Bernie

Self-explanatory!

Iggy_Type_R

Irish Stew at an Irish pub in the city in Brisbane, when I was working there 2nd half of last year. ewwww.

Bernie

Some of the worst meals I've had are in Irish pubs - especially around Brisbane! Mind you, I've had some good tucker in some as well. There is one shocker on Elizabeth Street just down from the Bank of Queensland where I had this meal with chopped sausages, some bacon and mash - it was awful.....

wilch

ANA Hotel at the rocks in Sydney...Was actually a graduation party.

I don't know about you guys, but I like my meat burnt. This stuff was practically still "moo-ing" at me, I cut into it and it bled. Not my cup of tea.

Also, how the hell are you supposed to eat some of those things! The food was well presented, but only God knew what I was supposed to eat, and what I wasn't supposed to eat. Give me simple food you can eat with a single fork anyday!!!

wil..

naishou

One man's meat is another man's poison If I had been in your place I would probably have thought it was an excellent meal. Overcooking meat is simply unthinkable to me The older I get the less I like my meat cooked and the better the meat is the less cooking it should have. The best cuts should be eaten raw. I have learned this from asians - the Japanese mostly.

I struggle to think of any truly awful meal I've had but many excellent ones come to mind. Probably the worst I ever had was some "Mexican" thing I had at a roadside cafe just out of Johannesburg. It had two ingredients - jalapeno chillis and salt

When it comes to unusual cuisine I think some people are just "food people" and others aren't. Some people see food as fuel for their bodies (I'm not suggesting you fall into this category) and others see it as something to be enjoyed for its own sake. For me the experience of eating something that has been prepared with enthusiasm by someone with the right skills using the freshest ingredients and a little imagination is one of the greatest pleasures in life.

To pre-empt Bernie and answer the opposite question, the best meal I ever had was a chinese banquet in Sydney. My girlfriend of the time had a grandmother visiting from HK and the whole family went to splurge. Her father knew the very best place and it was a very rare experience - fish from the tank steamed with ginger and shallots, fillet steak and snow peas, pigeons, jellyfish, shark fin soup, abalone, crabs also from the tank and prepared 3 ways, duck - it just kept coming. Gotta love Cantonese food

suit36

Worst meal - any surburban chinese that "anglo-cises" food

Best meal - fetuccini with truffled sauce (Buon Ricordo); seared foix gras (Celcius)

wilch

[QUOTE]Originally posted by naishou
[B]One man's meat is another man's poison

Bernie

I'm impressed - Fresh pasta with a simple truffle sauce - made in heaven......

Mind you, I agree with naishou. A lot of the best meals I've had have been Cantonese banquets. Just amazing.....

Naishou, you're brave eating at a roadside cafe in J'Burg!!!

You're all making me hungry!!

RedRover

Firstly, congratulations to Bernie for being the starter of several thought-provoking threads.

However, this one has an internal contradiction in that the title/question "what is the worst meal you've ever HAD" implies that you actually ate it and survived.

What I'm getting at is that most of us may have had a meal presented to us that we took one look at and refused to eat and/or one where we had one small taste and then declined to continue. Perhaps served but uneaten meals should be excluded from consideration?

Secondly, I'm sure that most of us (at least once in our lives) has had a dose of food poisoning and/or been quite sick after eating something that didn't agree with us. Accordingly, perhaps we should also exclude meals that our stomachs didn't reject?

A meal that you voluntarily completed and didn't make you spew shortly thereafter probably doesn't meet Bernie's criteria of "worst meal ever" but it still may qualify for your worst presented/worst tasting meal?

It's also possible that Bernie was trying to provoke the most gory, revolting gut-wrenching details about what some people eat. Those of us that have travelled through Asia or Africa will have seen some pretty dreadful things. However, my "run for the toilet" show-stopping story comes from Sydney.

Those older members here may recall a 1970's Kings Cross entertainer by the name of "Divine". Divine was a very fat middle-aged drag Queen whose stage act consisted of bringing on a large dog (say a German Shepherd or equivalent) and getting the dog to do a big poo which he would catch in a bowl and then proceed to eat whilst it was still hot & steamy. People actually paid to watch him do this.

I doubt that anyone here has eaten a meal worse than this.

suit36

ewww, thanks for sharing

if you are after squirmish stories...

I ate live prawns in a shady restaurant somewhere in Campsie (I think, it was way down South anyway) in Sydney. Bizarre sensation having something wriggling or jumping in your mouth....(and if anyone's mind is sinking into the gutter, don't go there )