Is Salmon Tartar similar to Steak Tartar that an allergic person can't tell them apart?

Well, here is steak tartare, and here is salmon tartare. Sure they could be mistaken in looks, anyway.

I don’t think the waiter should have been arrested unless he knew before hand that fish could kill the guy. Was that made clear?
If not, mistakes like that happens in restaurants all the time. I once ordered a Philly steak sandwich, and I got a Philly chicken sandwich instead. I once ordered a T-bone and got a flat iron steak instead.
Stuff happens. We are responsible for ourselves.

I remember hearing years ago that a Hindu dude ordered a bean burrito from Taco Hell, and for a beef one instead. He ended up suing them for his trip to India to bathe in the Ganges.

Did he win? Did he eat the burrito?

He took a bite before realising it wasn’t bean. That’s why he needed to travel to purify himself.

I heard the story a looong time ago. I’ll see if I can drum it up.

1999. Wow.

They settled out of court

The link just sent me back to this question.

I’m interested in reading the story @Seek, when you find it again, but when a person has that intense kind of prohibition to eating meat, or can have that kind of allergic reaction to fish, isn’t it up to them to double check their food before they eat it?

Ugh, stupid phone.

http://articles.latimes.com/1999/feb/11/business/fi-7006

The waiter was told about the allergy. I wonder how much he ate to cause a coma and if he had a cold.

The guy mentioned that it was mostly a matter of principle. The store never offered an apology or refund or anything, even during the suit.

Nowhere in the article did it say the waiter was told about the allergy, @flo.

I have to agree with one comment in the article, ”“When they leave their home and accept to eat in a public place they know they have to share their risk.” The one person has only themselves to worry about. The waiter has hundreds over the course of the night.
People have to take responsibility for themselves.

That’s not to say an apology isn’t in order, but a lawsuit? Ridiculous.

They are both uncooked meat. Salmon and steak look pretty different.
But I agree with @Dutchess_III unless he told the waiter about the fish allergy the waiter isn crimanally responsible for the mix up.

The way they are both prepared, ground up with onions and stuff added, and shaped into a patty, makes them look very similar. I can see how they could be confused in poor lighting. But I would think the instant it hit your mouth you could tell the difference and spit it out.

But even if he did tell him, I think it was up to the customer to double check. I mean, the waiter is waiting on a dozen or more different tables:
“Guy in the blue shirt at table 1 has peanut allergies.”
“The lady in the red dress at table 6 is gluten intolerant.”
“The guy in the green vest at table 8 is lactose intolerant.”
“The guy in the pinstripe at table 12 is allergic to shell fish, and his companion is a strict vegetarian.”
“The lady at table 2 does not want butter added to her food.”

Spitting something out isn’t enough to stop an anaphylactic reaction.

I know someone who is severely allergic to poinsettia plants. Her entire neighborhood is barred from having poinsettias around the holidays because if she inhales even a few particles of the plant’s pollen she could asphyxiate and die.

Someone who is deathly allergic to fish does take a reasonable chance in even eating at a restaurant – taking the chance your steak might be cut with the same knife as a fish is enough to send you to the hospital. Actually consuming a bit of fish can be deadly.

But if you ask any person who works in food service, you hear “I’m allergic to whatever” so often from people who aren’t allergic to a damned thing, that it loses its meaning to you after a while. I’m “allergic” to mayonnaise, as they order their salad with ranch. I’m “allergic” to wheat, as they order a beer.

At the most, the waiter could be held responsible for entering the order incorrectly. If the order was entered incorrectly. But the waiter doesn’t make the tartare. They just ship it from chef to table.

I would hope the waiter has a competent lawyer who will argue that there was absolutely no criminal intent in this case. It sounds like a simple case of the chaos of daily life.

^ Few beers contain wheat.

Or barley, or corn or whatever grain they say they’re allergic to @SecondHandStoke.

True. But some beers do. And if a customer mentions it you’d probably check if the beer they’d ordered did or not.

Hopefully.

Or “I’m allergic to gluten”, which is what I really meant by that statement.

Barley contains gluten, and all of your bullshit American lagers contain heaps of it.

Barley is the main grain used in beer everywhere.

Did the patron say “wheat” or did he say “gluten?”

Also, this American doesn’t touch “bullshit lager.”

@SecondHandStoke – It was a hypothetical off the top of my head. I misspoke.

It was an example, @SecondHandStoke

People blow me away. I had a girlfriend who went on different kicks all the time, regarding health and hygiene (she also lived by the 5 second rule…go figure.)

One time my daughter managed to rip the flap under the back of the tongue where it attaches to the floor of your mouth. We had to be really careful about the salt in the food we ate for a couple of weeks, because it would burn and sting her.
This friend invited us to lunch. She was having some sort of Chinese stir fry. I cautioned her about the salt. She was on a no-salt kick at the time, and she huffily proclaimed she never added salt to her food!
I said, “That bottled stir fry sauce you’re getting ready to add has a ton of salt in it.”.......

“Oh.”

Now, I’ve never had salmon or steak tartare, but I have had salmon and beef carpaccio.

Carpaccio is very thin slices of salmon or beef, served raw. In the dark, not looking for a difference between the two, there’s no way I’d notice a difference before it was in my mouth. They’re practically the same colour, served the same way.

The only difference is my being wrong would be a surprise, and possibly a pleasant one, and would in no way endanger my health. I might bring it to the waiter’s attention that I got the wrong plate in case I got someone else’s order, but that’s about the extent of it.

Also, why did he forget his epipen? If you’d ever had a life threatening reaction to food, even one time, would you never forget your epipen?

It’s not like he forgot it in Cambodia. It was in his car.

Shit happens, you know?

I know. I wish shit would happen right now. I’m hungry and bored.

@Dutchess_III re. your the article doesn’t say the waiter was told about the allergy
I never wrote that the article says that.

Then how did you know the waiter was told, as you claim here?