Being vegetarian is so tiresome.

[Brandnewskytohangyourstarsupon]

I’ve been vegetarian for over 25 years.

Just arranging dinner with friends who are raving about a particular restaurant. It’s a m at eaters dream of a place I’m sure gorgeous food is sold.
It’s Italian so there’s the usual vegetarian offerings of over priced margarita pizza available and it really pisses me off.
There are also some overpriced sides available but it boils my piss to pay £14-16 for a bit of cauliflower.

It’s the majority vote to go to this place.

I don’t want to bring it all down because there’s very little choice for vegetarians so I’ll do as I always do, eat before I go, order a drink and order the cheaper side to just be sociable.

Its always the same I find, always the same.

If you are vegetarian, how do you navigate this?

I'd just suck it up this time and have margarita pizza with chips, or alternatively do they do a spicy tomato pasta? Then you could have bruschetta for starter and have a pudding. I agree pizza is boring and Indian or Thai restaurants are best for vegetarian food.

👍

I’m lucky that this has rarely been a problem for me. I think that nowadays, most restaurants and cafes are good at catering for vegetarians. Even if the chef is a meat-lover, catering for the vegetarian in the group makes good business sense.

The only exceptions I can think of are some rural pubs and one very wanky posh local restaurant which only offers three-course set menus, then ensures that only one or two of the courses have a vegetarian option. They’re not fooling anyone!

But I love Indian and Middle-Eastern food and sometimes I’m happy with a decent veggie burger and chips, so I’m quite easily pleased.

I’m actually so used to having only a choice of two items on the menu that if I go somewhere where there’s more I dither like mad.

Oh I like the reduced choice!!
Much simpler.
And just remember how much better it is than 25 years ago. The choice then was cheese salad or omelette!

I hate the vegan replacements too. Don’t get me wrong, real vegan food is lovely (some curries, big bowl salads, etc) but I don’t like the processed replacement stuff where I don’t know what’s in it. We go to Everyman cinema from time to time and I just have the margherita pizza and chips, because all the other pizzas have meat or there’s a vegan one with fake cheese (yuk) and the burgers are the same. I don’t know what their “plant based” burger is so I don’t want it (I might have falafel or beetroot but not quorn and it gives no hint of ingredients). So plain pizza and chips it is.
Italians and Indians are ok, and our local tapas place is excellent for fresh vegetable dishes.
In France I eat fish - otherwise it’s just too hard.

I'm a vegetarian and it's not about the value for money in what I'm eating as all food when you eat out has a huge mark up, it's about enjoying a get together.

😊 no really, my friends are bloody lovely.

Im actually a non fussy vegetarian and eat any veg in any form, if I go to a friends for lunch or dinner, I will have what they are having but just not the meat. They don’t need to do much of anything to accommodate me.

spag Bol, no problem, I’ll have the spaghetti, just leave me a spoonful of the sauce before you add it to the mince.
Steak & chips, no problem, I’m happy with the chips and salad with a dollop of mayo.

Its just annoying to have the same expensive crap in restaurants.

I’m vegetarian hav3 been for years, I don’t eat meat substitutes either. So no fake meat etc. I will make the best of it for the group & bonhomie. I agree veggies do get an inadequate or overpriced offer for what it actually is offer at most restaurants.

Those prices are ridiculous! I live in a touristy area of the country and consider that everything costs a bit more than where we previously lived in Surrey (also not cheap) but £22 for a margarita pizza!? - just checked the two best Italian places close to us and they are £13 for a plain pizza. Even their meat-feast equivalents don't come close to £22. I thought you must be in London but then you say it is a small village restaurant! Who on earth can afford to eat there?! Sorry, realise this is not exactly the point of the thread.

It depends where you live I live in a rural area and some of the offerings for vegetarians are shocking. Usually vegetarian curry or stir fry and no other choice. Some restaurants nearby don’t have a single vegetarian item on the menu. Or one really tasteless vegan option to cater to both. I’m not sure what the solution is really apart from suggesting going somewhere else like an Indian or Middle Eastern instead.

I'm not even veggie and I've noticed the replacement of the veggie dish with a vegan one. It's bit crap for those of you who like eggs and cheese.

That is an expensive pizza anyway, I'm not sure I'd feel better if it had a bit of ham chucked on the top. You can eat though, so it's not like there's nothing, which it sounds like there might be for vegans or coeliacs. Even Pizza Express does a full range of vegan pizzas and there's quite a few veggie ones, I'd rather go there!

This sounds like a crap choice of restaurant for a veggie. Tbh, I find that in groups of meat-eaters I usually have at least one or two people who will check the veggie options almost before looking for themselves (and helpfully point them all out to me 😁).

Your friends sound a bit thoughtless but they might not realise if you don't speak up...

I would refuse to go based on those prices alone, £22 for a cheese and tomato pizza 😂

I'm a non-fussy vegetarian too - I'll eat most things but I'd resent £20+ for a plain pizza

Yes I feel like things are going backwards rather than forwards in terms of choice for vegetarians. DS2 is vegetarian so when we eat out I always try to find places which have at least some choice for him but increasingly I find the (often not very good) veggie options have been replaced by (in many cases, not very good) vegan options. As he loves cheese and eggs, this just makes his dining experience even more disappointing.

Give over!!! 25 years ago was 1999 - everywhere served a range of veggie food and the veggie offerings were more varied and much better than the current vegan fake meat selection.

@Brandnewskytohangyourstarsupon I'm intrigued as to how you split the bill. The only thing that would enrage me more than paying £22 for a plain pizza and £4.50 for a coke, would be a £50 bill to cover everyone else's steak and chicken choices.

OP’s idea to eat before going out is prob the best solution in this kind of situation.

I just don’t bother eating out anymore. There’s a takeaway pizza place near me that does lovely veggie pizzas and every time I get one I make sure to tell them how nice it is and to please never stop making it! Other than that place, the veggie option is often just a salad. The best place is actually Burger King, which has several veggie burgers and wraps, and it’s not all fake meat either.

I am in rural France though, and there are lots of people who are like the Nan in the Royle family « Can’t you even eat thinly sliced ham? » 😁

I’d be happy with either of those!

Anything is better than fake meat and cheese

I'm with you, OP.

As others have said - I'm super oissed off that vegetarians and vegans are now lumped together.

I'm also cheesed off with the relevant fashion meaning beetroot is a key part of every V/Vg dish on offer, and I hate it 😡😡😡

Actually went to a pub restaurant a bit further afield yesterday who had an ACTUAL veggie menu alongside the standard -
it was bloody delicious and I will be suggesting it to all my friends for our next few meet ups.

As a PP suggests I like Middle Eastern or Indian restaurants for the better choices of veggie food. We also have a great Chinese option now which does lovely veggie meals including lots of tofu and aubergine options (my two favourites)

My daughter became vegetarian before she was ten. She's 54 now. It was a pain in the arse in the 8 0/90's. Shopping was awful, having to read the ingredients of just about everything. She lived on tzatziki and chips when we were in Greece, and omelette and chips in this country when we ate out.

There was also a "thing" a few years ago, where the veggie option always seemed to be some sort of goats cheese, which daughter really doesn't like

These days, I often find myself having a veggie option, though I'm not a veggie.

Do you at least take it in turns to choose & you all sometimes go to a veggie restaurant?