RANT: My Love/Hate Relationship with Restaurants

I am a foodie. Yes. I love to cook, I love food, and I love eating out, especially if it involves a new restaurant. However, I have a bone to pick.
Menus serve a purpose, and menu item description, though sometimes vague, should, by their nature, be descriptive of the items to which they refer. Preferably accurately descriptive. So, why is it that restaurants feel the need to randomly deviate from an item’s description?

My case: I am allergic to mushrooms. I realize that this is a fairly uncommon food allergy, but a valid one, nonetheless. I’ve been to the Mexican restaurant in town many times, and once before have had to chide them about putting mushrooms in something that clearly does not indicate mushrooms as an ingredient on the menu. I had had the same item on multiple occasions before with no trouble (when I find something I like that doesn’t have mushrooms, I tend to stick with it).

A few visits back, I found a new favorite. Pollo Sinaloa. A beautifully marinated chicken cutlet, pounded thin and grilled with summer vegetables, specifically, zucchini, yellow squash, and red bell pepper. It has been the same every time I have ordered it. Today, admittedly, it looked a bit different, but mainly because the veggies were smaller than usual, I assumed due to the lateness of the season.

Halfway through, and I do usually eat it all because it is so good, I saw it. A big, slimy mushroom hidden between the pieces of squash. I promptly downed 2 of Ty’s Benadryl. I didn’t bother to complain, after the first time I had complained and found them quite uninterested in my plight. I wonder how cavalier they would be if I had to go to the hospital…. I hate complaining about food. I once had a manager…a MANAGER….at a Chinese restaurant accuse me of picking the mushrooms off someone else’s plate and putting them on mine to get out of paying for my meal, which I had barely touched.

Well, suffice it to say, the Benadryl was a case of “too little, too late” today. I am positively ill. I’ll be trying to give my lunch back for the rest of the day now.

Seriously, is it too much to expect a restaurant to stick to its menu???