Food poisoning, let me count the ways I love thee

Today we had our team lunch at a somewhat new restaurant in town. The girls I work with LOVE this place, ( name being withheld for fear of owner tracking me down, killing me, chopping me up and concealing the evidence in the Soy "Chicken" and Ginger dish). I had been to said restaurant once or twice before and was not impressed. A few weeks ago I ordered a Ploughman's sandwich- pretty hard to screw up, but screw up they did. I was presented with a soggy pathetic sandwich on a mammoth sized plate, complete with run of the mill brown bread soaked through with volumes of mayonnaise, wet lettuce and something resembling cheese. It was foul and came with the hefty price tag of €6.50... daylight robbery in its finest form. Perhaps my €6.50 was paying for all the dishsoap needed to clean the frickin' plate. So, when I heard we were to have our lunch there I allowed myself an inner groan. Seeing as the company was paying I decided to splash out and have the spiced squash and aubergine bake with creme fraiche and toasted nuts. Sounds lovely, doesn't it? Lovely it was not. The veg may or may not have been cooked, there was a complete lack of aubergine, ( instead, replaced with giant hunks of onion) with the levels of creme fraiche inducing unwelcome nausea. Dessert was impressive- a chocolate brownie with almonds, leading me to believe it was not made in house. It was a thoroughly disappointing experience and was set to get worse. After having some coffee the girls and I sat around for half an hour after eating and chatted..... that was when the grumbling and rumbling began in my stomach. The sounds of lunch rejection failed to cease upon getting up and moving around and nor did they ease as we walked back to work or when I tried to drink some calming peppermint tea. No, instead it got so bad I was forced to rush from my desk and into the bathroom where I spent a glorious hour on the toilet reliving every "wonderful" moment of my lunch. The rest of the day was spent sitting at my desk clutching my stomach and willing all of the gods in the skies to stop the churning and the pain. It is now late evening and I cannot face food still and am making breakneck trips to the bathroom at an alarming frequency.

I think it's safe to say, provided I make it through the rest of the evening, that I will not be darkening the doors of this restaurant ever, ever again. A truly awful gastronomic experience.

And yes, I will be making sure the imbecile manager/owner will be made aware of my condition tomorrow. Not a single toilet trip will be omitted.