Guest Post: Typical (Unpredictable) Friday Lunch with the Birthday Girl

This post is a bit disturbing. It is written by my friend, Casey, about the birthday lunch she treated me to today. Prepare yourself - it's bad. And if you live here in Columbia, SC, take note!

GUEST POST by Casey:

Morgan’s birthday, being on December 28th, often gets sucked in with the holiday hustle and bustle, unfortunately.  Well, we decided earlier in the week that we would go to lunch today (Friday).  I gave her 3 places to choose from since I would be treating the birthday girl.  Who said you could only celebrate your birthday in your birth month anyway?  Hello, January AND the month to celebrate Morgan’s birthday!  Anyway, the choices were Liberty, Blue Marlin and Grilled Teriyaki.  I knew she would pick Grilled Teriyaki because we both LOVE that place.  We both have very fond memories of going out to Five Points during our college days and stumbling, I mean gracefully walking, to Grilled Teriyaki at 2 am for a delicious meal that left us with the lingering scent of smoky, burnt chicken.  Those were truly the days...

Needless to say, off to Grilled Teriyaki we went.  Morgan noticed that they did some updating to the exterior of their building and they even had a new menu.  We both ordered the Grilled Teriyaki Chicken, duh.  Our order arrives. We lather it with their amazing “white sauce” and chow down!!  I am ALWAYS a part of the Clean Plate Club there!  

UNTIL……… are you ready for this??  (DISCLAIMER:  IF YOU HAVE A WEAK STOMACH DO NOT READ ON)  

I stare at my plate. Speechless. I think I blinked a few times, looked at Morgan, looked at my plate, said "ummm Morgan….." She covered her mouth and gagged. Yep, it was a roach.  

Belly up, fresh, all legs still attached, tossed in teriyaki sauce, roach.  

It was like my eyes didn’t convince my brain what I just saw!  Morgan conveniently made eye contact with the waitress and like a little school girl she raised her hand and motioned for her to come to our table.  I looked at my plate and the waitress picked it up to take a closer look, and stated that she had never seen anything like it and that she was very sorry.  She also proceeded to say that they just had the restaurant "serviced" last week.  Well, I was thinking "serviced" like DHEC same in and inspected (I guess because I have been dealing with DHEC at work, and I had a straight shot at the door with a big fat A posted on it).  Morgan later mentioned that she took having it “serviced” as meaning that Pest Control came.  Which continues to bring up unanswered questions!  So, have they been having a pest problem?  They knew about this?  They have an "A" rating? How did the roach get in the chicken?  Where do they store the chicken? Does it not have a lid?

The waitress took my plate and proceeded to come back to our table to ask if I would like anything else to eat.  Hummm...I think my look answered her question.  She stated that the manager would comp our meal today.  Well, thank you Mr. Manager!  Manager that never came to the table, never made an effort to apologize, nothing.  

I left the waitress a tip (because it wasn't her fault) and we quietly left.  As we were walking out I thought, "man we should have told the people around us."  Why were we so quiet leaving?  Maybe because we were still in shock that we will no longer will eat at our favorite restaurant?  I told Morgan that I am not one to write much on Facebook and especially to complain, but I wanted to BLAST them and called the news reporters!  I now feel like I need to do a full body detox and throw up the food I just consumed!

If you know me, I could eat a cow.  Needless to say, I was still hungry.  I asked Morgan where we were going next.  But seriously, I needed something else to eat.  I knew Morgan would go for something sweet so she immediately said, ice cream.  Ummm, Morgan, did you realize that it has been a high of 43 degrees the last few days and you want ice cream?

 

Off to Marble Slab we went.  Being a little paranoid, every bite that had a crunch made me a little uneasy.  Do you blame me? I just had a roach in my lunch!  Anyway, we ended up laughing about it and cutting jokes. Morgan jokingly stated that maybe something needs to happen like this every meal so that she could control her portions. Haha!  After all, it wasn’t the best lunch, but the company was fantastic!

**Let me make the point of this story very clear to my Columbia friends- I would NOT recommend going to Grilled Teriyaki (it breaks my heart and taste buds to say that)!

The food is not what it used to be as a college student (or maybe we just didn’t pay that much attention to the food or to the fact that the customer service was not up to par)!

Sincerely,

Disappointed, no-longer customer of GT