There's a cafe near my place of work. I used to go there a lot and I introduced lots of new custom to them over the years. They made the best, to-die-for lasagne in town and had a scrummy selection of fabbo salads to choose from.
I was having lunch there on this particular occasion with a work colleague. I'd ordered my usual lasagne with Greek salad. We were half way through our lunch when I noticed something alien in my salad. It was just a tiny speck but had unmistakably once had a heart-beat!
Because I'd eaten there so many times before and knew how squeaky clean the proprietors were, I didn't make a big fuss about it. Needless to say, I didn't eat any more salad but I did finish my lasagne. I also didn't want to distress my companion, and put her off her lunch. I made sure the little critter was out of sight. It was just a tiny speck.
After the meal, I collected our plates and took them to the counter, telling my friend that I would order coffee in the process.
The proprietors knew me very well. We weren't buddies exactly, but I had been eating lunch there for years (not every day, but certainly a couple of times each month). I showed them the bug (a husband and wife Greek couple run the place) and they hit the roof. They were angry . . . at ME! The man denied it being a bug (it did look a bit like a speck of salad herb) until I said, "It's got legs!" At which point he begrudgedly offered me the coffee for free.
I haven't been back. They're loss. There are lots of other restaurants and cafes around St Leonards and Crows Nest, where I work.
Know the feeling. I've found bugs in my Chinese food - a caterpillar that looked like a piece of broccoli, but I kept putting off eating until I got to the bottom of my dish and realized what it was, half of something with legs in my chiliburger, knocked a roach off a friend's shoulder in a Chili's restaurant, things like that until people stopped wanting to go out to eat with me. I was eating in a famous Tex-Mex cafe, food was great, salsa scorching and then, across the room, under a table, I saw half of a roach. Dying, he kicked his legs throughout my meal. Not sure what cut him in half, but my eyes kept drifting to him. I've never eaten there again.
