Waiter, there's a worm in my salad...
What better way to end the night than to have some good food at one of the metro's best Greek restaurants, right? Well, depends what you're served, I suppose.
I've been to Cyma a couple of times now, each of them having ordered one of their salads - to die for, I tell you. Good cheese, fresh greens, and mmm candied walnuts... Heaven.
So last night, I found myself at Trinoma with a couple friends, and after watching Eagle Eye (great movie BTW!), we sat down for dinner at Cyma. Since I'm one to always go on the safe side, I ordered the usual, something I was already guaranteed to be yummy - Roka Salata. Woohoo!
A couple minutes later, it wasn't so woohoo as I thought.
We ordered a big serving so we could all dig in, and just when I was about to have my third or fourth bite out of the first batch of leaves I plopped on my plate, I saw something... move. A second glance told me that whatever I saw move wasn't just moving, it was actually squirming.
Squirming with vigor.
"There's a worm in my salad," I whispered to no one in particular.
It wormed its way from under the green leaves, squirming and crawling its way around the plate, and sometimes poking its front-end up in the air, as if sniffing around for any threats.
The worm was tiny - it looked more like a grub or maggot, actually. It was tiny, the length of a thumbnail, but rather plump and yellowish. There was a bit of translucency in its skin, so much so that I could see a black spot - probably its digestive tract - somewhere near its tail-end.
I can't identify the specific type of worm or maggot that was crawling on my plate, however I did find this online, and it's the closest match I could get:
I pushed my plate forward a couple inches. My friends, having noticed that something was apparently wrong, asked why I suddenly stopped touching my food.
"There's a worm in my salad," I whispered again, more to myself than to answer their question.
My friends looked at me and stared. Only then did the gravity of it all sunk in.
"Oh my god, there's a worm in my salad!" I choked.
Now I'm not one to raise my voice... to make a fuss or scream out loud - much less make any kind of scene. No. Not really. It's usually always just cool and collected Gino, mmhmm.
Before I knew it, one of my friends had called the waitress serving our table for that evening. Eventually she swooped in and asked me what was wrong.
"There's a worm in my salad..."
She grabbed a fork and started shoving around the greens on my plate.
"No, no, it's crawled under the plate. It's under the plate!"
She lifted it, saw the squirming thing under the lip of the plate and scooted off, pale-faced and wobbly, back into the kitchen.
My friends and I stared at each other. Words were exchanged between us. One of them suggested I should have taken a picture. I paused and thought. "Damn. I should have."
The waitress came back and told us the deal. We had three choices: 1) they'd replace the salad for free, 2) we could cancel the salad from our bill, or 3) order something else. Uhm, ok, personally I just wanted to leave.
I was too flustered to think of all the maths and consequential effects of what the decision would entail, and so my mind freezed - mostly still due to the trauma. Someone suggested we just get the salad replaced. I agreed, not knowing to what I was agreeing on. I just wanted everything to be done with already. I just wanted to leave.
And so another dish of salad was brought in, and the soiled one taken away.
The waitress apologized profusely for the mishap, and yet there I was, composed, calm, just staring off into the new plate of greens. "No, no, don't apologize, it's not your fault." At the back of my mind, I was thinking where the manager was - shouldn't he have been here? to apologize and explain on behalf of the staff?
Obvously, I lost my appetite for the rest of the evening. I did manage to get a couple bites from the other plates that we ordered, but the salad - the "new" salad - I hardly touched. Eventually, we paid the bill, and I even left a tip despite the harrowing experience.
***
Talking to my mother earlier over lunch, I realized all the things that could have gone wrong. For the most part, gone wrong for Cyma if I had reacted differently. Thinking back now, duh, Gino, you should have.
There's a lot of things I should have done and all, but as I said, I'm not one to cause a scene. And I'm not really one to extort an establishment for free food and all.
So spare me the lectures of what I should have done and shit. It's done, the worm is gone, the salad was replaced, we paid our bill. It's done.
It's just that now I'm never going back to that place anymore. Perfect salads or no. Ignorant managers or no. Free food, cancelled bills, a lifetime supply of Greek food or no.
