10 Worst Restaurant Moments

Oooh, how horrendous! NYC restaurants can be great - but also dreadful. I still remember with (not so much) fondness the cockroach I saw in my local falafel place on 97th and Madison

I've seen the occasional hair in my food, but nothing really SO bad. Not sure how I feel about the fact that they didn't mention the names of any of the restaurants where these bad moments were had - seems like everyone is afraid to badmouth anyone these days. But isn't that the point of a review? Tell us what restaurants made you sick!!!!

I once found a piece of plastic bottle top baked into a cake. Of course, and then there was the cockroach in my boyfriend's expensive entree, which I posted about a while back.

@NeverSleeps Maybe there are liability/ defamation issues to doing that.

How horrible, @uraniumfish! You've put me off dinner now...

I wonder how many NYC restaurants have mice and other infestations.... Seems like they would be lucky not to have such problems. Does anyone ever read the inspection reports for restaurants in their neighborhoods?

I was at a restaurant and saw this mouse walking around near the bathroom. I turned, grabbed by girlfriend, and left. She wanted to know why, and I told her I would not eat in a restaurant that had rodents walking around. No thanks. She agreed. By the way, the restaurant was nearly empty. I read later that it was shut down for unsanitary and unhealthy conditions.

I think it's kind of hard to avoid rodents and bugs where there are copious amounts of food. The city is so crowded. I'm sure they are in pretty much every restaurant in the city. Granted, I don't want to see it. But, you gotta know they're there.

Definitely they are around. But I think that part of health regulations insist that restaurants make their establishments rodent-proof. What that means exactly, I'm not sure, but you can get points on a health inspection if your restaurant doesn't meet some kind of standard.

@NeverSleeps: It basically means, at least this is what a friend said who works for the city government: Establishments that serve food, have to be spotless and have no rodents or any kind of insects at all. This means being bug free. There are many restaurants in NYC that are like this. But many are not. And those that aren't and they get caught, they face heavy fines before anything else happens to them.

And yet it seems that some restaurants play fast and loose with the rules, assuming that they won't get caught...

@Ajadedidealist: Many health inspectors just go to restaurants randomly to check on them. If they see bad conditions, they give out summons, mark the place in the book for a followup, and leave. They go back every so often to check. This is the way is was a couple of years ago. I don't know if this has changed. If anyone knows for sure how the Department of Health handles restaurants now that is different from what I posted, please post it so we will all know. Thanks.

@Uraniumfish Thanks for that link.. I couldn't stop reading all the comments that went with it.. I am just about to go out to dinner in an hour and am feeling extremely squeamish now!

So I get a weekly email from Everyblock.com that lists the restaurant inspections in the area, and it appears that you can get a certain amount of inspection points without anything actually happening. Those places that get too many points get a return visit from the inspectors, but I don't think anything immediately happens. I actually have no idea about the fines they face, but I'm sure there is some kind of monetary penalty at some point. If a place needs a return visit, then Everyblock actually lists the reasons for all of the points the restaurant has amassed, which I think is pretty awesome. But hardly any restaurant escapes an inspection with 0 points - which would be ideal - at least not in my neighborhood.

Maybe looking at Everyblock.com is a good thing. Hopefully it will help you to know what restaurant is safe to go eat at or not.

It's actually really awesome... I've been getting weekly updates from that site since I moved to this neighborhood, and they list the types of crimes that went down in the neighborhood as well as new real estate listings and local news stories. I really appreciate it.

@BroadwayBK it is a really cool site!will help keep me in the know when I move...

@BroadwayBK I love Everyblock. com! It's really useful, like the little old lady on every block who knows all the gossip and happenings.

Haha, I can think of another site like that. Road guru? Avenue watcher? Boulevard analyzer? What was the name again...?

Well, based on everyone's comments, everyblock.com seems to be a really happening place to go to. I'll go take a look and see what the talk is all about.

@BroadwayBK I'm loving Everyblock, too!

@ajadedidealist Everyblock is a lot different from that other website you are talking about - like Uraniumfish said, it's like your nosy neighbor started a website to inform on everyone, good or bad. It goes into details like who is applying for liquor licenses or building contracts - I was pretty amazed that such an all-inclusive site existed.

Great site BroadwayBK. I even found my crappy Crown Heights block. I had been looking forward to exploring some of the famous vegetarian restaurants around here -- there are a lot of them that are supposed to be good -- but so many of them have violations! Damn! It was going to be my one consolation for moving to Crown Heights.

@DBlack It seems like most restaurants get violations.... I wouldn't take it too hard. I think you have to get a lot of points before they require a second visit from the health department, like BroadwayBK mentioned above. Which is something I learned from scoping out the restaurants in my area on that site.

@Neversleeps: Every restaurant in NYC has gotten a citation at one time or another. They can't avoid it.

That was my point, yo.

Watching Kitchen Nightmares has really made look at restaurants a lot more closely!

Cart food - so delicious, yet terrifying on some aspects. Got a piece of plastic in my chicken once.

@Oren See, that's the moment I dread enough to be veeery scared of the cart food experience in general.

@Oren Which cart gave you a piece of plastic with your chicken?