancurd is supposed to ward off ghosts (also a pun on cantonese for westerner - it works for us too).
Jelly fish - like badly overcooked squids more ferociously chewy brother.

Annoyingly, once in Manchester I ordered okinomayaki - a kind of rice flour savoury Japanese pancake type thing. I got the standard (seafood) over the less common chicken. It came drowning in a potent seafood aioli that took the warmth of the okinomayaki to become a greasy, sweaty hot mayonnaise type vomit inducer

Not on holiday but something I was served the second time I met exdh parents!!!

We were served cawl (a traditional Welsh lamb soup) which I love, families often have their own version but it is basically the same so I was a bit taken aback to see macaroni in it - except it wasn't macaroni, it had been made with neck of lamb and all of the tubes and gristle had been left on!!! I hate any kind of visible fat or gristle and was trying not to gag. I managed to get through it with the help of lots of bread (I was young and didn't want to offend his mum).

I used to live in Hong Kong and will have nightmares about century eggs for as long as I live

My disappointingly runny creme brûlée in Menorca now seems tame in comparison.

OP was it a cube of membrillo? Quince paste. They eat it with cheese in Spain.

Andouillette is probably the very worst.

Relatedly, in a French country restaurant in the 80s, 50 franc lunch menu. The only meat they had was some sort of blobs of fat with hair on one side.

The most startling was entirely my own fault. In Japan, I found a bowl at the breakfast bar of what turned out to be pickled plums. I glomped a whole one into my mouth. Oh my word, those things are sour!

My mum loves Andouillette. She is half French though. We used to regularly do day trips to France and come back with different foods, she would always buy a while one which would stink out the fridge for weeks.

Pgl

Rare chicken

Snail lasagne in France.
We had arrived at our cottage late in the evening, the village was very small and there was only one 'restaurant' (someones front room) in the village. We were already sitting down with our wine before we realised that the only choice was snail lasagne.....

Barbecued (raw) chunks of bloody, uncooked goat in Cyprus was another memorable meal...

In Florence with my daughter. Her pasta with wild boar had obvs been microwaved, it had scalding hot parts and semi-frozen sections.
My chicken cacciatore was pretty much bones in watery tomato sauce.
The place had an English menu, but the staff suddenly became unable to speak anything but rapid Italian when we attempted to complain.

Not disgusting as such but the chips (or frites as they called them) in a “French” restaurant in Denver, which were coated in a mixture of sugar and white wine were foul. I’ve never been anywhere less french in my life. Aperitifs were served after the starter, they were astonished that we wanted a bottle of rose chilled and so on. It has one of the highest ratings on trip advisor for Denver, but every now and then a European reviews it from the point of view of someone who has eaten french food...

In a self-inflicted example....
My mum had a number of years with no sense of taste or smell - stemming from potent allergies and eventually improved upon with surgery to remove pollips.
Anyhow, in the inbetween years, we took a Full Board holiday to Tunisia (circa 1989?). I don't really remember, but the food wasn't up to much I don't think. One day mum selected a small bowl of soup; which she described as tepid and quite oily. Everyone else described it (accurately) as salad dressing.

That’s the one rubbishrobot

I just couldn’t remember the fruit it was made from
Was a bit tasteless...
I couldn’t even look at my husband while he devoured a plate of what looked like fried white tadpoles...some sort of shell- less sea snail I think
I should’ve sat at another table 🤢

Goat stew...Canarian dish...another thing he whopped up

Went on a few package holidays to Greece. 2 of these had memorable dining experiences; but not 'horrible' per se.
I was around 9 or 10 and often selected fried cheese as a starter. This is breaded mozzarella sometimes with a tomato sauce. In Rhodes, we took a trip to a remote(ish) village where the 'restaurant' was basically someone's house; who was quite suprised to have paying customers. I ordered fried cheese, and they looked at me blankly and (thru translation) asked me to explain. I didn't know (then) what it was, so I negotiated a slab of fried feta. My, that's a potent flavour.
Funnier still was a time in Kos when the village restaurant had 3 desserts - yoghurt and honey (me and mum), bhaklavar (no fans of nuts at the table that day), and fruit salad - 6 pieces of seasonal fruit. 8 of the 10 of us ordered fruit salad. 6 pieces. Each. Seasonal fruit? Watermellon....

Steak with squirty cream and jam in Prague  I believe it was supposed to be a local speciality but I'm sure the chef must have put their own interpretation on it...

Guess I am lucky as I don't eat meat and have only recently started eating fish/seafood. I haven't had any horrors (though never dared to eat streetfood!). The worst I had was trying to get veggie food in France. They seem very behind the times. Went to a 'worthy' cafe. The food tasted of cardboard. Perhaps it was!!

rosettesforjill

Steak with squirty cream and jam in Prague

I think that chef was trained at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary.

Maybe they've relocated there @MorningsEleven - it was many years ago now 

For me it was a paella in a Majorca, blergh! It was rank and couldn't touch it, not at all roght

The ‘vegetarian’ option at the hotel we were staying in in Croatia. It had ham in it. ( I don’t travel much so luckily haven’t encountered much worse)

1980s germany. Hotel was sooo chuffed they had a non white person (dm) and made her chose the fish from tank (she veg) and dumplings!!

Lovely people at hotel but the food ....