Cyma traumatized me with a worm in their salad, and that's that for me. I'm done, I don't want any more from them.
I've been to Cyma a couple of times now, each of them having ordered one of their salads - to die for, I tell you. Good cheese, fresh greens, and mmm candied walnuts... Heaven.
So last night, I found myself at Trinoma with a couple friends, and after watching Eagle Eye (great movie BTW!), we sat down for dinner at Cyma. Since I'm one to always go on the safe side, I ordered the usual, something I was already guaranteed to be yummy - Roka Salata. Woohoo!
A couple minutes later, it wasn't so woohoo as I thought.
We ordered a big serving so we could all dig in, and just when I was about to have my third or fourth bite out of the first batch of leaves I plopped on my plate, I saw something... move. A second glance told me that whatever I saw move wasn't just moving, it was actually squirming.
Squirming with vigor.
"There's a worm in my salad," I whispered to no one in particular.
It wormed its way from under the green leaves, squirming and crawling its way around the plate, and sometimes poking its front-end up in the air, as if sniffing around for any threats.
The worm was tiny - it looked more like a grub or maggot, actually. It was tiny, the length of a thumbnail, but rather plump and yellowish. There was a bit of translucency in its skin, so much so that I could see a black spot - probably its digestive tract - somewhere near its tail-end.
I can't identify the specific type of worm or maggot that was crawling on my plate, however I did find this online, and it's the closest match I could get:
Click to viewI pushed my plate forward a couple inches. My friends, having noticed that something was apparently wrong, asked why I suddenly stopped touching my food.
"There's a worm in my salad," I whispered again, more to myself than to answer their question.
My friends looked at me and stared. Only then did the gravity of it all sunk in.
"Oh my god, there's a worm in my salad!" I choked.
Now I'm not one to raise my voice... to make a fuss or scream out loud - much less make any kind of scene. No. Not really. It's usually always just cool and collected Gino, mmhmm.
Before I knew it, one of my friends had called the waitress serving our table for that evening. Eventually she swooped in and asked me what was wrong.
"There's a worm in my salad..."
She grabbed a fork and started shoving around the greens on my plate.
"No, no, it's crawled under the plate. It's under the plate!"
She lifted it, saw the squirming thing under the lip of the plate and scooted off, pale-faced and wobbly, back into the kitchen.
My friends and I stared at each other. Words were exchanged between us. One of them suggested I should have taken a picture. I paused and thought. "Damn. I should have."
The waitress came back and told us the deal. We had three choices: 1) they'd replace the salad for free, 2) we could cancel the salad from our bill, or 3) order something else. Uhm, ok, personally I just wanted to leave.
I was too flustered to think of all the maths and consequential effects of what the decision would entail, and so my mind freezed - mostly still due to the trauma. Someone suggested we just get the salad replaced. I agreed, not knowing to what I was agreeing on. I just wanted everything to be done with already. I just wanted to leave.
And so another dish of salad was brought in, and the soiled one taken away.
The waitress apologized profusely for the mishap, and yet there I was, composed, calm, just staring off into the new plate of greens. "No, no, don't apologize, it's not your fault." At the back of my mind, I was thinking where the manager was - shouldn't he have been here? to apologize and explain on behalf of the staff?
Obvously, I lost my appetite for the rest of the evening. I did manage to get a couple bites from the other plates that we ordered, but the salad - the "new" salad - I hardly touched. Eventually, we paid the bill, and I even left a tip despite the harrowing experience.
***
Talking to my mother earlier over lunch, I realized all the things that could have gone wrong. For the most part, gone wrong for Cyma if I had reacted differently. Thinking back now, duh, Gino, you should have.
There's a lot of things I should have done and all, but as I said, I'm not one to cause a scene. And I'm not really one to extort an establishment for free food and all.
So spare me the lectures of what I should have done and shit. It's done, the worm is gone, the salad was replaced, we paid our bill. It's done.
It's just that now I'm never going back to that place anymore. Perfect salads or no. Ignorant managers or no. Free food, cancelled bills, a lifetime supply of Greek food or no.
Cyma traumatized me with a worm in their salad, and that's that for me. I'm done, I don't want any more from them.