Were you ever disappointed?

Prentice Yes, the crowds are everywhere. I used to spend a lot of time in Cambridge in the 1960s but when I see it now there are hoards of tourists everywhere and the peaceful atmosphere has been lost.

Chestnut

If you go back somewhere you knew from the past then be prepared to see the 21st century version of the place you love, more traffic, more people, new buildings, who knows?
The past is another country.
They do things differently there.

And supermarket food is never going to compare with a proper bakery version, although I've even had bakeries selling tasteless stuff these days.

I have many times been disappointed by cakes/cup cakes sold in tea rooms or coffee shops. My daughters both make the most wonderful cakes, light, fluffy and very flavoursome, whereas these taste of nothing but sugar. No flavour whatsoever.

Chestnut I find myself in agreement with you on so many subjects. You have said what I was going to say .Also foods today have less sugar or salt which makes them more tasteless sadly.
I have sometimes visited a place which I liked in the past and found it so altered, which given time of course it would be.
everywhere is crowded now.

I love a cream tea. There’s a well known outdoor tea rooms near me and we finally got to visit a couple of years ago. The best raspberry jam ever but the scones were not fresh. Crumbly and dry. To cap it all we were besieged by wasps!

The Little mermaid in Copenhagen. Very small, wouldn’t look at it twice if it wasn’t so well known. Even the Danes said it was a disappointment.

St Peters Rome and the Sistine Chapel. Jammed in cheek by jowl and only allowed to see a small part of St Peter’s. Hot and airless, can appreciate the skill in the paintings but they’re not to my taste. Loved everything else about Rome.

My first visit to London when I was seven was a disappointment in almost every way. Buckingham Palace? It didn’t even have turrets. Piccadilly Circus? Definitely not a circus, no clowns or trapeze artists in sight. 10 Downing Street? Just a terraced house that didn’t even have a front garden. I wasn’t impressed by any of them.

The Eiffel Tower. I’d built it up way too much in my head. When I went to Paris with school it was closed for renovation. The second time because of a strike. The third time, strike again but one leg was open. I queued for well over an hour and forked out a goodly sum for the privilege of being crammed into a small smelly lift so tightly packed I could barely breathe, shouted at by a stroppy Madame as I was swept into her by the crowd behind me and underwhelmed by a view I could barely see.

And Juliet’s balcony in Verona. Again queuing for ages to stand on it so that DH could get a photo of me waving from way up there. Which he did, allegedly. When we zoomed in on it later he’d actually snapped an old man with white hair wearing the same colour top as me.

I have to agree that Cadbury's chocolate has changed and does not taste the way it did years ago, it leaves a nasty after taste. I no longer buy any Cadbury products.

I have been gluten free for years and was delighted when I saw that Morrison’s had produced a gluten free version of iced buns that I occasionally enjoyed from the baker’s shop. I was bitterly disappointed. They were completely tasteless apart from the icing being far too sweet. I suppose my tastes must have changed.

There I am in a cafe queue looking at a magnificent chocolate cake and imagining the taste. Sadly most of the time the piece I have with my cuppa is a real let down, tastes of nothing. Daft to keep trying but then there is the occasional gem - usually somewhere we’re visiting miles from home.

In similar vein to hollysteers - The Little Mermaid, I know the clue is in the name but I was still gob-smacked at how small she is.

The Mona Lisa, smaller than expected and hordes of tourists around it, a crush to get near.
Opera at Verona, uncomfortable and far away voices.
My honeymoon ?

I can very occasionally eat tinned tuna, but I can just as easily open the can and decide I just can't do it.

It is strange, isnt it?
I wonder what gives us these preferences?

MissAdventure That’s a shame as it’s full of Omega-3 fats. You said on the other thread you don’t like anything fishy, it is odd how different we all are, I could quite happily eat something fishy every day of the week.

I always enjoy watching salmon eaters.
A squeeze of lemon, 5 mins in the oven, then laid out beautifully on a bed of salad.

Then I try it, and I just really don't like salmon.
I wish I did.

When I was six or seven, I stopped around and found some Christmas presents in my parents wardrobe. Among them was a lovely children's umbrella which I was convinced was for me. I was devastated to find that it was given to my cousin! That will teach me to go looking through cupboards!

Cadbury chocolate is horrible now; oily and sickly sweet. There's is about the only chocolate I'd refuse if offered.

Not just you FarNorth I’m another who dislikes the current Cadbury Dairy Milk taste, didn’t even finish the first bar I had after they changed the recipe, and haven’t bought any since.

Not food or drink related, but when I finally got some sea monkeys, they were nothing at all like they looked in the adverts in my comics!

I'd pictured little mischievous chimpanzees frolicking about.

I was a regular eater of Cadbury chocolate at the time and it seemed like a sudden change, to me.
I can still imagine the previous taste. ?

I used to love Cadbury’s chocolate, but it tastes oily to me now. From memory they add palm oil now as it’s cheaper, but it tastes it. I now try to eat less but better when it comes to choc, I get Tony’s chocolate when it’s on offer, delicious ?

Interesting one that, Cadbury. People have said the taste has changed and maybe it has? I really can't tell. I've always been a big Cadbury eater and still am. Maybe I've just gone with the flow. I would dearly love to taste a bar from 1960 and see what it's like but that's not possible! That is the only way we would know for sure.
Whatever our age we are all Cadbury children. ?

Lemon cheesecake from M&S.
I loved it many, many years ago then moved far from any M&S.
Then I had an opportunity to visit again and buy a lemon cheesecake from good old M&S - it was a letdown.

Long, long ago I wrote to Cadbury's to say I didn't like their new version of Dairy Milk chocolate. They replied with a voucher for a big bar and a letter saying that nothing had changed.
Well, it still didn't taste the same to me.
I suspected that something had changed e.g. variety of cocoa bean, and they didn't want to say.
Or was it just me?

Not a food or a place but a thing - fire lighters. My grandfather had a coal fire which he lit the old-school way, with paper, kindling and matches. I’d seen boxes of fire lighters in shops and wanted to see how this magic worked to light a fire but grandpa refused to waste money on such luxuries.

Fast forward a few years and Dh and I moved to a house with an open fire. This was my chance to see a firefighter in action! I bought some in Woolworths and came home ready to spring into action to make our living room all super cosy with a crackling open fire.

Imagine my disappointment when I opened the box of firelighters and found just a lot of small, white squares made of some pungent material that stunk. I have no idea what I was expecting, but it wasn’t that! ??

We have a local cafe which I've been visiting for decades. It had a lovely laid back hippyish atmosphere and everything was homely and a bit mismatched. They've had a refurb and all the wonky old tables and chairs have been replaced with generic ones, you have to wait at the door to be seated and the whole homespun, studenty cosiness has gone. It's thriving, so perhaps I'm the only one disappointed.