Work trip restaurants have no vegetarian options and I hate fuss

[Clockinginat2pm]

Away abroad with work.
We have clients with us, there’s a few of us flown over.
Activities all organised by head office, lovely, it’s really well organised day & evening.
Restaurants booked for each evening… Smash burger place and steak & fish place x2. Checked out menus and there is zero, and I mean zero vegetarian option on any of the menus at all. Starters/mains ALL meat or fish pf some form. There’s not even any sides (which would usually be more go to)

I do not want to draw ANY attention to myself at all as I am excruciatingly dreading these events as I am introvert, socially extremely anxious and feeling very very out of my depth with it all.

Fade into the background is my main aim..

So, do I order something with meat/fish & just pretend to eat it and be hungry for a few days?

I don’t speak the language, the waiter from last night spoke no English so ringing them to order something else is not an option here at all. (I ended up with an appetiser of grilled asparagus which I couldn’t eat so pushed it around my plate for 40 minutes.

Ive used my emergency pack of biscuits as I was starving.
What would you do in my shoes???

I was going to say - in Spain they will give you a green salad topped with tuna as a vegetarian option 😅 Good luck @Clockinginat2pm

I have a vegetarian friend who lives in a rural area in France. Whenever they go out for a meal, they explain and she gets an omelette.

Staff in some restaurants have given her a bit of an eyeroll though.

I just.... I mean, I'm an introverted vegan with anxiety, but surely to God if you're incapable of writing, "Soy vegetariana" on a piece of paper and showing it to someone, how on earth are you able to do what sounds like quite a high-powered job??

This is WAY beyond anxiety/introversion. It needs sorting.

Why wouldn't you speak to the waiter and ask for what they can do for a vegetarian meal? If you don't know the language ask someone who does speak the language to translate?

Surely the restaurants can rustle up a garden salad and some bread, some chips and vegetable sides, some pasta with tomato sauce etc.

I all seriousness OP you need to mention this, the outsourced company have NOT done their job. What if they had missed a critical allergen? Additionally your company should not use them again if this is the case, they have not done their job properly.

I’m aghast that in spectacular food country and the home of tomatoes and olive oil
for breakfast, that a) you are being
to a smash burger restaurant and b) there is nothing vegetable orientated on any menu.
some useful phrases:

• Sin carne ni pescado. (Without meat or fish.)
• No como carne ni pescado. (I don't eat meat or fish.)
• Soy vegetariano / vegetariana. (I am vegetarian - masculine/feminine)

It is highly recommended to explicitly say "no como carne, pollo, ni pescado" (I don't eat meat, chicken, or fish).

hope that helps, I understand you are anxious but you are doing yourself no favours business wise by ignoring this issue.

There are plenty of independent street food/burger places that take pride in their menus. It's not exactly haute cuisine, of course, but I'd be surprised if someone organising to take clients out for food in northern Spain didn't choose somewhere that offered high quality food within its category.

Many such places do make a point of using high quality local ingredients, even in the UK. I've just checked "smash burger" places near me and without any effort at all I found three making a song and dance about the provenance of their ingredients, and was happily reminded that my favourite place uses exclusively local meat from ex-dairy cattle.

Anyway, the good news is that places that take pride in their menus will undoubtedly be cooking food to order from fresh ingredients and will be perfectly able to provide something suitable. Even if it's "one mushroom cheeseburger with no beef patty, please".

All the OP needs to do is to communicate that she needs something without meat. She can do so just by showing them the post immediately above this one using the device she's posting from, so it's perfectly doable!

isnt France where foie gras originates from? That’s just evil

I don’t speak the language, the waiter from last night spoke no English

So in the 3 restaurants you've been in so far in SPAIN, not one, single, wait staff spoke a word of English!!! 🤔

In northern Spain, a lot of the people tend to speak Catalan/french and not much English. And most food is meat or fish based. But pizza in Spain is very good and will have veggie options.

That says more about them than someone who chooses simply not to consume meat or animal products.

