to find this vegetarian menu option rather uninspiring?

[Melpomene]

Our family are going to stay in a hotel tomorrow night. A relatively smart place, with a spa and a '2AA rosette award winning River Room Restaurant'. The dds and I are vegetarian, so I had a look at the hotel's menu on their website. The options for main course include:

• Line caught skate wing pan fried with capers, lemon, nut brown butter - £17 (sounds nice if you eat fish)

• Roast cornfed chicken breast, sage, onion, bread sauce - £15 (sounds nice if you eat chicken)

• Plate of carrots (vegetarian) - £12.95

To be fair, they do also have a tomato risotto - but on what planet does a 'plate of carrots' count as a main course? And how can you justify charging £12.95 for it?

I think we'll be visiting a restaurant in the town instead.

It'll be a 'carrot three ways' type of thing for sure.

That is really funny. It must be a joke, surely.

'Plate of Carrots' - please order this, I will send you the money, I just want to see what the bloody thing looks like - I just cannot believe that it is a plate with carrots on it.

Reminds me of when I went to Austria and the veggie option that night was fried cauliflower. I ordered it thinking it can't just be fried cauliflower - wrong entire plate was covered in the stuff and nothing else.

You could google it like I did ;-)

Have you noticed they "respectively" suggest patrons don't use their mobile phones in the dining room.

Perhaps you could respectively suggest they stick their carrots where the sun don't shine.

I was once presented with a fabulous vegetarian main course at a posh dinner function (had paid £50 for the ticket) - consisting of lettuce and tomatoes with a spoonful of ratatouille in the centre.

It doesn't beat the vegetarian option that I was served at a slightly dodgy venue the year before last - a dried up nut roast with two pigs in blankets on the side...

Ring them up and ask them what the 'plate of carrots' is, I'm dying to know now!

I'm a lifelong vegetarian here and have long since ceased to be surprised at what passes for vegetarian options at so-called posh restaurants. Opinions of the chef usually plummet if they can't be arsed to come up with something half decent - what effort do they put into the rest of their food?

Also, let's not forget the favourite of risotto/pasta with potatoes. Especially common at Christmas dinners/weddings. Urgh.

I would phone and ask them what it is.

My dh and I were planning to go to a very smart restaurant. The veggie option was "platter of vegetables", which obviously sounded completely crap compared to all the fabulous meat options. My dh sent an email to complain and the restaurant rang him back about 5 mins later to explain that the platter was actually about 15 mini dishes - quiche, quails egg, stuffed peppers etc. We risked it, and the food was phenomenal. So you could be lucky....

On the other hand, a couple of years ago we went to another very smart restaurant - one level down from a michelin star. The veggie option was
pesto and pasta with a poached egg on top. They were very snooty with me when I asked, disbelievingly if that really was the only veggie food available.

DH and I stayed at a veh fancy hotel a while ago and there were no veggie options on the menu at all. However, when we asked, the very lovely waiter brought a WHOLE MENU just of veggie stuff. That's what we like - a dedicated veggie menu, not just one poxy dish!

I googled too, its terrible!maybe we should all email and complain, must be a joke?!

Should we?

What on earth did you google to find out which hotel it is? 'Plate of carrots?'

River room restaurant - second one down on google.

I really doubt it is something like 'carrots three ways' a la Blumenthal. It looks like a bog standard restaurant menu, not a gastronomic place.

It must have been someone having a joke and they haven't proofed it.

Oh my.. I've found it! Tomato jelly? that sounds icky as well, the chef sure doesn't like vegetarians.

We went to a very nice restaurant for Christmas lunch with MIL, BIL and his wife, her parents and her brother. My DH is vegetarian and his meal was vegetable soup to start, with a main of vegetable broth with dumplings, actually dumpling singular. It was so atrocious that I complained and got the cost of his meal removed from the bill.

We agreed never again to risk Christmas at a restaurant, its not hard to create delicious/different vegetarian food!

Want to see the plate of carrots though, sounds hilarious!

I went to a very swanky/cool restaurant in Paris, and eventually got... a Pyrex of microwaved veg.

And flying from Mexico to US (Mexican airline) I had pre-requested a veggie meal and was delighted to receive a plain chicken breast. Literally nothing else!

That's why I stick to Zizzi's and my fav Greek restaurant!

I had to google too.

DP reckons that someone was taking the piss and it wasn't spotted.

We had a friend who once wrote "blah-de-blah....some ol' bollocks here" on a draft leaflet. Unfortunately whoever had the job of proof-reading it before it went to the printers didn't do their job properly...... Ooops

Must be a joke, surely?!!

at some of these replies. If I get the chance I shall pop in and ask them about it (and give them some feedback!). But it's not very likely we'll eat there now - the hotel is in the city centre and there are lots of other restaurants a stone's throw away.

Link is here if anyone hasn't found it.

emsyj - was that a Michael Caines restaurant/ Abode Hotel by any chance as I had that when I went to one and it was fantastic!

I think I'd go for a few side dishes instead. Chips, onion rings and creamed leeks sounds better and cheaper.

I was just thinking that Viva

I'd be happy with a big pile of mashed potato and gravy.

Oh I didn't believe it was just plate of carrots until I read it! Please order it and take a photo to put on here!!