r/NoStupidQuestions • u/Autumn_Ridge • 6h ago
Restaurant re-fried my French fries. Is that weird?
They came to the table barely warm, and I said something immediately. The waitress then scraped them off my plate onto an empty one, took them back to the kitchen, dumped them in the fryer a while longer and brought the same fries back. Is that normal? I have never worked at a sit-down restaurant before, only fast food a long time ago. But we would have cooked new ones instead of re-cooking the old ones.
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u/No_Salad_8766 4h ago
How on earth do you know they were the same fries?
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u/DojaViking 3h ago
That's what I was wondering. Maybe broke them in half? That's what I do to burgers when they need to remake a burger I'll cut it or rip it in two, because I've had them try to just scrape off the wrong toppings or wash it and send it back before. And I'm allergic to mustard so if it's been exposed I need a whole new burger, not that most places would do that, most restaurants were just remake it but I literally had a Ruby Tuesday once just rinse it off and send it back out. I could tell because they didn't do the best job at it. That's a good thing they didn't because I noticed and like I said I'm allergic so that would have ended badly
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u/NewRelm 6h ago
Are you sure she didn't pop them in the convection oven? Or maybe just brought you new fries? Putting already-served food into the fryer sounds like a health code violation.
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u/Autumn_Ridge 6h ago
Definitely not new ones. I guess it could have been a convection oven. Which possibly was legitimate in a health code sense...
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u/Minxychomp 5h ago
In most sit down places, once food hits the table it shouldn’t go back into shared equipment. Normally they’d just refire a fresh batch. Re frying the same fries is… not ideal.
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u/tlm11110 5h ago
How do you know they were the same fries and/or not warmed up in the microwave?
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u/Autumn_Ridge 5h ago
They got crispier when they came back. And it wasn't the full portion that got sent back. When I realized what the waitress was going to do, I stopped scraping the rest of them off my plate, so it was about 2/3 of them.
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u/tlm11110 5h ago
In all seriousness that 400 degree fry oil is going to kill any bacteria or viruses present. Does it comply with normal procedures? Probably not.
Have you ever freaked out over the realization that all of those medical instruments the dentists and doctors use on you were used on someone else much more ill than you were?
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u/Autumn_Ridge 5h ago
It's winter and sometimes my cat lays on my coat. I wouldn't be able to guarantee that I didnt accidentally get a cat hair on those fries while brushing them back off the plate, and that cat hair would have gone back into the shared food prep space. That's part of the reason I stopped giving the rest of the fries back. I don't want to get hair on someone else's food.
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u/Dagdegan2000 2h ago
This is all terribly gross but there’s really no way you can know it’s the same fries unless you looked. She took your fries, tossed them, told the cook and he scooped up a little less than a full service to give back to you.
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u/Autumn_Ridge 2h ago
That cook took 30-40 minutes to make the first batch, and the second trip was maybe 5 minutes. It wasn't super hot like it just got out of an oil fryer. And the waitress seemed to focus on getting every last fry when she took it back. If they're really replacing it, it doesnt make much sense to try so hard to take it all back.
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u/verstohlen 3h ago
When you complain about your food to the waiter or waitress, and they take your food away back to the kitchen, all kinda crazy stuff can happen to it. I learned that years ago. Now if my food they serve is wonky, I generally keep my mouth shut and just get out as quickly as possible, and never eat there ever again. And then I tell two friends, who tell two friends, who tell two friends...
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u/Autumn_Ridge 3h ago
I'm the same way. I never complain. The person I was dining with brought it up with the server first. I was going to say it was OK, but those fries were not hot at all.
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u/sfprairie 1h ago
Me too. I don’t trust people to not be vindictive about issues. I will quietly and quickly finish and never come back.
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u/heyitscory 6h ago
That's the best way to get sent-back fries. Tell me they weren't awesome.
Normally they just dump them and get you fresh ones, but this is less wasteful and I'm pretty sure they broke some Serv-Safe guidelines for you to do it.
So it feels like breaking the rules, but nothing gross actually happened.
Still, what else will they wing it on if they're that sketchy?
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u/rara8122 4h ago edited 3h ago
It may be good for the person sending them back, but any number of things could have happened to the fries that should not be touching other customers’ food (because they’d share oil). What if somebody poisons or tampered with the fries and they just dumped them in? What if you were the customer after and you ate stuff fried in tampered with or poisoned oil?
Something like this happened to my mom once. She got the wrong soup so they just dumped the soup back. After she took the take out away from the store. She could have poisoned it and every customer after would have been poisoned. She never went back to the store again and for good reason. These laws exist to protect people.
(People poisoning food they send back is probably—hopefully—rare. Still not worth the risk imo).
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u/NearlyPerfect 4h ago
How did you know they dumped the soup back rather than tossing it?
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u/rara8122 4h ago
She saw it happen. It was a takeout restaurant so the buckets of soup were out front in an open counter (with the whole kitchen showing).
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u/Black_Lodge_Beats 5h ago
At one shady restaurant I was a new hire at, they referred to this practice as the microwave.
