6-legged protein supplements

February 15, 2006 3:39 PM

So. You're eating take-out from your favorite Indian restaurant. While munching away, you dig for another bite and discover... a cockroach, nicely marinated and well-done. Whadaya do?

Outside of spewing the contents of your mouth back onto your plate, that is.

Is this just something that happens occasionally? Not actually a big deal? I'm obviously totally grossed out, but also surprised. The place is quite clean (not that I'm familiar with their kitchen). Do we notify the owners, who we quite like, or the Department of Health, or what?

Could you ever bring yourself to eat at the restaurant again?

Location: California, U.S.

posted by moira to food & drink (41 comments total)

This happened to my friend at a place we ate at all the time, a chinese place called the Great Wall. We had been going there for at least a year pretty much every week or two on our lunch break from work.

We brought it to their attention, and they were incredibly apologetic. It was not a roach, but some much smaller type of bug -- still nasty though.

It was forever "Great Crawl" after that. We probably didn't go back for at least 6 months.

My understanding is that these sorts of things do just happen sometimes, but psychologically it was just too hard to go back there even after having gone there regularly with no problems.

I'd certainly like to hear about the actual frequency of this sort of thing from someone in the food industry, but it was scarring enough that we just couldn't go back for quite some time, and even when we did, I was poking carefully through my food the couple times we tried it again.
posted by twiggy at 3:42 PM on February 15, 2006

i'd tell the owners but there's probably not much they are going to do about it considering it's takeout and it was already home when you got your cockroach surprise.

i've gotten all sorts of disgusting things in restaurant food, as has my family when i've been dining with them. the best was when my dad got a meatball with a used bandaid inside of it.

i think, though, that you'll be fine. if you really love the place, let them know & give them the benefit of the doubt until it happens again.
posted by tastybrains at 3:48 PM on February 15, 2006

This happened to me at my favorite Thai place in New York. They brought me a new salad with no grasshopper in it. But they weren't particularly apologetic. I didn't go back for about six months but since then have gone several times.
posted by escabeche at 3:48 PM on February 15, 2006

I'd complain to the restaurant, send the Dept of Health a notice, and never eat there again.

years back, I wound up in the ER because of really nasty food poisoning I got from a vending machine sandwich. Cramps, projectile vomiting, fever, fluids from both ends. Ugh. I was pretty damn sick.
As soon as I got out of the hospital I did the American thing - I called a lawyer.
Like, 5 lawyers later, I gave up.. not one of them was willing to take a food poisoning case. :-(

But a nice letter to the Dept of Health and a gripe to my employer at the time, and a few months later we had a new vending machine company.
posted by drstein at 3:50 PM on February 15, 2006

If you like them, I would let them know before this happens to someone else (*knock on wood*) who may not be so sympathetic to the realities of the food business.

Oh and "EWWWWWWWW!!!!!"
posted by like_neon at 3:54 PM on February 15, 2006

What's really unpleasant is thinking about all of the cockroaches you *didn't* find.
posted by mecran01 at 3:59 PM on February 15, 2006

1) Notify the owners
2) Notify the Health Department
3) Clean up all the vomit.

Seriously, you have to notify everyone here. The owners may be nice people but they may not be clean people, and that restaurant could be a few dirty habits away from serious illness. You have a social obligation to ensure that it does not happen.
posted by MrZero at 4:02 PM on February 15, 2006

I'd say it is a big deal and not something that "just happens". If it were me, I'd definitely go in and tell them about it. They might offer you a free meal, but I wouldn't be able to stomach going there again for a long time.

