To think you should receive the meal described on the menu

[TeaAndBrie]

Slightly light-hearted but also incredibly annoying!
we went for a roast dinner today, when it arrived there were no Yorkshire puddings and no stuffing (as per the menu). When i asked where these items were they went to check and came back to say you had run out.
no substitutes offered.
this just mars the whole experience but if you try and complain you’re instantly made to feel as though you’re making an issue out of something unnecessarily.
this is happening more and more often recently. Anyone else noticed this?

It will be happening more often because shortages and rising prices, they will be being more careful not to overorder. But there are ways of managing an under order.

This annoys me and it happens more than it should! ( i am sure this is why they whisk the menus away from you once you have ordered haha)
Only last week I ordered a pulled pork baguette with apple and stuffing for lunch as described on the menu.
Out came a BBQ pulled pork baguette!!!!! which I dislike-I swapped with my partner but really should have complained.

Yes! Mayo ruins perfectly nice food with its slimeyness. Ugh. I would send back a meal that arrived with it on - easy to ask for things like burgers without it - but they shove it on the most unexpected foods without warning.

@eggsellentwork Weird, anchovies on Caesar salad came to my mind whilst reading this thread for no good reason.

I think they’re such a marmite food that I find they are excluded as often as they’re included as standard on menus now. Yes it’s in the dressing but not the same as having those little slimy buggers hanging around your lettuce. I’ve even ordered Caesar salad where waiting staff have “warned”/double checked about the anchovies, such is the frequency with which I assume people ask for them to be excluded.

Oh and OP they were being v v v unreasonable not to have at least told you.

If it’s a chain pub /restaurant no they are not allowed to go & buy more from a shop.

I had a similar experience recently, in a boutique hotel for breakfast.
We booked the hotel because it listed a vegetarian breakfast on the menu online. Sure enough, there it is on the actual menu. Veggie sausage, avocado, toast, eggs whatever way. Ordered it, waitress came back and said no veggie sausages, ok say I. Then comes back again, no avocado. So I had scrambled eggs on toast, and they tried to charge for the veggie breakfast!

Yanbu. Easy enough things to stock and it would have ruined a roast dinner. They should have told you when you ordered

Bastards!😡 That would've ruined my roast. YANBU @TeaAndBrie.

If its advertised in the description and doesn't arrive on your plate then you should get an option of a substitute or ask for a discount.

I went out for a meal last night at a chain pub. After we had to remind them that we hadn't ordered after 20 minutes, and we still hadn't received our drinks they came and took our order. The meal my companion ordered (lasagne) was not available. It really annoyed me more than it should have done that we hadn't been told when they brought the menus over. She had to choose something else on the spot whilst the waitress hovered.

If it’s a chain pub /restaurant no they are not allowed to go & buy more from a shop.

Not necessarily. When my dc worked at TGIFriday he would be sent over to the nearby supermarket to buy ingredients they'd run out of and needed immediately, rather than tell a customer that the dish they wanted wasn't available.

My personal bugbear at the moment is when the menu is online, and you have to enter the restaurant you're in 'to ensure dishes are available', you order, and then the waiter comes and tells you 'sorry, we've run out of it'. Particularly annoying when we've gone somewhere specifically because they have a good gluten-free selection, and then most of the items on the GF menu are not available. If ordering is online, how come stock is not accurate?!

Yanbu in the sdlightest

why dont they tell you before

my pet hate give yo the menu but dont tell you whats not on until yove chosen-oh sorry we're out of that well tell me when im given the bloody menu then

cross post there but GMTA!

I could eat anchovies pureed in a sauce but not whole anchovies 🤮

Yeah, i would have told them that if you'd been informed they had none when ordering, i'd have chosen a different meal, since the stuffing and yorkie are the best bits!
I hate when they don't tell you they're out of something until you ask when your meal arrives without said advertised item. So many times it would have meant i'd have picked a different meal.

Unforgivable! Yorkshire puddings and stuffing are the best bit for me - I could easily give up in the meat... 🌹

Very annoying. I pick my dish based on all the components, so if something is missing that might affect my decision. I ordered a side salad the other day, in part because it had avocado in it. When it came, no avocado, and the dressing was terrible. I'll get the chips next time!

I ordered a roast that was supposed to have stuffing and the whole thing was supposed to come in a huge Yorkshire pudding. Turned up no Yorkshire and no stuffing so asked and they had ran out too. Very disappointed!

Clearly their Aunt Bessie's stock had run out!! I'm afraid that's how I find most pub Sunday lunches- absolutely nothing wrong with aunt Bessie's, use them myself frequently but if I'm paying £12 plus- I expect them to be able to rustle up Yorkshire pudding

I have lived in Yorkshire for nearly 20 years and have never once heard a yorkshire pudding referred to as a "yorkie". Is this a new thing or are the rest of you just doing it because OP did?

The trouble is, in 90% of cases everything you order in a restaurant will be prepared in advance and reheated for speed of service. Even in expensive places and where everything is cooked from scratch, there just isn't enough space or time to do everything to order on the night.

So the chefs may very well have had the ingredients to make more but did they have the time and oven space to make the batter, preheat the oil and bake them during a busy lunch service while still serving a full menu? Probably not.

That said, they should have absolutely pre warned you that those items had run out so you could make an informed choice!

I'd always expect anchovies on a ceaser sala, they're a key component.
that is crap op. Fair enough if they run out of something but they should have told you when you ordered, or taken the roast off the menu.

I feel your pain, I recently went out for breakfast and ordered a “Toasted Bagel with Cream Cheese and Crispy Bacon”, what arrived was an over-toasted bagel which had clearly been allowed to cool down after toasting and a measly dip-sized pot of sour cream with some chives chopped into it, and one slice of chewy bacon with a huge soggy fat find. Not even enough “cream cheese” to spread onto both sides of the bagel, never mind it not being cream cheese.

I said to the waitress that it wasn’t cream cheese and was in fact sour cream with some chives, I had been expecting lashings of Philly or similar, and she said “well that’s what always gets sent out for that that menu item”, I said “it might well be, but it isn’t cream cheese”, she said do you want something else on it instead, I said “well some butter would be a start” and again I got brought a dip-sized pot to try and ration out over a whole two sides of a stale bagel.

It was really poor and I was so annoyed at being misled on what they believe cream cheese to be.

I’m veggie, but in my meat-eating days I would never have put mayonnaise with steak. Mayonnaise goes on lettuce to take the taste of “healthy” away, it doesn’t belong on anything else.

Oh this really gets my goat! If you haven’t got all the ingredients for the meal you’re advertising, then tell me BEFORE you let me order it!
so annoying.