'I lost my appetite': Cheeseburger served with waiver at Toronto restaurant

After reading the article, I'm on the hotel's side.

If someone asks for meat to be prepared in a way that Health Canada says is below the optimal temperature to kill pathogens, then the customer is putting themselves at risk and should bare any liability.

If someone asked for unpasteurized milk, raw eggs, or live seafood, I'd expect them to get the same waiver.

Seems quite sensible.

Title feels a bit click-baity, but truly I think the waiver is reasonable. If you want food prepared outside our food safety standards and laws, you should have to waive the right to sue if you get yourself sick and die. Whether it will actually hold in court is contestable.

Here in BC, anything but well done burgers are illegal in restaurants. We have steak tartar, but you need to cut the exterior layer of meat away and grind it right before serving. You might get away with doing the same for burgers, but no one does it that I know of.

I worked at Outback Steakhouse (outside the US) and we were never allowed to serve burgers that weren't well done. I've had to explain many times that it is due to the risk of illness from uncooked/processed meat and people still choose to be upset.

I'm a guy who likes a medium-rare burger and loves mett and I know the risks involved since it's ground meat with tons of surface area and I don't blame the hotel one bit and would have signed the waiver unlike this prima Donna.

Why has this been making some of the "news" recently?

Some corporation wanted to cover it's ass in the same my my work cafeteria warns about raw eggs when they serve Tiramisu.

I had to sign a waiver to try some hot sauce that was 2.5M+ on the Scoville scale.

Oh fuck off, your stupid and unsafe eating habits are your own fucked up problems, the hotel has nothing to do with this. Of course it's a Redditor too, fucking weirdos, holy hell

Waiver should have been brought up when he requested the burger undercooked, but otherwise I see no issue.

Dumb American disgusted by his own stupidity

In Germany they sell ground beef that is save to eat raw. So either get save meat or, if your ground beef is not safe, bring this up directly when someone orders a medium or rare burger and not after the person already started eating.

The only thing is why not get the waiver with the appetizer, before it's served or together? That's the negligence on the Hilton Restaurant's part and really doesn't have meaning if this user did happen to get E.Coli. Ordering medium ground beef at a non-specialty venue is kind of stupid to begin with.

Technically you can cook a hamburger to medium and have it be safe to eat, but I really don't see most restaurants doing sous vide for hamburgers.

First, the waiver should have been provided prior to serving the meal.

Second, and off topic, Toronto Pearson area seems fraught with problems. From second-hand experience of a family member, they got delayed by 11 hours after the 3 hour layover, simply because the airport apparently doesn’t know what electric surge protection is (that was their excuse, that a surge occurred in the airport grounding their plane).

Last, anyone who wants less-than-well-done meat should expect a semblance of risk and expect the restaurant will want to legally protect themselves. But it’s pretty shitty to get the waiver after being served.

So as a throwback to the AITA subreddit…ESH.

Yeah, this isn't like the hotel thinks its food is unsafe to eat, this is just acknowledging that the customer wanted their beef cooked below safe standards.

Isn't this usually covered by a disclaimer on the menu though?

As a consumer, I would see the presence of such a waiver as a prompt to think about what necessitated this in the first place. Perhaps this kitchen isn't as clean as it could be, and something happened to prompt this level of (legal) caution. Yeah, it could have been an overzealous patron looking for a payday, but maybe someone had a legit case?

Would be nice if they did this for all meat purchased. Except the waiver should indicate the damage being caused to the climate

you want people to be able to sue over everything, this is the result.

id have signed, cuz i both enjoy meat and not suin' people for nonsense i caused.

e: i have in the past ordered 'as rare as you can legally make it'. most of the time i get stupid looks and they bring it rare, but sometimes they just nod and bring me a brick