Picture this! You’re walking into a beautiful resto-bar, dressed in your finest evening wear, with the best company you can think of. You’ve browsed through the menu on Zomato a million times, mentally prepared on what you’d like to order. Awaiting the moment you’d get to indulge in them. And bam! The server says your select dishes aren’t available today. Now that’s a buzz kill, right? Well, here are 5 things that put us off at restaurants and we’re sure you’ll agree with the same.
1. Diluted Cocktails Filled With Ice Cubes
Cocktail lovers would agree with me about the sheer disappointment you’d feel when you take the first sip of your Cosmopolitan or Sangria and realise it’s super diluted. In fact, you can hardly taste the alcohol in it. Your drink tastes of fruit juice, icy water, anything, but the vodka that’s supposed to lift it up. Ofcourse, you can always return it back and ask them to make it stronger. But if only the mixologist prepared your drink as well as they described it on the drinks menu, it could have saved you the trouble. Not to forget the buzzkill.
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2. ‘Homemade’ Nachos Made With Doritos
Here’s a personal confession as a Food Writer. My biggest restaurant pet peeve is being served Doritos in nachos by restaurants and calling them ‘homemade’ or ‘signature’ nachos. I don’t have a personal grudge against Doritos. But I do have an issue with resto-pubs, restaurants and fast-food chains preparing nachos with Doritos and then charging a whopping ₹300 per plate for it. I mean, what effort did restaurants put in exactly to make this? And how can restaurants call it ‘Signature’ nachos when they haven’t prepared nachos from scratch? It’s my living nightmare. Perhaps yours too.
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3. Beautiful Restaurants With Filthy Toilets
Have you ever been to an absolutely stunning restaurant with an ambience that would turn heads? And then when you proceeded to the washroom, it ends up being a small, dingy even worse, unclean, nestled in the corner. Now that would certainly put us off, I’m sure it would put you off as well. It would leave you wondering that if restaurants can put in all the money and effort on the interiors, seating and cutlery, then why can’t they give equal attention to the washrooms as well. It often hits you hard as you would expect fine-dining restaurants to have washrooms that are of a certain standard.
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4. Food That Looks Good But Tastes Bad
Never judge a book by its cover. And never judge a food by its presentation. I’m sure we’ve all faced moments when Masterchef-level food presentation has taken our breath away. After clicking drool-worthy pictures for Instagram, when you finally dig in, the food doesn’t taste even half as good as it looks. Now you’re left in a conundrum. Should you post that beautiful food picture on Instagram. Or chuck it? We’ll leave you to it.
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5. Service As Slow As Snails
There’s no doubt each of us has dined out at restaurants or bars where the food has taken ages to reach our tables. Only to finally arrive cold. Reason? Poor service. You only realise the value of service at a restaurant, when you don’t have it. With servers forgetting to even give you the menu card, disappearing into oblivion after taking your orders and finally taking 20 minutes to give you the bill, you’d wonder if it’s a snail in a server’s clothing. Service can truly make or break your dining experience.
Foodies! We’re sure you related to our list of restaurant turn-offs. Let us know in the comments what other things put you off at restaurants and we can rant about it. Till then, let the dining-out continue! Happy Eating & Happy Dining!