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Original poster

Worst meal youve ever had

157 replies

BleedinGums1 · 09/01/2021 18:46

My OH cooked for me tonight, the WORST meal i have ever eaten. It was meamt to be a stirfry with onions mushrooms carrots prawns etc but he burnt it in the oven (blame ps4🙄) and it tasted like burnt chargrilled watery mush lol. So were ordering takeout so i am just curious what is the worst meal you have ever cooked or been served that you ate because you didnt want to hurt someones feelings

OP posts:
MiddleClassMother · 09/01/2021 19:51

A meal I ate in a restaurant abroad, I couldn't translate the menu and ordered the first thing I saw, it was some kind of meat but had the most awful seasoning, and was dry, tough and pretty disgusting, we didn't finish our meal, paid and left to go back to the hotel restaurant!

MrsGrindah · 09/01/2021 19:56

Oh once in Tuscany we found this gorgeous little restaurant where they explained there was no menu, you just got what the kitchen had in fresh that day etc. We were excitedly expecting amazing Italian food. Pretty much everything was slimy and tinned. Bread was stale, fish had bones in etc. I nearly cried. We were on a budget too and couldn’t really afford anything else.

CMOTDibbler · 09/01/2021 19:58

I was on a work trip in Japan, and this meal was in Okinawa (an amazing island, and my favourite airport in the entire world). I'm not absolutely sure whether they were playing at 'what can we get CMOT to eat', but it included boiled pigs trotters, and fish eggs at the stage where the live baby fish were wiggling round inside mixed in with hatched baby fish. I had to eat it to be polite

lastqueenofscotland · 09/01/2021 20:00

Why the fuck did you put a stirfry in the oven the clue is in the name Confused

There was one disastrous stew which called for an inordinate amount of booze in the recipe. It must have been wrong but we followed it to the letter and it just did. Not. Cook. Off.
Beans in toast that night!

Radleyhah · 09/01/2021 20:06

Flying home on swiss air having been living in very rural Africa where the only cheese for a year had been laughing cow and meat was hard to get. Was woken up on the flight for a meal of lasagne- where there was one layer of lasagne and then CABBAGE! - with a side portion of laughing cow cheese!!!

BlackDogBlues · 09/01/2021 20:07

2 days ago. www.nigella.com/recipes/moroccan-vegetable-pot . It was simultaneously bland, salty, texturally wrong and sour. Even as I made it I was thinking ‘no’. I managed to eat it because I was v v hungry. Husband made himself toast. It made about 8 portions too.

I’m normally a good cook.

Rainbowandscarlett · 09/01/2021 20:11

My sister in law once made cheese on toast
She grilled the bread on one side-put cheese on it and melted it
The other side was untoasted and it was foul

Anything my mother cooked-she’d boil veg for hours
Meat would be either half raw or overcooked
Chips would be raw/cold in the middle

A few weeks ago we found a recipe for cheesey pasta-it was so bad even mr rainbow refused to eat it-and he’ll eat anything

OverTheRainbow88 · 09/01/2021 20:13

Chicken Kiev which half way through I realised was not cooked at all in the middle. 🤮

NoraEphronsNeck · 09/01/2021 20:14

Last winter my DH made 'savoury mince and dumplings'. Basically it was boiled mince and carrots floating in a soup of salty thin gravy with massive glutinous dumplings.

One spoonful was more than enough. It still makes me heave just thinking about it.

MirandaMarple · 09/01/2021 20:15

A fish restaurant in Bordeaux. The whole experience was diabolical. When we raised our dissatisfaction they wouldn't entertain us. We refused to pay the whole bill and the restaurant even argued about that. I think my husband left €50 and the bill was €150. I think it was my first experience of a bad meal and equally bad service (15-16 years ago) I've never forgotten it.

piefacedClique · 09/01/2021 20:16

My brother in law used to make pasta with pesto but would add a gin of double cream to the sauce.... green claggy and absolutely gross

Rathmobhaile · 09/01/2021 20:16

When I had just moved in with my now husband but then boyfriend. He served sweet and sour mince - basically minced beef browned, a jar of uncle bens sweet and sour sauce on top presented on rice. It looked like vomit. I could not eat it. He couldn't see why not - thankfully he's quite a good cook now.

