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???

Quite nasty & unkind !

Who is hosting this conference/meeting? Speak to them, and ask them to arrange veggie meals.
I have been veggie since 1988. It’s never been a problem, although I have been quite hungry in parts of Africa.
Everywhere has vegetables!

I've had this before - well, not me personally but I used to go to Portugal with a small group to visit some factories (not in a city, in a little town) and the frankly quite scary factory owners who spoke very little English always used to insist on taking us to the same Brazilian Steakhouse 3 days in a row. My poor veggie colleague ate nothing but chips and bread because they'd bring her chicken as it's "not meat".

I would recommend having a word with whoever is most senior (email if you have to) and let them sort it.

No, if you have an allergy you say so. No need to wait to be asked. Oddly it's mostly the UK colleages with requirements.

I once ordered a veggie burger in Russia (it was on the menu) and got a bun with a raw slice of red pepper in the middle.

more seriously, depending on why someone is veggie (eg Jewish but doesn’t want to explain, welfare reasons, etc) it can be more of less flexible.

i’ve done a lot of travelling and in any country there are restaurants where they are used to foreigners and understand the concepts and restaurants where they do not.

France is particularly bad but Iceland and many other places also have their challenges.

Yes, the UK and USA are usually quite good about it. I have a really hard time in lots of places with a serious food allergy. I vastly prefer self-catering for this reason.

We’re were in a remote part of one of the Canary Islands in the late 2010s and I advised the restaurant staff I didn’t eat meat. They brought me a plate covered in massive chunks of cheese. Just one sort of cheese. When I asked if they had any vegetables they brought me a very large, completely raw, peeled and still whole, onion. 😂

You have my sympathy, I have ARFID and find eating in situations like this really difficult.
I do a combination of saying I have allergies so will just stick to drinks/bread or order a small item and pretend to eat.
I just tell myself people aren’t interested in what I’m eating!

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..

This appears to run counter to the type of job you are choosing to do.

But ultimately this is a choice you are making to remain anxious and out of your depth about making absolutely reasonable requests about a basic human requirement to eat. I don’t doubt its not an easy choice to make, but unless you want to run the risk that this happens again, you need to get the support to do the work on yourself to change how you handle these situations. Starving because you don’t want to make a fuss is absolutely ridiculous as a long term strategy.

I’m only here for the country reveal.

I grew up vegetarian so don't naturally eat a lot of meat. I always order vegetarian for flights and Air France's meals were hilarious. One flight I got a plate with lettuce, mango, cottage cheese and asparagus all together as a salad. It was indeed vegetarian but it was in no way delicious. I bring my own food now!

It’s discrimination if your company doesn’t sort you out with a meal. Don’t be a pushover and speak up to who’s in charge.
im sure the restaurant can do you some grilled vegetables or something.
im vegan btw so am used to this.

@Clockinginat2pm Contact your boss/management who deals with the agency and get them to contact them or give you the details and tell THEM to talk to the hotels/venues to provide you with some meat free dishes

Where are you op? If you post your location you may find a MN that speaks the language and can tell you how to say you are vegetarian and therefore just want a plate of vegetables (for example) without any meat or fish. Write it down and pass it to the waiter when ordering.
alternatively if you don’t want to give your location translate the above

So, your head office organised a trip and didn’t ask for dietary requirements? What if someone had an allergy?
also, you’d rather starve than ask for a vegetarian meal? Surely you can google “vegetarian” in the local language and show your screen to the waiter?

"I don’t think you nderstand how anxious and what a mess I am in these situations. I’m getting better as I now rehearse questions to ask, things to say, I can barely speak."

So why have you been chosen to entertain clients? Anyway, I do find it hard to believe that there are absolutely no sides, salads or garlic bread on the menu. Why not just order chips? You can use a translation thing on your phone. Most restaurants in most countries these days are used to some food allergies/preferences. Where on earth are you? You must be somewhere reasonably civilised if they've got smash burger joints and fish restaurants.

I don’t understand- can you not use google translate in the restaurants? I’m vegan and stayed at all inclusive hotels with restaurants on site before with zero vegan offerings and always had to google translate that I can’t eat meat, cheese, milk, eggs etc and they’ve always managed to understand. They’ve also always catered to me in the majority of restaurants too even if it’s just grilled veg and chips. I’ve stayed all over Europe, the Caribbean, Mexico, Asia etc and never had an issue with them finding me something.

You literally have to put you can’t eat meat or fish (although I would literally write meat, chicken & fish to they definitely understand instead of the word vegetarian because a lot of places, especially in Europe think you can still eat fish and sometimes chicken). You can still eat cheese & eggs so I’m sure they’ll be able to find you something? What country is this?

Is there a feta side salad or something you can order as a main and get chips along side it? A mac and cheese tends to be a side at steak and burger places so could you get that as a main?

This is common in many countries.

This! And why on earth couldn't you eat the asparagus

It never fails to baffle me that grown women cannot use their big girl voices, grown professional women at that. ‘I am a vegetarian’ is not announcing you like to sacrifice a goat at midnight. Get a grip. And someone in the restaurant will speak English so find them and ask them to prep a vegetarian option for you. Eaten a packet of biscuits. Get a grip. Find a shop.

I think a bewildering number of people on this chat think chips are always vegetarian.

Not really I've travelled extensively and chips salad eggs omelettes veg side sides are pretty much always available. I find it hard to believe a smash burger place doesn't have fries

I'm similar in that I've been vegetarian on and off and while now an omnivore, I don't eat a lot of meat and will often choose a vegetarian meal off a menu because to me, it's all just food.

However, I'm saddened how often caterers seem to think that, because someone has a particular dietary requirement whether it's vegetarian/vegan, halal or an allergy, it must also mean they're on a low calorie and low carb diet, nor do they care about having a nice meal.

So while I would actively choose meals that happen to be vegetarian, and will go to restaurants that have a good selection such as Asian or Middle Eastern, I'd never blindly tick the 'vegetarian' option if I didn't know what I was going to get, because too often, it would be a rubbish salad or something really basic like tomato pasta even when the meat option is far more substantial/interesting. It's not hard to provide a proper vegetarian meal and it seems that some places don't even try. Even a nice soup with decent bread, mezze plate with hummus/falafels, omelette, salad and chips or a cheese salad sandwich and crisps would be better than a lot of the rubbish on offer.

How is it discriminating if op won’t make her needs known?

I know. People never seem to believe that almost all fish and chip shops in Yorkshire, and possibly other places, fry in beef dripping unless they say otherwise, which is incredibly rare.