I would have refused the food, paid for my drink and found some where else to eat. I'm already a very picky eater and have a weak stomach.
Once, Mr. Noph and I ordered a huge amount of sushi from a restaurant we used to eat at at least every other month. The server only spoke spanish, which made ordering sushi confusing, but Mr. Noph is very adventurous about sushi, so we didn't care if we got some surprises. There was only one other table of diners at that time in the restaurant. Two parents and three children, the oldest about 3, the youngest maybe 9 mos or so. The middle one was obviously sick, we could hear her sneezing and stopped up nose across the dining area. We usually go for sushi as it is a more adult meal and we had business to discuss. We knew there was a sick kid, and the other kids were pretty rowdy for the type of restaurant, but we'd been ignoring it as that's just kinda how kids act when they are drug someplace that has very little stimulation for them.
We saw what we knew had to be our sushi order (we had ordered a TON of sushi and asked it all be on one platter so we could both try everything). We saw the waiter walk it over to the other table. We saw the little girl sneeze. We saw the waiter pick up the tray and bring it over to us (the kids and parents had JUST placed their order with him, so they were telling him no as he set it down, but there was a language barrier or maybe he just didn't care about doing a good job..he only had two tables.) I have a crap immune system, plus this is already raw fish we're talking about....So I immediately refused the platter, and told him I wanted another one, this one had been sneezed on. He said something I coudln't understand and walked away with the platter. After another 30 mins (the parents and kids were ending their meal) we'd not been served. I put four one dollar bills on the talble (cover our sodas) and we began to leave. What I'm guessing was a manager blocked our exit and said he was calling the police, he "didn't tolerate dining and dashing." I responded that yes, he should call the police and the health department. We'd not dined on anything, our orginal dish had been sneezed on by a sick child, and we'd not seen our waiter since we refused the sneezed on food, so if he continued to block my path, the police would have to be called as he was holding us hostage.
He moved. We've not been back there since, but we both shared on our private friends only blogs about the experience. A friend said she'd gone there a few months ago and turned around and left before ordering as the waiter made her feel uncomfortable. She said he just a regular old dude, native english speaker, but that he was so filthy looking she didn't want him serving her food.