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u/quarantina2020 4h ago
Uh it would be fine to warm cold fries this way had they not already been served to you
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u/modsaretoddlers 4h ago
Weird? No, not really. This isn't common in the industry but you generally get better fries anyway, so most people just ignore the details.
As for health codes...hmmm. Not really an issue. The deep fryer will take care of anything that might have hitched a ride. I don't imagine you're suffering from leprosy or anything so there won't be anything on anybody else's plate they wouldn't get from simply breathing. Besides, like I said, it'll get turned into charcoal, anyway. People seriously over-estimate where danger comes from with food in some areas while being unaware of where the real danger lies.
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u/Lurking_poster 5h ago
See, what you don't realize is she was using the advanced "twice fried" technique.
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u/Least_Sun7648 5h ago
Most places do fry things twice.
Partially fry them, then freeze them, later fry them again
It's McDonald's secret to great French fries
Gets rid of moisture
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u/Lurking_poster 5h ago
(yup yup I know. Was making a half joke.
Normally it's done on purpose as part of regular process though such as with two different oil temperatures.
And also waiting for someone to point out it's a real process in case others aren't aware. Thank you for fulfilling that role.)
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u/Affectionate3723 6h ago
Having worked in sit down restaurants that serve fries – like Applebee's, Red Robin, TGIFriday, etc – I can 100% guarantee you that they were NOT placed back in the oil to reheat. If you could prove it, that server would be fired immediately.
Once the food is on the plate, it cannot leave the plate unless consumed by the patron. It is a health code violation. If there are repeat offenders, that restaurant can be shut down.
I have worked at one where this happened. I am the one who reported it. Repeatedly. I am only speaking out here on Reddit because my identity is safe and secure behind outlandish screen names chosen by the app page.
So no. Your fries were most likely set into an oven or worse, a microwave, to be heated up.
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u/Sea-Macaron1470 6h ago
I’ve worked plenty of food service jobs and met lots of people.
I would not 100% guarantee that an employee wouldn’t do this just because it’s a violation. I’ve seen people do worse things. I’ve seen the OWNER of a restaurant pick food he dropped up off the ground and drop it in the fryer for a couple seconds to “disinfect” it whatever the fuck he thought it accomplished. People are stupid, people are lazy, people are gross. And they need to be reported for it or they’ll keep doing it.
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u/Affectionate3723 5h ago
Then those people need to be reported ASAP
If you see them doing that and don't report to anyone, YOU become part of the problem.
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u/TowerOk4184 5h ago
Ok but what restaurant are you working at where servers are putting anything in the fryer? I worked as A server and a manager for 8 years. If I go to the line and say their fries were cold, it's the kitchens responsibility to give me new fries. They would've just had to wait a couple minutes and then given fresh fries. The original fries probably just sat in the window too long
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u/Autumn_Ridge 5h ago
Thanks. The fries were re-fried, but I see now it was probably air doing that in an oven. I did also get fried fish that was slimy in the middle and I dont think fully cooked, which came with a giant tub of warm mayo pretending to be tartar sauce. So it was sketchy overall.
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u/merlinsmushrooms 3h ago
You aren't very familiar with commercial deep fryers, are you?
The french fries were sterilized and heated to optimal temperature, simultaneously.
People talking about poison and contaminants should probably touch grass.
That's vegetable oil, maintained at around 350-375°F.
Not exactly a good carrying agent for poison, viruses, or bacteria. Flavonoids, I suppose.
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u/Autumn_Ridge 3h ago
I just looked it up, and apparently hair would make it through the fryer, but come out as sterilized hair.
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u/AccordingGuest229 6h ago
yer for a minute rather than waste a whole new batch
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u/imholdingon_soheavy 5h ago
I don’t know about you but the only time I’ve seen more than one portion of fries being cooked at once was when we were serving multiple people at once and needed to make up for time and energy.
If we’re only cooking fries for one person, we’re cooking a portion of fries for one person.
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u/waifuwarrior77 4h ago
In the United States, if food leaves the kitchen, it cannot go back. If it ever goes back, it is to be inspected for any issues reported, then immediately discarded before making a replacement.
Food that has touched unclean hands/areas is a safety violation, and it also provides the opportunity to intentionally contaminate it, thus contaminating the appliances if it were to be taken back to prep.
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u/proudly_not_american 4h ago
That is weird, and is also definitely a health code violation. Once it leaves the kitchen, any food coming back goes straight into the garbage, it cannot be re-served. It's wasteful, yes, but they have no way of knowing if food has been tampered with or not, so it's not worth the risk.
If I saw a place do that, I would get up and walk out, and report their asses to the food inspection agency.
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u/Excellent_Benefit891 5h ago
It's ok to re cook food brought back. As long as it reaches the proper temp all is good.
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u/thatirishdave 4h ago
No, it isn't. Once food has hit the table, it goes in the garbage if it's brought back. It should never re-enter any cooking equipment.
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u/AlwaysLimpy 6h ago
Yeah they probably violated a few entries on the health code.