Catering calamities

We all know that hospitality workers work harder than most, and that means things can sometimes go wrong. A couple of weeks ago, we asked you to send in stories of your most jaw-droppingly horrible nightmares at work - and we were deluged by your response. We're sorry we couldn't include all of them, but here are some of the best. The winner receives a free Apple iPod MP3 player, with a state-of-the-art digital camera going to the runner-up.

Winner More protein, sir?

"My nightmare happened while I was a steward aboard a cruise ship 10 years ago. As anyone who's worked on an ageing ship will know, there's a creature which can't be exterminated easily, and that's the cockroach. One night I was preparing a dish for silver service for my passengers when I saw, from the corner of my eye, that there was a roach crawling on the ceiling in the restaurant. Rather than tell the punters and put them off their meal, I thought it best to keep quiet and hope nobody looked up.

"I carried on with the service and, lo and behold, as I was serving rice to the clients - plop! - the roach managed to lose its footing and, as if by magic, fell on the plate I was serving. It looked as if I had knowingly placed it on the food on the passenger's plate so, to try and calm the situation, I stupidly said: ‘Looks like somebody's getting extra protein tonight…'" - Adam Hargreaves

Runner-up Take your coat, sir?

"A beautiful and expensive red wine was purchased by a mixed table of six elderly diners. I began to open the bottle of wine but it was a bit stiff so, in order to detract from me making a complete pig's ear of it, I smiled and tried to maintain eye contact with the head of the table. Finally, out the cork came, with an enormous pop - the hand with the corkscrew swinging one way, the hand with the bottle the other. Trying to get everything over as quickly as possible, I went to pour for the head of the table to taste.

"It was at this moment that we both noticed the bottle was empty - and I was standing in a puddle. In pulling out the cork, my hand holding the bottle had swung back and hit the radiator by the table, which had cleanly sliced off the bottom of the bottle, emptying the contents all down the coat of the head diner!

"We both looked down at the jacket at the same time. I got there first and, mortified, pulled it off the chair. He grabbed the sleeve, demanding to look at the damage. Knowing it was pretty bad, I wouldn't let him, insisting I'd get it cleaned. I won the tug of war and ran to the bar area. Instincts took over. I laid the coat on the bar, opened the fridge and threw a bottle of white wine over it. All I can say is: Old wives' tale - it doesn't work! The stain immediately turned lime green, just as the customer came round the corner. All I could do was open the cellar door, throw in the coat and promise to replace it." - Anon

Champagne on ice
"Many years ago, I was in charge of a team of students working in the hospitality tent at the Epsom Derby. We had some fairly famous and important customers in our area, and I asked one of the students to put a certain table's Champagne ‘on ice'. A couple of minutes later, to my disbelief, I watched the student quite happily pouring the Champagne into the ice bucket. The shiver that ran through me as I tried to appease a table of 10 guests, whose jaws had all hit the floor in disbelief, was indescribable." - Warren Secrett

Coffee to follow?
"I was working in my mother's restaurant in Tobago, in the West Indies, and one evening we had a group of important clients for dinner. At the end of their meal they requested coffee and were surprised to find that we offered fresh espresso (this was in 1980). I proudly brewed and served the ‘espresso' with a flourish, before withdrawing to the kitchen. The next thing I heard was a stifled shriek. I rushed to the table only to be told that I had served them curry instead of espresso. The containers were close to each other and both are dark brown. I'm still known as the ‘curry coffee' girl." - Sam

Lobster escape
"On presenting a lobster at table before cooking it, I found it was no longer on my platter. Red-faced, I retraced my steps to the kitchen, peering under all the tables. The lobster was the last one, chef was not calm, and sent me back. Word soon got around what I was looking for, and a restaurant full of people spent the rest of the evening trying to keep their feet in the air. It turned up at closing time, six feet up a curtain. It must have made a grab for it as I passed by." - Linda Stalker

Vogue notion
"In 1998, as a young and naive demi chef de rang, I was working at Ashdown Park hotel in East Sussex. I was in the lounge serving afternoon tea and sandwiches when a female guest came in and asked for a Cosmopolitan. I replied: ‘Just one moment,' and returned a few minutes later saying: ‘I'm ever so sorry but I could only find Vogue; we don't have Cosmopolitan.' She gave a wry smile and said: ‘No, I meant the cocktail.' I made a hasty retreat." - Katie Sandford

Flying high
"There is no place like an aeroplane to bring out the worst in you. It must be the effect of the air pressure on the brain. As an air steward, I asked a woman what she would like to drink. No answer. I repeated my question. No answer. I asked once more, turning up the volume. The guy sitting next to her answered this time: ‘My wife does not speak to servants.' That's just the kind of remark that makes a waiter want to spit into a drink before serving it." - Annette Bielesch

Scouring pad escalope
"I have been a chef since starting work in 1978 at Claridge's hotel. During the busy services, there was always one waiter who used to nick bits of food off the silver platters of food waiting to be taken upstairs. The sous chefs used to scream at him, the chefs used to throw things at him, yet he kept on doing it.