Or maybe I'm just being oversensitive to the question because I had Indian food take out from my favorite place last night and I'm also located in California, U.S.A. so I'm getting sort of queasy.
posted by booknerd at 4:02 PM on February 15, 2006

Wait, I just noticed you're in San Diego too. You have to tell me which restaurant. You're morally obligated!
posted by booknerd at 4:03 PM on February 15, 2006

Another point of view, from a friend:
"i love XXXXX. i will keep eating there until i bite into a well-done cockroach myself."
Apparently some people care more than others.
posted by booknerd at 4:46 PM on February 15, 2006

Pff, try eating at asian restaurants that are actually in Asia.
posted by borkingchikapa at 5:29 PM on February 15, 2006

i dont mean to doubt your bug identification skills, but one time at an indian place i bit into something that i thought was a cockroach, but turned out to be some big spice pod, though now i cant remember what that spice is called...
posted by joeblough at 5:50 PM on February 15, 2006

I'd shrug, fish out the bug and toss it, finish the food. Perhaps I'm funny that way.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 6:13 PM on February 15, 2006

joeblough: was it cardamom?
posted by komilnefopa at 6:14 PM on February 15, 2006

Oh, it was a cockroach, no doubt about it. Of the German variety, as I discovered through some googling. I didn't bite into that particular one, but thanks, mecran01, for taking me down a road of thought I'd been studiously avoiding. *shudder*

(Twiggy, "Great Crawl," that cracks me up.)

Thanks for your input, everyone. I doubt I'll be returning to the restaurant for a long time, if ever, but I will give them a call. I'm still waffling over notifying the Health Dept.; odds are I won't.

Booknerd: the same XXXXX that I identified via email? I wish your friend luck.
posted by moira at 6:59 PM on February 15, 2006

Continuing from the previous post. it could even be a spice called 'Badi Elaichi' or Nutmeg cardamomum, very commonly used in curries and Indian cooking in general.
posted by sk381 at 7:03 PM on February 15, 2006

I greet the news that there are cockroach-shaped spices with astonishment.
posted by evariste at 7:29 PM on February 15, 2006

Tell the restaurant (among other things) because if they have one, they have hundreds more. Seriously. They have to know right away.
posted by BradNelson at 7:36 PM on February 15, 2006

I was at an Applebees a few years ago and the person eating with me was about halfway through her salad when she noticed huge green caterpillar. We got the meal for free and she got something other than a salad. It wasn't a big deal but the caterpillar was a lot cuter than a cockroach and considering that it was a salad, it wasn't entirely odd to find it there.
posted by 517 at 7:44 PM on February 15, 2006

I would tell the owners personally. If the place is otherwise clean, I wouldn't tell the Health Dept.
posted by Count Ziggurat at 7:53 PM on February 15, 2006

I would get online and name the restaurant. Personally, I'll never eat at XXXXX again.
posted by allen.spaulding at 8:16 PM on February 15, 2006

This happened to me...in a pancake. The most your going to get out of the owners is a free meal, but they should definitely know. If you want justice, talk and talk and talk and talk about it. I've told so many people about my roachy pancake incident that relative strangers tell me the story of the chick who found a roach in her ginger pancakes...at Starseed's (in Austin!) It's come full circle. God, I hate that place with their cranky staff and roachy pancakes.
posted by lunalaguna at 8:24 PM on February 15, 2006

I'd probably just stop eating there. Not really to boycott them, but just out of a loss of appetite for their food.

But I live in New York. There isn't a single building that doesn't have at least a few cockroaches. Now and then, one will end up in the kitchen. It's really more negligence of the cook (not to notice that the bug had gotten in there) than lack of sanitation in the kitchen.

I'd tell the manager if I was eating there, but I wouldn't make a special trip back if it were takeout. And I would not call any authority about it, unless I had other reason to believe it's a dirty place, or I just hated them for some other reason.
posted by lampoil at 8:29 PM on February 15, 2006

Call them, let them know. If the place isn't hygenic by looks (all food places - this is in Georgia, but I assume California has the same rules? - have their health "report card" displayed behind a register, see what their score was), notify your local Health Department. Hopefully they'll compensate you in some way for you disgust, but if not then at least hope they've looked into fixing a few things in their kitchen.

Obligatory "something-in-the-food" story: I choked on a bread wrap (the twist-tie types) in a pancake. After a rather frightening bout of the Heimlich, the friendly folks at the IHOP were not only unapologetic, but they didn't even off any compensation for it. Beh.
posted by itchie at 8:55 PM on February 15, 2006

In Washington, King County publishes restaurant health inspection results online. You can search for your favorite restaurant to find out how well it does. (http://www.decadeonline.com/main.phtml?agency=skc if you are a curious Seattlite). You may be able to find something similar for your city or county.

