To ask for your worst dinner party experiences?

[Smileandtheworldsmileswithyou]

I know there have been threads on this before, I just absolutely love them for some reason. These and the CF ones are the best! I'll start with mine. I had recently moved with my husband to a new country and my new boss invited me and a few other people from work to his house for dinner. When we arrived he was completely pissed, literally stumbling around drunk. He spent ages showing us a lizard on the wall which we all politely commented on, and waited and waited for the food...He then dropped a box of brownies all over the floor that another guest had brought as a gift and laughed about it for ages. Finally we were asked to sit down for dinner, but he said he couldn't carve the chicken so asked me to do it for him. He then came into the tiny kitchen to watch me try and carve it up and told me how I shouldn't worry, he would make sure I passed my probation at the end of the year. He then persuaded my husband to go in and finish off the job with the chicken before asking him if I was happy at work and if I liked him. We finally got to the table and he starts drinking my wine which I just ignore. He then tells everyone that he has made the bread rolls himself, even though I saw them in a packet in the kitchen. He told us a big elaborate tale about where he found the seeds for them. Dessert was finally served at around 1am, by which time everyone was desperate to get the hell out of there. He said we should take it in turns to host, funnily enough no one ever did take him up on that!

[Bjarnum]

First dinner party with new friends. Opened a bottle of bubbly - the cork rocketed up straight into the lampshade which promptly deposited a shower of dust over the food

[LunaMay]

@Bjarnum

First dinner party with new friends. Opened a bottle of bubbly - the cork rocketed up straight into the lampshade which promptly deposited a shower of dust over the food

I don't know why I laughed so much at this.

[Shade17]

One way round the perennial steak issue is to cook a piece of fillet instead of individual steaks. Brown it 10 seconds each side in a super hot pan to get the Maillard reaction that gives flavour. Wrap in foil and put a 240 degree oven for 12 minutes. Then leave to rest. Slice it very thinly when ready to serve and serve on a platter of rocket leaves. . The outer slices will be well done gradually changing to very rare in tthe centre so people can pick their preferred level of doneness. If you end up with too much rare and not enough well done for the guests it only takes 5 seconds a side in a hot, lightly oiled frying pan to cook some of the raw rare slices through. This method also has the advantage of making the same weight of meat serve more people. Good for the arteries, the planet and the bank balance.

I do enjoy a roast fillet or a Wellington but certainly wouldn’t be putting good steak on the menu for those that like it well done, there’s plenty of other things to cook instead. 4 of us can demolish a 2.5kg fillet though so maybe not the best way to save money

[ohforarainyday]

Do you honestly think its common for the majority to be wolfing down a roast dinner monday-saturday at noon?

Who on earth is talking about every day? This was a one-off special lunch party, which had been specifically stated as being a roast. But yes plenty of people eat a cooked meal for lunch every day, nothing unusual about that. Plenty of workplaces provide cooked meals at lunch every day. There are whole industries where the standard is to provide everyone with a cooked meal at lunchtime. And for millions of people "Sunday lunch" means a roast with all the trimmings.

Do you honestly think every single person in the UK eats a sandwich at noon 365 days a year? Do you sit down to eat your Christmas turkey, or Easter Sunday lamb, at 8pm?

And noon is not lunchtime, lunchtime can be anytime between noon-2pm.

Just looked a 5 local 'lunch' menus and the majority of the lunch menu is made up of sandwhich options
Are you looking at the lunch menus of actual restaurants (meaning restaurants you have to book for, which have table service), or cafes/coffee shops/sandwich shops designed to serve workers on their lunch breaks?

I realise I'm now being extremely petty and arguing for the sake of arguing [this could prelude every other post on MN lol), but every actual sit down restaurant that does a lunch menu has cooked dishes. I was going to book a restaurant for lunch these are some of the restaurants I'd go to:
gymkhanalondon.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Lunch-Menus-WEB.pdf
www.frenchiecoventgarden.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/SET-LUNCH-17.05.21-web.pdf
www.theninthlondon.com/menu#menu--507108
aquashard.co.uk/mod/menu/866
mere-restaurant.com/menus/

There's a zillion restaurants that do lunch menus like these so clearly enough people must be eating them to keep them in business.

[ohforarainyday]

Before anyone accuses me of being a snobbish Londoner

www.beefeater.co.uk/en-gb/daytime-saver-menu/beefeater_lunchtime_menu.pdf

[Gh0stontoast]

Quite fancy lunch at a Beefeater now, ohforarainyday

[ohforarainyday]

There is literally a Beefeater about 100 yards away from where I live.
Every time I walk by I feel like I've fallen into a wormhole to the 80s.

