Unfortunate Food Incidents atbp (at iba pa)

Last week, my son, husband and I ate at a Greek restaurant in a mall. I am deliberately not posting the name as I love the place. Besides which, what happened to me there can happen even at home. Anyway, one of our orders was the clam pasta. This tastes very clean as there's no thick sauce that comes with it. Possibly, just the broth.

After I got some and put this on my plate, before I took a bite, I decided to open some shells, many of which were already half opened. There was one that looked somehow unopened but not much effort was needed to prise it open. When I succeeded, lo and behold, the shell halves contained black stuff. For a while there, I thought is this squid? Rotten clam? Then it occurred to me it might be wet sand. But I don't really know. At first I thought of just separating that shell from the rest but then remembering how seafoods can wreak havoc on one's digestive system, I called a waiter over. At first he simply said he'd remove the ugly looking clams. Then another waiter came and said, "we'll replace it." I agreed. Luckily for them I wasn't in a foul mood because I wasn't too hungry. Otherwise, ... As we were about to leave, at least 3 women from the resto said thank you profusely. The next day, we bumped into one of them and again she greeted me warmly. The explanation: the shells were freshly delivered so they hadn't shed all the dirt. Whoa! That's not far-fetched because Maid A always takes that route whenever I would ask her to cook the clams I had just bought from the grocery. Sometimes, I let her get away with it and say I'll eat the clams at dinner. But when I'm hungry, well, she just has to clean them fast.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

Years back I wasn't too lucky. Ordered food from Whistle Stop (for delivery). Was halfway through the fried rice when wow, fried fly. Catatonic. I promptly called them and they replaced it but I never ordered from Whistle Stop again.

Another time, I ordered binagoongang baboy from the neighborhood Pancit ng taga Malabon. What do you know, there was a white, triangular piece that came with it -plastic? porcelain (ceramic)? who knows? Perhaps the saucer fell, broke into pieces, one of which fell into the food being cooked. Or maybe they were hurling saucers at each other?

*************

On another note, as I blogged earlier, I was in the sala the whole morning. From there, I called Dog Bites to ask them to deliver food for my, duh, dog. One thousand pesos, the man answered. I said fine. This usually lasts the dog a little over a month. When the delivery came, I gave the maid P1k. She came back and handed me the sales invoice which read P1220. Grumbling, I said, "they said it was only "P1k", as I got 2 P100 bills. I asked the maid to get P20 in coins from my room. Then it occurred to me to complain.

The one who answered muttered things as I told her (yes, this time a girl answered) the man who took my call earlier said it was P1k. I then asked, "Don't you have the "P1k variety?" She muttered something as I said I'd have it sent back and could she send me the cheaper one? Maid C called the man to take back the sack of dog food. I don't know what portion of the driveway he had reached with the sack perched on his shoulder when he came back and said, "Ma'am, P1k talaga eto. Mali lang yung recibo."
Fishy.

Was that a lie? Was it a deliberate mistake? An innocent one? Had they tried to pull this trick before and succeeded so that they repeated it? Should I give them the benefit of the doubt? Was thinking of reporting them to the owner but these days, I feel very bad when I think of people losing their jobs because life is difficult enough as it is. I think I'll just buy dog food from the grocery next time.