In this situation, I would look at the restaurant's health record. If they're pretty clean, I would just notify the owner, as they would hopefully take the report seriously and deal with the bug problem. If they have a history of failed inspections and don't seem inclined to address the problems, that would make me more likely to contact the Health Department.
posted by rhiannon at 9:10 PM on February 15, 2006

Better to find a cockroach than half a cockroach.

Since you like the owners, a polite comment to them would make the point clear; their response will likely tell you whether you still like the owners. Whether you want to complain to the Department of Health is between you, the owners, your sense of whether the owners intend to fix the problem, and your conscience.

In a big city, you're simply going to have problems in restaurants. Several city departments of health have websites that list all the violations they cite restaurants for in surprise inspections; it's fascinating reading, but I make a point of not reading the ones for the restaurants I like because I might lose my appetite permanently. But not even the top-scale restaurants have everything perfectly in order if the health inspector shows up without warning. Your kitchen is probably full of germs, too -- not because I think you're a slob, but because even Martha Stewart doesn't clean everything as well as she thinks she does.

The one time I found a bug in a meal was in a restaurant years ago (forget whether it was Indian or something else), the manager apologized, comped our half-eaten meal, and we'd lost enough of our appetite that we didn't want something to go.
posted by commander_cool at 9:12 PM on February 15, 2006

no one has suggested this, but maybe that's supposed to be part of the dish you ordered? *shrug* :)
posted by lpctstr; at 9:31 PM on February 15, 2006

Hmm... I couldn't find anything like that for San Diego, but for the four plus years we've been frequenting this place, they've always displayed the highest grade possible (law here says that inspection results get posted right there at the entrance).

lpctstr; - maybe we only assume we've been eating cardamom all this time.
posted by moira at 9:53 PM on February 15, 2006

Just wondering...if the roach is cooked, does that automatically raise a flag with the health dept? I don't know that there's all that much of a difference, health-wise, between a cooked roach and some cooked chicken. They're both dead animals, though one is not usually eaten 'round here.

I recall hearing somewhere that the FDA has stated tolerances for insect matter in various foods, such as frozen pizzas. In other words, you're allowed to have a certain percentage of bug parts in the foods you sell. Not all that fun to think about, but something to keep in mind.
posted by Geektronica at 10:26 PM on February 15, 2006

joeblough: was it cardamom?

ah yes, i could only remember the punjabi word for it at the time (ilachi)... i should have googled it.

anyway, sorry to derail.

eating a cockroach should be OK though, nicholas cage did it in _vampire's kiss_ after all :)
posted by joeblough at 10:35 PM on February 15, 2006

I was recently eating at a Chinese restaurant where I had worked (!) for several years, and in my garlic shrimp w/veggies, I found a weird spiny thing that was either a processed not-quite-real shrimp bit (normally I don't eat shrimp) or a centipede. I gave them the benefit of the doubt, as I had worked there for years without ever seeing so much as a bug in the kitchen. Just set the plate aside and got up to the buffet - didn't want to say anything and embarrass the woman who I had worked for and loved dearly.

That said, having been in and out of restaurant jobs for years, it's a reality of the food business. Like someone said above, even the poshest restaurants in NYC have health code violations (I was bored one day, I actually looked). It's going to happen sometimes, no matter how hard you try.

FWIW, if you tell them, they probably will be horrified. My boyfriend's mother, who is Indian and lives in a cockroach-free South Florida home, considers roaches to be a sign that people don't clean pretty much ever. So their reaction will probably be commensurate with hers.
posted by anjamu at 10:52 PM on February 15, 2006

Notify the Health authorities, for the sake of your fellow citizens! It's not your role to decide that a restaurant that serves cockroaches is actually following the appropriate health and sanitation codes.

If it's a once-only, then the owners will be fine after inspection.