Still would quite like a knickerbocker glory.

[Bloodybridget]

No, @inappropriateraspberry, she cooked for all of us, it was just the length of time it took her that was weird!

[Bloodybridget]

We ate the crisps while she was cooking.

[24hoursfromtulsa]

@mam0918

Sorry, I've only just seen your question about my post. I am in the south and lunch is 1 pm to 2 pm usually - 12 pm would be far too early. We were most definitely invited for a roast at lunchtime and asked to arrive at 1 pm, it was most peculiar that they left us there with nothing (apart from a handful of tiny tiny snacks) to eat for over four hours.

A bit of background information, the same friends had come to our place for lunch a month or so before. We had invited them for 1 pm, thinking we would eat about 130 or 2 pm. The week before, they asked if we could make it earlier due to their dog's walk timetable. So of course we said yes, asking them to arrive at 12 and we planned to serve the food around 1 pm. However, they were late and arrived just before one so we had to dish up the food almost immediately. They then left at 4 o'clock because they had to get back to the bloody dog. So there was absolutely no confusion about what lunchtime meant.

Pretty obvious that they value their time, and their dog's, more than ours. Funny thing is, they are considerably posher than us, but I just think they're bloody rude. I now insist that if they want to meet up we go to a restaurant or pub halfway between us.

[SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius]

@BakedTattie

We had a couple who were good friends round for dinner one night. My husband is a chef and we both love entertaining.

The couple turned up empty handed. No problem though, never expected. But! We had (one) bottle of champagne then prosecco. The couple moaned we didn’t have any more champagne. I offered them beer, wine, prosecco, spirits.... nope they wanted champagne. We didn’t have any more though. They weren’t happy so accepted wine grudgingly.
My husband had made a lovely starter, then as we knew the couple loved it, we had venison and dauphinois potato’s, followed by a nice cheese board. Our ‘friends’ drank 3 bottles of wine between them throughout the meal, then desert wine, followed by whisky. Over the whisky, they proceeded to critique the whole night and , criticise my husbands cooking. It was awful, you could have cut the tension with a knife.

They left without so much as a thank you. But said they would have us to their house to ‘show us how to throw a ‘proper’ dinner party’

We went to theirs (grudgingly!) a month later. Arrived and They had no food in so left us at theirs to go to the shops. Came back bragging about what an amazing meal we were about to have.

They served us both a glass of Coke, with plain penne pasta with smoked sausage cut up through it to eat.

Safe to say, we aren’t friends anymore.

How did you manage to keep a straight face, when presented with that gourmet delight, @BakedTattie? I'd have bitten my tongue right through, in my efforts not to say "You said you were going to show us how to throw a proper dinner party - and THIS is your demonstration? Please explain how this is better than the delicious venison and dauphinoise potatoes that dh made you!!"

[Deadringer]

We were invited to dh's cousin's new house for dinner. Looking forward to a nice evening but the atmosphere seemed a bit frosty. Cousin's wife sat at the far end of the room and barely spoke to us, then announced that she was going out. It was obvious that they had had a row before we came. It was clear that dinner was off the cards so we had one drink then left.

[EnidPrunehat]

For starters...

Back in the 70s, a friend who'd moved down here to do his postgrad teaching certificate always raved about his mother's magnificent 'Cheshire Teas'. Tables groaned with the home-grown, home-cooked goodness routinely served up and they were the epitome of lavish. So we were full of expectation when, while being up near his family home during the summer holidays, he positively begged us to visit and assured us that his mother would never forgive him if we didn't come and enjoy one of her splendid repasts. So, after a day out with our friend (who had warned us not to eat lunch since we had this teatime magnificence awaiting) we turned up at 4. Red flags should have been waved from the baleful stare his mother greeted us with. But no matter, friend was most jolly and ushered us into an immaculate sitting room where a small, highly polished and very 'leggy' little table was set with the full panoply of accessories - doilies, little napkins, sugar bowls with tongs, tiny little milk jugs etc. A very small plate of tiny little sandwiches (with flags in proclaiming their content) and an equally tiny plate of Eccles cakes sat like very small trophies amidst the 'niceties'. Mother, meanwhile, lurked in the kitchen. Friend invited us to sit down and started pouring tea (into equally minute china cups) and my ex (who really couldn't abide tea) politely asked if he might have a coffee perhaps. 'No, you can't!' came a shout from Mother. 'I don't make coffee at teatime. I'm not running a cafe, you know!'. We silently sat and chewed, very slowly, the microscopic offerings. I could have died for more tea and eventually, friend took the teapot back into into the kitchen from where we overheard 'Don't you dare let those people eat the Eccles cakes. Your dad and me want them for supper'. Awkwardness reigned for another half an hour when we literally made our excuses and left.