Completely normal away from the Costas. It's a real country with real Spanish people, not some giant all inclusive hotel serving pints and English breakfasts to British holiday makers.

By northern Spain, I took it to be the Bay of Biscay/Atlantic side, not the Mediterranean coast.

It's not Benidorm! Plenty of places in Spain where very few people speak English.

OP you need to say something. To both your boss and the restaurant. No matter how remote and how low the English there are translation tools and they will have heard of vegetarianism. If you wait until you return to tell your boss they will be sad that they couldn't rectify while you were there. Don't delay, say something. You'll make the situation worse by not.

Oh yeah.

i’ve been full on shouted at when asking for veggie food in France.
one of the reasons we started going self catering.

French restaurants don’t always understand the concept of customer service and some of them seem to see veggies as people who need to be converted to eating meat.

I love the way you can call us ‘arseholes’ for pointing out you need to speak up for yourself but oddly can’t say ‘I’m vegetarian. I’m going to ask for a plain omelette and green salad on google translate in Spanish’ to your boss/colleague without being crippled with anxiety.

Luckily most women who travel abroad for work possess a smart phone with the wonderful ‘Google translate’ which even I can use.
It’s Spain. Not Outer Mongolia.

Would assume either the clients speak English, colleagues habla Español, or they have an interpreter with them?

Parmesan isn’t vegetarian so the cheese is an issue even if you aren’t vegan.

Most if not all restaurants have vegetarian options even if you have to ask staff, can't they do a salad with cheese, is there no cheese and onion quiche, jacket potatoes with beans, cheese butties or toasties, can't they do a wrap with salad and sauce or maybe if they do steak dinner ask for everything like chips, onions rings and salad and no steak with a price deduction, even KFC and McDonald's have vegetarian options.

I sympathise because I hate situations like this, but I would absolutely take advantage by waiting till half an hour beforehand and then messaging whoever is closest to “in charge” and saying “I’ve just checked out the menu for this evening and realised they’ve no vegetarian options. I’ve found a place nearby which will work for me, so I’m going to go there and grab something, and how about I join you for drinks later?”

Then enjoy the freedom of dining alone!

Can you ask for someone who speaks English at the restaurant or is there someone with you who speaks Spanish? Maybe you/they can ask for a dish to be made without the meat.

I get not wanting to make a fuss and being anxious but if you can have a quiet word with someone who could help?

Ah, so the good old Spaniards havnt got their head round vegetarianism yet.

I used to travel to Spain with a veggie colleague. I can still remember her plate of lettuce for one meal.... I seem to remember her getting very merry on the wine that night!

Good luck with your food quest.

I'm sorry, but you do seem to be very negative and passive aggressive with rejecting the generally good advice that others have offered. It is really quite simple. If you want to eat and not draw attention to yourself you need to do something about it even if it to talk to HO and ask for their help. After all it is as much their problem as yours as they presumably want to make a good impression on the clients and for goodness sake next time (if there is one) remind someone in advance of your dietary requirements. In this day and age reasonable adjustments for all sorts of things including diet, disability and religion are pretty much mandatory so your company is, at best, out of touch and you are not helping.

OP I don’t think people are being nasty generally, but having a meal tk your basic dietary requirements is a basic right which everyone should have. It’s clearly a comms issue this has failed. As such people won’t see issue in you speaking up, nobody at all is judging you and Eve. If three meals in you say it, it looks like you’re going “thought it was a mistake with own restaurant but the rest would have gotten it, no biggy.” Saying it isn’t confrontational and nobody would bat an eye lid. It’s just food. This imho isn’t behaviour of an introvert but someone with high anxiety.

can you buy a nice meal and email management “nowhere is catering for my needs nor able too. I have therefore ordered food and will be expensing it. Hope that’s understandable.” It is understandable.

Put it this way, would you expect someone who doesn’t eat beef for religious reasons to sit with a fillet steak in silence? No. Adovocate for yourself.

That's quite common in northern Spain. I've stayed in towns there where nobody appears to speak English, not even the hotel stafff. Google translate is my go to.