Went for a late 'Thanksgiving dinner' with the parents last night. My mother and I specifically asked if it's real turkey or pressed turkey, and if it was cooked there in that restaurant. Why so picky? Well, for one thing I despise the texture and flavor of pressed meat and on top of that, don't feel particularly thrilled about paying $18 for a meal I could get from a store deli for $8. More importantly though, there's also the fact that occasionally I have suffered an upset stomach from pressed meat. Whether it's an additive or something they put in, I don't know, but I carefully avoid it. Or try.
Our waitress assured us it was real turkey and we both ordered the turkey dinner, my mom with extra cranberry sauce, and I said to skip the sauce then said wait no, nevermind, I'll give mine to mom too. We waited quite some time for our food - the waitress did come over at some point and apologize and say we were next, then we waited again and eventually we got our food.
The waitress who served us (not our waitress) disappeared before we could discover any of the following:
1. There was no salt and pepper on the table. Dad got up and found some on another table himself.
2. Nobody was given a knife. My dad got up and asked for some knives and we were given butter knives (he had actual, real chicken that could have used more than a butter knife to cut)
3. The potatoes were tepid.
4. And the turkey? The turkey WAS pressed turkey (and also bland, and also tepid).
5. No extra cranberry sauce for my mom. None at all for me. We grabbed somebody else's waitress to get another cup of sauce, as well as some extra gravy, as their presentation consisted of covering the potatoes with the pressed turkey and then pouring gravy over it, so that when you removed the turkey you were presented with dry mashed potatoes. Yum. Not quite just like mother used to make.
When our waitress finally reappeared I'd already finished as much of my tepid, flavorless dinner as I felt particularly interested in eating. She was apologetic at that point and asked if we wanted to speak to her manager, but I saw little point in following up, since I dislike White Spot's food to begin with and only went there because someone else suggested it as possibly having a decent turkey dinner. Before this I hadn't been there in years, and this experience certainly didn't do anything to change my mind about keeping it at the absolute bottom of the list for "places I want to give money to". Especially since I did in fact wake up at around 4 this morning with a very painful stomachache.
And re: the turkey, this is far from the first time I've had a server tell me "yes it's real" when I ask about a roast beef or turkey dinner, and it annoys me, because it's obvious they have no idea what pressed meat is when they serve it up to me without a moment's hesitation (pressed turkey and roast beef are very different in both look and texture to the food they imitate) - so why lie out of sheer ignorance instead of just taking 30 seconds to check with the kitchen and save yourself an unhappy customer? read more