If it turns out they're not following code, then everyone will be a lot healthier for your having the decency to contact the Health inspector.

Sheesh.
posted by five fresh fish at 11:28 PM on February 15, 2006

Bah, it's good for the immune system! Kids eat bugs all the time! Not to mention the fine busty ladies and muscular dudes on Fear Factor.
posted by antifuse at 1:29 AM on February 16, 2006

Just tell the owners. Also: ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.

roaches are a special kind of gross
posted by desuetude at 6:33 AM on February 16, 2006

As long as it's cooked it's probably nothing to worry about. I'd just move on to the next roachless bite, myself, and never think twice about it.

Pretty sure I've eaten worse, so whatever.
posted by Joseph Gurl at 6:47 AM on February 16, 2006

Tell them, but bring the bug in question. Otherwise you'll sound like some kook who's just looking for a free meal.

While visiting NYC last yeat, we bought a hunk of German blue cheese at a upscale deli in Chelsea along with bread and some wine then took it back to the room. My wife was four bites into it when she discovered worms in the cheese. Not veins. Worms. Dead ones.

I called the place, brought it back and the cheese dept manager argued with me about the cheese, saying it was the veining (veins aren't chunky *shudder*) but he pulled all the cheese. I didn't want a hundred bucks, I just wanted my money back for the cheese, which he gave me.
posted by Atom12 at 6:49 AM on February 16, 2006

My nightmare story, at an outdoor cafe here in Bishkek...

In the middle of my meal, a roach crawled out from under the table, in broad daylight, and perched itself right on top of my pile of rice. Brave little fucker.

I stopped eating at that point, asked the waitress to take it away, she either didn't notice or ignored it, I was too fazed to do anything at all. Off she went with my half eaten meal and the bravest roach in the world, along for the ride back to his comrades in the kitchen.
posted by Meatbomb at 7:00 AM on February 16, 2006

Your San Diego county government has a department for this. You should definitely tell the restaurant, and the department. Not hurting people's feelings is nice, but the restaurant has a sanitation problem, they need to fix it!
posted by jasper411 at 9:06 AM on February 16, 2006

I'm with stavros on this one, but I've got a fair amount of camping experience, which tends to reduce one's standards of hygiene.

A long time ago I was at a rather nice restaurant for lunch with my girlfriend and she discovered a roach in her salad -- the ruckus she raised was embarassing (to me). Our meal was comped and they even gave us a coupon for another free meal but we never used it (expired in six months, as I recall). Later I heard of people who "discover" a small piece of broken glass in their food (like the Wendy's finger woman) to get free meals so a little skepticism with stories is valid.

This is the type of situation where my father would say, in jest, "Keep quiet or everybody'll want one!"
posted by Rash at 9:35 AM on February 16, 2006

It can just happen. I wait tables for a large chain restaurant in the Southeast, and the managers are nuts about safety/sanitation. Once I have seen one table have an ant infestation underneath (the gentleman who cleans the floors overnight is excellent, and we have a regular pest control service, so it had to have happened during the shift somehow), and twice I have seen individual roaches in the place. Once on a guest table--they squashed it, ate anyway, and didn't want to make any big deal of it, but got their dinner free anyway--our pest control service is required to pay for any meals we have to comp for this and come out immediately to deal with the problem.

That said, absolutely let them know, as they need to know there's a problem to make sure they either get a restaurant-specific pest-control service, or get after theirs to do its job. If they don't seem concerned, then get the health department involved, or at least check their sanitation rating with the health department (major insect problems are difficult to disguise just for purposes of an inspection).
posted by Cricket at 9:43 AM on February 16, 2006

Booknerd: the same XXXXX that I identified via email? I wish your friend luck.
posted by moira at 6:59 PM PST on February 15 [!]

The very same... actually, after a quick poll of all my friends who've eaten there, they all said they would keep eating there even if they found something in their food themselves. They made a bit deal of me being snotty because I said I wouldn't go back. Weeeiiiiird.
posted by booknerd at 9:00 AM on February 17, 2006