MirandaMarple · 09/01/2021 20:17

@IfTheSockFits

Ugali in rural Kenya.
I liked ugali!
sproutsnbacon · 09/01/2021 20:19

The slow cooker pasta dish I made the other day. It smelt good, looked good but tasted of nothing. DP very kindly ate the rest for lunch the next day and the day after because there was loads

Bouledeneige · 09/01/2021 20:20

Bless her heart (love you forever) by dear departed Mum was not a good cook. So there are too many to mention:

Probably the absolute worst was her posh starter for a dinner party or lunch - grapefruit in creme de menthe!!! Yes.

Veggie lasagne (my BF was vegetarian) so it contained boiled courgettes, carrots and onion with pasta and white sauce. I bet afterwards she said 'I don't think much of vegetarian food'.

But there was some awful thick grey thick pastry. And meat lasagne with mince and onions, fettuccine and white sauce. The tomato sauce? A bottle of ketchup on the table.

Bless her. She was a war baby and never ate garlic, pizza, a Chinese or curry in her whole life. Imagine the joy I had discovering food when I went to college.

LaMarschallin · 09/01/2021 20:26

SiL's casserole that she got off the side of a cereal packet.
Chopped up chicken breasts with water chestnuts in a sort of gluey sauce. Just the sort of sauce, I thought suspiciously, that you'd get if you thickened the liquid from a tin of water chestnuts with cornflour.
Put into a dish, topped with bran flakes and baked.
I swear it's the truth.
Even worse, DH was livid with me on the way home because (as she'd looked so cast down when lots of it was left, and there was a lot of:
"Would you like another helpi..."
"NO! Er... no thanks")
I accepted another v. small helping.

There was much recrimination based on the theme of "She'll cook it a-bloody-gain now!".

And she did SadEnvy

whataboutbob · 09/01/2021 20:29

Aaah bouledeneige. My mum was a war baby too- born in London the month the blitz started. She just cooked simple stuff and wasn’t too fussed about recipes bless her, but at least her food was usually nice! Cauliflower soup, meatballs and spaghetti, and a simple pound cake. Makes me look like a ridiculous foodie. But I digress.

lynsey91 · 09/01/2021 20:35

My MIL was a terrible cook and we had some pretty awful meals cooked by her.

The worst meal I think I have had though was a roast dinner cooked by one of DH's aunts. Everything was overcooked and pretty mushy and it was absolutely covered in gravy. I don't eat gravy as I hate it.

Neither of us could tell what the meat was but I think it must have been pork as on the way home we had to stop the car for me to be violently sick (I am allergic to pork)

coronafiona · 09/01/2021 20:40

Cheap bacon, stir fried with carrots. Not sure what my mother was thinking , all the water came out of the bacon it was foil!

WeKnowFrogsGoShaLaLaLaLa · 09/01/2021 20:44

14 years ago. Valentines. A monkfish gnocchi thing. It was slimy and vile but I was trying to be sophisticated. I eat neither monkfish or gnocchi to this day. 🤮

Deadringer · 09/01/2021 20:51

My first time abroad (Tenerife) at 18 with my first serious boyfriend i decided to play it safe on the first night so had spaghetti bolognese. It tasted funny but i was too shy to say anything so i ate about half if it. I started being sick shortly after we left the restaurant and had food poisoning for the whole week. My poor dp spent the week helping me to the toilet, (i didn't always make it) he cleaned up after me and never left my side except to go out to eat, i couldn't bear the smell of food so he had to eat out alone every night then rush back to me. It was horrendous.

pastabest · 09/01/2021 20:57

Lamb Henry that had been boiled rather than baked, served with 'gravy' which was actually mushy salty roast veg in water (think they had tried the Jamie oliver make ahead gravy but hot but very wrong) served with green beans that had been over cooked by a power of 3.

Was served nearly an hour after an acceptable eating time.

Even the cook admitted it was inedible. It was so sad as they had tried so hard and we were all so so hungry.

Then there was this beauty which I have posted about before....

Worst meal youve ever had
blueangel19 · 09/01/2021 21:00

Disney Paris Food

feliznavidad2 · 09/01/2021 21:02

Cheesecake in Mexico at an all inclusive hotel, it was like a biscuit base with some sort of formed cheddar cheese on top and a layer of bright green mint syrup.

turtledovelove · 09/01/2021 21:07

Many many years ago I had a boyfriend who was rather 'well to do'. We went for dinner at his parents house and his mother served grapefruit in creme de menthe as a starter!! 🤢 I couldn't stand grapefruit then and I certainly don't entertain the idea of eating it now. Let alone as an accompaniment to creme de menthe!

It was absolutely grim and I've never forgotten it.