Bad food experience #723

I don't often send food back at restaurants. I've been known to be a bit fussy about certain foods that I don't like but I try not to be a big pain in the ass about it, especially when dining out somewhere. I'm a pretty low hassle consumer.

So we go to grab a bite to eat at this place that is a "roadhouse" whatever that means. Okay in this instance it means that they play loud country music, provide mini-buckets of unshelled peanuts which you are welcome to litter the floor with and crunch around on, the staff is required to shout "yee-ha!" when notified of a birthday, etc. They've got your burgers, your chicken sandwiches, steaks, regular old mid-priced fare. Hmm, now I'm wondering what the appeal is in the first place. Oh, they give you fresh warm complimentary dinner rolls! Yee-ha!

So I get a french dip minus onions. Minus onions, that's unnatural and wrong you might say. Well, you don't have to deal with my fussy digestive system and I don't care to have onion-induced stabbing pain running through me for the next 24 hours. But whatever. I also order a side of mashed potatoes instead of fries or chips because well, shit I love me some mashed potatoes!

So we get our stuff and hungry as I am, I can even accept the fact that the sauteed onions that I asked to be left out are piled onto the sandwich and covered in cheese, thus making them nearly impossible to remove. I can accept that. It'll hurt later, but fuck it. But then, THEN I try the mashed potatoes. They looked decent enough. Even had some skins in there to look more authentico. But the taste - what the fuck. What is that taste? The only thing I could describe it as was a "livestock kind of taste." I made J try them and he backed me up on that description. I mean, it tasted like a smell. Like when you'd go to the county fair and there'd be a 4H club there? Or maybe when you've driven past a farm? That smell of nature, hay, mud, animal hair and of course, pipin hot excrement! I don't know. I don't get it either, but I swear if I licked a horse it would be similar to the underlying taste of these mashed potatoes. What the fuck? So with two strikes against this meal, I did send it back. And I was really, really nice about it to our server who was probably still in highschool and while she was nice and apologetic, didn't really know what to do or say other than "Sheesh, our cooks sometimes... I don't know! Hahaha! So do you want another one?" And no, I decided to go with a burger and chips to be safe. It took a long-ass time and she came back to say "Um, it's almost ready - should I just box it up for you? I mean, I know you've been here a long time and all. Oh and I'll go ahead and take the french dip off of your bill for you." Um, yeah! Like you totally should take that off the bill. If you wanted to be really nice about it you wouldn't charge me for the burger either, but whatever. J says I was probably too nice about it. Probably. Even though this is the 2nd or 3rd time I haven't liked my food there, I still have them "on notice" and not "dead to me"... nah, fuck it I changed my mind - I still had that livestock mashed potatoes taste lingering around for hours afterwards (gross), even after just a couple bites, so that's it. Dead to me!