"We thought we would get our own back on him, so the chef de partie on the sauce section found a big old industrial green scouring pad which was used for mopping the floors and had been around for a while. He then proceeded to flour, egg and crumb it so it looked like a beautiful veal escalope. It was lovingly saut‚d in butter, garnished with capers and drizzled with jus round the edges.

"It was then left on the side, and it wasn't long before the waiter had spotted this lonely platter and made a beeline towards it. After a quick glance round to make sure no one was looking, he pulled a small piece off and popped it in his mouth. I don't know what he noticed first - the 50 chefs shouting, laughing and pointing at him, or the fact that the veal had a funny taste. He never did it again, though." - Paul Bolton

Rare steak
"I will always remember when someone sent back their steak, saying it was too rare, even though they had asked for it rare. After cooking it some more, I told a waitress that she could take it back out, and as a joke told her to tell the customer that the chef hoped they choked on it. When she returned to the kitchen, I almost died. She was French and new, and had, in fact, told the customer exactly that.

"I forgot about it later on, so when I was told a customer wanted to see the chef, I thought it must be another satisfied customer. When I heard the table number, not only did I realise it was the ‘steak man' but, when I got to the table, I discovered it was the owner of the restaurant - my boss. It will come as no surprise that I no longer work there." - Leigh Anderson

Your number's up "There was a very large dinner being held at the Queens hotel, Leeds, for the local Accountancy Society. As the numbers were larger than for any usual event, it seemed that help was drafted in from wherever the hotel could get it.

"Our table (I was dining, not serving) had a lovely waitress serving the gravy - the problem was that she was at least 75. She was serving the gravy from a jug on a plate, and unfortunately, either the gravy was too heavy for her, or she had a muscle problem, because she had the shakes. As she moved round the table, the china made a wonderful clinking sound - warning of her approach.

"As she poured to each succeeding plate, diners moved left or right to avoid the gravy splashes - and it seemed, as she emptied the bowl, the shakes became worse (maybe she was getting more nervous, poor dear) as the diners commented (not quietly) on her skills.

"The piŠce de resistance occurred as she neared the end of the ordeal of our table. The shakes seemed to have become uncontrollable, and she managed to totally miss the plate of the partner-in-charge of a large firm in Leeds but managed to pour a substantial amount into the pocket of his dinner jacket - but she was very accurate, as she didn't mark the jacket outwardly in any way.

"I reckon the chap was jinxed, though, because same place a year on, a very drunk female student managed to projectile-vomit right across the table on to his lap. She didn't last long in the firm." - Robert Duce

Swine heard
"Some time ago, while working in Germany as a young waiter, I made an error I've never forgotten. A group of very influential businessmen, regular clients of the hotel, were engaged in conversation when I approached the table. In what was (as I thought) my very best German, I enquired: ‘Which of you ordered the pork?' The deadly silence and the astounded look on all their faces told me something was wrong. I had just asked them: ‘Which of you is the pig?' I'm pleased to say that my German improved considerably from that day on." - Alan Saxon

What a saga
"Years ago, while eking out my student grant by waitressing for the contract caterer who was operating my Cambridge college's catering, we had to cope with an annual onslaught of American Saga holidaymakers. They were often demanding, rude and ignorant. Revenge, though unintentional, was sweet. One lunchtime, a vociferous lady accosted me and demanded to know why she had no bananas in her individual banana custard. She had eaten the entire contents and complained afterwards. Close inspection of the table enabled me to inform her that she had just consumed a bowl of mayonnaise." - Felicity Read

Champagne chat-up "One Saturday night, I was in a bar with my sister, queuing at the bar, when a guy came over and asked whether he could buy me a drink. I really wasn't in the mood to be chatted up, so I replied: ‘A bottle of Champagne and two glasses would be great' - in the hope of getting rid of him. It seemed to do the trick and he wandered away. But a few minutes later, he was back, Champagne and glasses in hand. "Lovely, thanks," I said, as I grabbed the bottle and went off to share it with my sister.

"Two nights later, I was at work in a restaurant, when a couple came in and asked for a table. Ignoring the fact that the guy was looking at me oddly, I sat them down and asked whether I could get them a drink while they looked at the menu. ‘A bottle of Champagne and two glasses would be great,' came the reply. The penny dropped - it was him. Suffice to say, I spent much of the evening skulking in the kitchens." - Anon

Blowing up the boss "I make a naturally fermented bread with fermented sultanas instead of yeast, which means I have to put sultanas in water in a Coca-Cola bottle. They expand as they ferment and gas is released.

"Recently, I thought it would be lovely to show the owner of the hotel, so I took the bottle up to the office. But as I stood talking to her, it exploded, sending thousands of sultanas everywhere. One even struck her in the eye. I was in shock, and couldn't hear. I thought I had perforated my eardrum. I had lacerations all up my arm and had to go to hospital.

"When I got back to the kitchen, I saw the other bottle, and realised it wasn't a Coca-Cola bottle at all - as it usually is, because it can handle the pressure - but a water bottle. Eventually, we found out that a commis had lost the lid and decided to empty the contents into another bottle in the hope no one would notice." - Anonymous, executive head chef at a leading London hotel