Years later, my ex and I can still get much amusement from this incident but for the life of me, we can't work out what was going on. Mother clearly hated guests and clearly didn't want them eating her daintily prepared nibbles. Friend seemed to assume that she'd suddenly turn hospitable if you traipsed a group of complete strangers through her house. She didn't.

[yogafairy]

@ILoveYoga we might have had the same friends! My husband and I were invited to dinner from my husbands work colleague. I said we'd get a babysitter but they said no and that it would be nice for their child to have company etc.

Anyway we get there and as the host leads us to the table it is only set out for four clearly adult spaces.

My daughters (4 &5) were unsure where to sit so I asked and they said that the children weren't eating and could wait in the kitchen with their child until we'd finished!

I got up and left with my children and stopped at McDonald's on the journey home.

Some people are just bizarre.

[Sparticle]

@yogafairy did your DH stay at his colleague's house?!

[Crankley]

Mine is sad rather than worst. In my twenties (50+ years ago), I had a friend. We hitchhiked round Europe together, we lived in a shared house, I was her bridesmaid when she married a German bloke who she met while we were hitchhiking. I collected her from the airport when she called to say she had escaped from her husband who had mentally and physically abused her. He kicked her in the stomach when she was pregnant and she lost her baby. When I collected her from the airport she looked like a skeleton. She lived with me while I nursed her back to health. In time she left and after a while met a man who she eventually married.

I would occasionally be invited to dinner parties but was not dating at the time and it was eventually made clear to me that the effort of finding single men to even up numbers was becoming onerous. I declined the next invitation and never heard from her again.

[NigelWithTheBrie79]

It was awful. She refuses help though (despite being a psychologist herself) and always tells everyone else what fat pigs they are for eating a proper meal

My MIL is similar. She makes lovely food but will say to the females (never the males. They are allowed to stuff their faces without judgement) in the family something like "I've given you half a piece. We can't afford the calories at our age!" I would then request that the nearest male give me the other half of my.food.

[Schoolnoshow]

Not exactly a dinner party, but a child's party my DS was invited to. I didn't know the family and I'm not sure my DS really even knew the child well. Never-the-less, he was one of the few that had come. There were 4 children in the family, the mum, the mum's brother and probably 5 guests including DS.
We were slightly late as I tried to find their rather gorgeous, arts and crafts style house. The other parents had all dropped and run, but the mum asked if I'd like to stay with my DD. I made moves to go, but but she insisted it was fine, made me a cup of tea and chatted about her forthcoming wedding (it was literally a couple of days later) and legal stuff about her divorce. She REALLY wanted to talk.
The kids were all in a dark room, going mental, kicking the hell out of light up balloons, while she showed me her wedding dress.
She then finally got to the food part. Her and her brother bought out 2 pizzas for now what was 10 children and 3 adults. I didn't dare take any, because frankly, my ds could have eaten a whole pizza to himself. There was nothing else apart from a very tiny piece of chocolate cake for dessert
After the food, the mum suggested that the kids go and say 'hi' to Granny. Granny was bed bound, and after riding the stair lift, each of the children dutifully went to say hi. The rest of the party was spent with kids going up and down on the stair lift, wielding swords and balloons as weapons.
After the party, which was bizarre from my perspective, I asked DS what he thought of the party - 'BEST PARTY EVER!'
I look back on it and it as a fond, if strange memory, which stands out in a sea of samey kids parties.

[HollaHolla]

First time I met ex-BF’s family.... we were young, and both still lived at home. I had been out for a fairly liquid lunch with colleagues (which he knew about), but said to meet about 5 in our town. Well, he took me to his family home, and failed to tell his mother I was veggie. She (mortified - lovely woman, actually) picked the ham off a pizza for me. I (still a bit squiffy) managed to try to hold a conversation, without staring at his dad’s APPALLING COMBOVER. It was one of those ‘don’t look at it, don’t look at it’ situations, where you can’t help but stare at it. I was NOT happy with the ex-BF. Still, we ended up together for about 7 years, and his parents always loved me, so can’t have disgraced myself too much.

[SmudgeButt]

DHs birthday dinner disaster at a restaurant a couple of years back....

