PF Chang's can bite me

On Friday night, a bunch of us went to see Lewis Black in a comedy show at the Majestic downtown. The show didn’t start until 8:30, so we hit the PF Chang’s in the Theater District for dinner. After a ridiculously long wait, we ordered drinks and a plate of shrimp wontons because I was so hungry that I was incapable of being social. Lunchboy and his friend S eyed me warily when the waitress brought the wontons, afraid that I’d snatch the plate away from her and eat the whole thing before the plate even hit the table.

Mmmm, tasty wontons.

As I bit into the second wonton, however, my teeth hit something that was definitely not wonton material. At first I thought I'd gotten a bit of shell in my mouth or something, because it is not the nature of wontons to contain things that are hard. But after sticking my fingers in my mouth and rooting around in an oh-so-ladylike way, out came a 1.5" piece of metal.

Now, everyone has occasionally gotten a hair in their food. I've seen bugs in food and I saw pictures of that fingertip someone "found" at Wendy's. But never metal.

We were all pretty shocked. I mean, food-related dinner dramatics weren't exactly on the menu. I sat there sort of stunned. Luckily, Lunchboy and his best friend were there and they managed to keep their brains in their heads long enough to point out that it was a good thing the piece of metal didn't puncture the top of my mouth. All I could think about was if I'd swallowed more of the metal and whether vomiting was considered an acceptable happy hour activity in the Theater District.

We called the manager over and he shared in our shock--it took about .5 seconds before his eyes started getting that panicked "Holy shit, we might get sued" look. He took the piece of metal (we were all too surprised to think of taking a camera phone picture of the thing before he whisked it away) and went to talk to the cook, assuring us as he went that he was "very sorry" and that he'd look at our check before we paid. He gave me his business card. No one, including the chef, could figure out what the piece of metal was.

So I was taken aback when our waitress appeared with the bill and announced, “The manager comped your drinks and the appetizer. Have a good night!” I honestly thought the restaurant would want to do the right thing. After I found the piece of metal I didn’t even want to eat dinner there anymore, but we’d already placed our orders and I’m not one of those people who tends toward restaurant histrionics. I certainly wasn’t expecting PF Chang’s to comp the entire meal, but covering my entrée would have been a classy gesture.