Worst meal I've had? I've had a few contenders. Now, the main thing that counts on this list for me is "was it bad enough that I refused to eat the dish?" if it was

Went to Pizza Hut with my then fiancé and ordered a plain cheese and tomato pizza, the waitress tempted us with the golden stuffed crust option. The starters had been served both cold, and yet burnt. The pizza that followed had been so badly prepared by the kitchen staff that they had smothered the pizza in so much cheese that the surface was a perfect mirror of hot grease. I could literally see the full sky. When we looked at how the other pizzas coming out of the kitchen were, it was clear it was sub standard. Biting in to it and finding the pizza base was also cold and there was a piece of what I would certainly call ham in what was supposed to be a vegetarian pizza (I was veggie at the time and my ex-fiancé was a stalwart of the vegetarian persuasion for over a decade) was the final straw. I refused to eat it and insisted on the manager waiving the entire order as free.

Bella Italia in the Shaftesbury Ave area of London, went in and ordered chilli prawn pasta with tomato sauce. The dish came out and was so full of pepper it was like being hit with a mace spray. The prawns were over cooked and had become rubbery. The sauce was not only inedible because of the sheer volume of it which was cayenne pepper was thin, watery and essentially looked like the chef had spilled the cayenne pepper then tried to cover his error by watering the sauce down. It went back to the kitchens and I refused payment.

A Wetherspoons in North London once tried to serve me a burger and chips, the bar staff bringing it over nearly dropped the entire thing and caught it by squashing my burger with his not particularly clean hand and spilled a good portion of my friends soup on to it. He wanted to only replace the chips. I refused the offer and made his manager replace the whole order both soup and burgers and provide an additional drink for both of us for free based on the inconvenience and arrogance of her staff member. I believe she said something about recouping the cost from his pay.

Street meat in Oxford Circus when drunk, normally I'm pretty wasted when I buy street meat at 3am and frankly don't care much for whether it's likely to smurf my stomach up or not. I took umbrage when the guy selling me a street meat hot dog sneezed on it. I asked for a refund and walked away. Still wish I had my street meat that night. The hangover was brutal.

Now for a bonus this is the worst:

School dinners when in Year 10, I, ordered a turkey burger from the canteen. When I bit in to it, I discovered that the burger was still frozen in the middle and had ice crystals inside it. I got in trouble for spitting it out. I somehow figured spitting it was a better alternative to shockingly bad food poisoning. My school canteen was shut down for 2 weeks after that as there was approximately 30 cases of dodgy stomachs after that.

In terms of things I thought I would enjoy but just didn't? Tesco does a lovely looking Sweet Potato Spinach And Feta Filo pie. It looks gorgeous, it really does. It tastes smurfing awful.