To be disappointed about my desert?

[CrosscuttingThemes]

Just had a meal in a local restaurant.
I ordered creme brûlée, it’s my favourite pudding. To me a good creme brûlée should have a hot burnt sugar crust with a smooth creamy light custard.

The pudding arrived looking spectacular with a high tower of spun sugar but bloody hell, when I tasted the custard it was thick with chopped raw hazelnuts. The texture was heavy as if it had been overly thickened with gelatin. It felt and tasted awful. So unlike what I expected, surprisingly as the main course was really excellent.
I ate the sugar but left the rest after tasting it.
I politely told the waitress that I couldn’t eat it, I would not have ordered it if I had been told it contained raw nuts (toasted nuts may have been ok, but still I would have preferred an ordinary creme brûlée)

She said ‘oh dear, what a shame’ but charged us for it. She suggested that in future I should check what the brûlée contains as the chef likes to mix it up and try different flavours.

So no tip for her.

Do you think they should have charged me? AIBU to think that if the chef changes a classic recipe, then the menu should indicate this or the waitress should have let me know that when I ordered it?

Puddings are really important, aren’t they? You just can’t mess with a dessert like this. It’s anarchy. What will future generations do if we allow this kind of thing now? I have children, I can’t bear to think that this is their future, a future containing raw nuts in creme brûlée.

I have to go and lie down. My heart is broken. My head is wrecked.

Eew no, I wouldn't have paid!

I had cheesecake for dessert once at a work Christmas meal out. It was full of sultanas! No one ate it. I looked up the table and everyone was just woefully picking them out and picking at it. Was pure sacrilege.

Once, I went to a place that served my sticky toffee pudding with chocolate ice cream. They had obviously run out of vanilla, and substituted with chocolate,
This would have tipped me over the edge.

Who the hell thinks raw hazelnuts would taste nice in a creme brulee? There's a reason that's not a thing. I'd be farting sparks if I were you. And no, it's not the customer's responsibility to check there's nothing weird in their food. It should be advertised accurately on the menu.
I hope you are ok x

I once ordered a coronation chicken salad. When it arrived it was lettuce leaves arranged around the outside of a plate with a dollop of coronation chicken plopped in the middle. That was it - no tomatoes, feta or olives or anything nice, just lettuce leaves with the mound of coronation chicken (that looked like it had come straight out of a sandwich filler tub). It was as boring and unappetising as it sounds 😆

I love a proper brulee. I like hazelnuts too so would probably have been ok with it. I wouldn't think it was a proper brulee though.

I am also pretty surprised that a restaurant thinks it's ok to randomly add nuts to a dish that would not normally have nuts in. Totally allergy unaware.

Sultanas in a cheesecake? What the actual fuck?! I was just sick in my mouth.

Ok WTAF do chefs think they are doing??!!!
I had cheesecake for dessert once at a work Christmas meal out. It was full of sultanas

We do brulees with various fruit coulis that are clearly stated on the menu
.I agree a brule e is a simple pudding that can easily be so right or so wrong.Sound like an amateur chef trying to experiment.As for allergies we take them very seriously and ask the customer to tell the front of house of any requirements regarding the special s and have printed into on the main menu which we still take into account for any individual.
I would be mentioned it to YOU to get it taken off the bill.

But baked cheesecake often has sultanas in it!

If they didn’t declare it that’s really bad- I’m allergic to hazelnuts, and will generally ask about them if I think there’s a risk- it wouldn’t even occur to me to do so with a creme brûlée! I react more strongly the more raw they are, too 😱

I've never seen a besultanad cheesecake!

Is it traditional in a particular country?

The dessert wasn’t faulty as such, but a chefs take on a classic dish. Just because you didn’t like it (because of the nuts), doesn’t mean there was anything wrong with it. Maybe complain that it was over-gelatin-ed.

I'd have been really annoyed if I ordered the Creme Brulee and it had nuts in it. I bloody hate nuts.
I'd have sent it back and refused to pay.
They should state on the menu if the pudding is some kind of variation of a well known pudding.

I avoid getting puddings these days as I'm always disappointed and they are rarely worth the calories.

I'd rather have had an extra starter most of the time.

I have a nut allergy and would probably have ordered crėme brulėe thinking it was the safe option

I ordered a Creme Brulee once and it came with brown sugar sprinkled on top. Obviously someone forgot or couldn't be arsed to get out the blow torch and caramelise the sugar. It was very disappointing but I was young and felt like maybe I had the wrong expectation so never mentioned it.

You should have clutched your throat and started rolling around on the floor.

Cranberries and candied peel in a stick toffee? Raw nuts In a creme brulee??? What is this absurd fuckery? Hi! Chef here! No! No! Why cant people leave classics as classics? I have an awful case of the rage now. Almost as bad as when I couldn't get anything without salted fricking caramel in it ar my local last year! Ugh!

Sultanas are the work of the devil, and anyone prepared to entertain them in this life seriously just wants you dead.

"I've never seen a besultanad cheesecake!

Is it traditional in a particular country?"

I've had German baked cheesecake with sultanas in.

I once went to the Sahara. And I too was disappointed in my desert.

I went to a food safety course the other week & a catch-all (think they called it alibi labelling) is definitively frowned upon.

Hazelnuts in a creme brulee? That would have ruined my evening.

as the chef likes to mix it up and try different flavours

As the chef likes to think they are Heston Blumenthal with their flavour combinations, not Letitia Cropley (Vicar of Dibley)

Hazelnuts? In a creme brulee? That comes under the Cropley heading for me and not the Blumenthal. YANBU, OP.

M&S used to do cheesecake by the slice. Alwasy had to be careful not to buy the sultana one. They kept selling it for years so someone must have liked it.

The best dessert I've ever had was at a hidden brasserie in Paris - we thought we were entering a crap tourist place. It was a trio of creme brulees - I think the flavours were rosewater, pistachio and almond, all amazing...

But no crud. Just as well, I don't know enough French to complain "There is crud in my brulee"!