$75 down the toilet (literally)
Last weekend I drove down to see my family. I have one cousin who has a ton of kids, so every time I see him, he's like, "Let's meet up for dinner away from the chaos." As soon as he and his wife sat down, they both immediately ordered martinis. They told me that the restaurant was the only decent seafood restaurant in town. I had checked out the menu already online, so I knew it was expensive. (You know how I feel about overpriced food, but I figured it might be worth it if the food was decent.)
We ordered oysters for the table, which my husband refused to eat1. However, I love oysters, so I disgustingly sucked down, like, five of them. Then I had fish and chips for an entree and a beer. Nothing too crazy, right? When the check came, we split it 50/50.
As we headed out into the cold, my husband whispered to me, "Our side of the check was $150." I nearly spat out the mint I had in my mouth. Seventy-five dollars?? For "mid" seafood and a beer? When we made it back to our hotel room, it was all I could talk about. A restaurant cosplaying as "high end" with seafood that tasted like it came right out of an Applebee's?
This is why I'm not pretentious about food. It's almost never worth the price, and you're paying more for the "experience" than food.
But that's not even the worst part of the story. Later that night, I had a stomachache. Of course, my husband laughed at me and said I shouldn't have eaten those oysters. "If you're in a land-locked state, they're never fresh." I drank a bottle of water and tried to soldier through the pain, but by 1 a.m., I couldn't keep it down anymore and ran to the bathroom to puke it all up.
Literally $75 floating in the toilet. And oh my god, the smell. 🤢 I'm never eating oysters ever again. Not even if it's free. For the rest of my life, this memory will activate any time someone even mentions oysters. Don't even speak its name in my presence. It's dead to me.
I'm trying to think of a high-end restaurant where I paid a ton of money and actually enjoyed the food and I'm having a hard time thinking of any. Honestly, the best meal I had while I was down there was a grilled cheese sandwich I ate for lunch at some random, cute cafe.
The cost? Seven dollars.
I would later learn for good reason.↩