MiL in her 90s has mobility issues so I checked that this branch of a popular chain had a wheel chair accessible table. No problem I was told! Got to the place to discover that the table was wc accessible but only after I had managed to get her up a dozen steps outside.

The restaurant was very busy (coupon night!) so we were warned dinner may take a while. Not a problem as they have a salad bar. So we ordered drinks and decided what we wanted. No problem with DH & MiL's choice but mine was sold out. No problem as there was other things on the menu I like so I picked an alternative. And off we went to get our salad.

After 45 minutes we enquired how long dinner might be. 15 minutes. Ok. After another 20 minutes we enquired again. Soon. Maybe 5 or 10 minutes. After another 20 ..... So nearly 2 hours after having given them our order the waiter came out, apologised again about the delay, so busy on coupon night and served MiL & DH. And then turned to me and said "sorry but we ran out of your choice after lunch today. Can I get you something else?"

There was nearly violence.

[Grapewrath]

A friend recently invited us to lunch to meet her new partner. I was super excited as normally her food is amazing and generous. Anyway she had recently turned vegan as her bf is an eco warrior so I was excited to try the food.
We met her boyfriend who literally didn’t stop talking about how to save the world. Lunch was served which was raw broccoli, red onion, lettuce and some french dressing. It was served on side plates . There was no dessert and the drink was tap water. I had to leave as Dd was starving and I could tell was about to get very vocal about it.

[LongTimeMammaBear]

My parents were visiting me from overseas. They have friends (pen palls o my DM and who visited them abroad a few times dying a very long friendship) who live in the midlands (I’m just south of London) and we were invited to their house for lunch, on a weekday. We accepted the invitation but told them I needed to be back o collect my DS after school so we agreed a date when he had an after school activity, meaning we had to be back by 4, leaving their home by 2pm. We arrived at 11:30 as they asked, so we could eat an early lunch so we could get back for my DS. We could smell delicious aromas wafting through from the kitchen when we arrived as well occasionally throughout our visit the wife would get up to go into the kitchen to check on the food. We had my youngest child with us (then about 1 yr old) and I’d learned from various past experiences to bring food for her when out, just in case. At 12:30, I had to ask if it were ok to feed my DD (as she started grumbling for food). No problem.

My parents hadn’t eaten breakfast as their friends had said they’d prepare a lovely lunch for us. 1:00 comes and goes, 1:30 passes, at 2:00 my parents’ stomachs could be heard grumbling and finally my parents said we had to leave as we had to go to ensure we were on time to collect my DS. Panicked looks on hosts’ faces as they said the food would be ready soon. Of course we made apologies but we had to leave. We were made to feel very bad as they’d gone through all this trouble.

My DM checked her emails when we got back and it was very clear about what day we were going to visit based upon my DS staying at school for after school club so we could go visit and return for DS to be collected for 4, that we’d have to leave by 2 hence they giving 11:30 arrival time.

In all the years since then, my parents have never arranged to visit these people again as I think the friendship fizzled out after that. The hosts really felt hard done by our leaving.

Thank goodness for motorway rest stops as got fast food on the way back.

[SamusIsAGirl]

Shameless bump but will post later

[Pennybubbly]

I live in Tokyo and a Japanese friend of mine was visiting from a different city and invited us to dinner at her sister's house. She then asked if we could invite some friends too, so we asked another UK/Japanese couple to join us.

We all set off for the sister's place..... which turned out to be 90 minutes and several train changes away, followed by a 30 minute walk from the station. We were pretty famished by the time we got there.

But great, dinner was on the table and it was make-your-own fajitas. Just the one per person. My (UK) friend and I are both veggies but fine, we'd pre-warned them. So we had a fajita with some smashed avocado and lettuce.

Friend's sis then moved onto her speciality - takoyaki (fried octopus balls). We delicately pointed out the vegetarian issue and was told "no worries, we'll do a veggie version!" So we got a small ball of fried batter with a bit of chopped ginger in it.

As we were leaving, we were told we'd need to "settle up on payment" and a calculator was whipped out and we were all asked to pay (the equivalent of) £40. I was mortified for my friend and tried to pay for her while simultaneously trying not to cry at the thought of paying £80 for 2 flour tortillas, a spoon of avocado, a lettuce leaf and 2 balls of batter. Happy Days.

[RainbowSunset]

@Shade17

Just the time I undercooked the steak. Had to put them back on the pan while everything else went cold

Is it possible to undercook steak?

Unfortunately, yes. The internal temp needs to reach a certain level before its safe to eat - as I discovered after making myself quite ill (not envy)