According to his Oct. 25 lawsuit filed in circuit court in Miami-Dade County against Hillstone Restaurant Group Inc., Arturo Carvajal said he was a customer in May 2009 when he was offered a house special of grilled artichokes, which was not on the menu. As a result, Mr. Carvajal began “experiencing severe abdominal pain and discomfort,” according to the suit. He went to the hospital, where an "exploratory laparotomy" revealed artichoke leaves lodged within his bowel, he claims. A spokesperson for the group called Carvajal's claim a "silly notion," telling Business Insurance: "What's next? Are we going to have to post warnings on our menu they shouldn't eat the bones in our barbeque ribs?” 
 
 Mr. Viers said also the firm will defend the lawsuit “vigorously.” That is the contention of a customer of a Florida restaurant, who argues that Houston's Restaurant in Miami should have taught him about the right way to eat an artichoke.
– Just because Arturo Carvajal is a doctor, that doesn't mean he knows how to eat an artichoke—and he's suing a Miami restaurant for not instructing him on the proper method. Carvajal ordered the grilled artichoke (a vegetable he had "never seen nor heard of previously," according to court filings) and proceeded to eat the entire thing, rather than scraping just the meat off of the leaves. He later found himself experiencing abdominal pain, and doctors found artichoke leaves lodged in his bowel. He filed a suit seeking unspecified damages last month, the Miami New Times reports. In it, he complains that the server failed "to explain the proper method of consuming an artichoke." His lawyer explains that Carvajal thought "it was like a food he might have eaten in his native Cuba, where you eat everything on the plate." The restaurant's lawyer begs to differ: "What's next?" he asks Business Insurance. "Are we going to have to post warnings on our menu they shouldn't eat the bones in our barbecue ribs?" Click here for more wacky lawsuits.