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.

No it wasn't Norbert, it was the Royal Crescent in Bath. There is an Abode quite near us though and I have heard great reports about the food there!

Reading the menu I come round to not the proofreading theory - I bet you 'Rosary goat's cheese' is actually rosemary, and I think 'sour dough' is meant to be sour dough bread (I hope, anyway). They've got a few more typos/errors too.

I love the idea of 'plate of carrots' though.

DH is veggie/no dairy a lot of the time, and it really makes me notice how many places think 'veggie' means 'eats cheese: there must be cheese!'

i can't breathe!!!!!!!!!

Sounds to me like the chef's way of saying, "piss off, I can't be bothered cooking for anyone who doesn't want a big hunk of meat or fish". But I would love to hear what they say if you go in and ask about it.

I think more restaurants ought to realise that by offering crap, boring veggie options they not only put off vegetarians themselves but also the other people they are eating with. I've lost count of the times when I have been part of a group including both vegetarians and omnivores, and the veggies have taken one look at the menu, seen butternut squash risotto and/or something involving goats cheese and have instantly vetoed the place.

Once on a 10 hr overnight KLM flight I was given, as the vegetarian breakfast option, a hot bread roll + a cold bread roll, + a bit of jam. No butter. No eggs, tomato, mushroom, nothing else. Everyone else had loads of hot breakfast.

"Appertisers"

Who checked this bloody menu.

Someone's put that and forgotten to delete it. You're probably damned lucky it wasn't an exasperated sounding plate of fucking carrots or something

:o

I think the whole menu sounds fairly crap.

We have to book a table of 20 for us MN veggies, turn up, peruse the menu for ages and then all each order (with deadly serious faces) the Plate of Carrots

I love the bit at the bottom where it says about how the description does not always list all ingredients and to ask if you have any allergies. Please please ask if that can be done with out the carrots!

Come to ours Melpo - we live near where you are staying and are a veggie household and I am a pretty good cook - won't charge £12.95 for our carrots either!

Have walked past The Swan and wondered how good the food would be (it is a nice setting) - will probably give it a miss now

£5.55 for a boiled egg!

I have just fallen about laughing, as that is where I went for my leaver's ball when I left school I can't remember the food being particularly nice then 12 years ago
You're right, OP, there are plenty of other places to eat nearby

Oddest veggie meal I ever had was a leek and banana bake ...

I would have preferred prefer the carrots!

Can someone please email them and ask if the carrots are boiled or roasted?

Oh PLEASE someone go and order the carrot-as-main-course! There has to be more to this story.

I once went to a 'proper' restaurant in Italy (the kind where pasta is a separate course before a plate full of meat as the main course) with a group of work colleagues. Myself and one of the other girls didn't eat red meat so ordered chicken or fish (no veggie option). V charming Italian owner came over to tell us that there was no chicken or fish left so asked if would we like to order something else off the menu instead. There was only red meat or veal so we politely declined and asked if they could make anything vegetarian. He went to have a word with the chef and came back full of smooth Italian charm describing the delicious special grilled vegetables which they would make just for us. He was so utterly charming and made this dish sound so amazing that we ordered it and even some of the meat-eaters seemed jealous of the specially prepared feast just for us. Well everyone else got their steak or veal and we got ........ a plate with 3 thin slices of chargrilled vegetables - one slice of chargrilled courgette, one slice of chargrilled aubergine and one slice of chargrilled carrot all drizzled with olive oil. We found it hilarious until we got the bill and found we had been charged the same price as for a steak - about £25!

Ha! I stayed here and ate in the bar - had to combine starters! The little pool is nice though.

I flew KLM business from south east Asia and got served rice (no sauce) with three mange tout on top. After a touch down in kuala lumpor it was time to eat again - ta da! Rice, no sauce and 3 mange tout. Yum!

That's so funny. Sounds a bit like they haven't decided the vegetarian option and were meaning to put it in afterwards.

no dessert menu, perhaps you could have carrot cake lol

And the Plate of Carrots is £12.95.
How can this be?

The fact that they cannot even spell appetiser would put me off.

You should all go to India (ok, not a cheap option, but maybe some Indian restaurants in Uk offers the same) there it is common that a restaurant menu starts off with three pages of Vegetarian dishes, followed by two pages headed "Non-vegetarian dishes".

My ex is a vegetarian and I remember him telling me of some interesting meals he has been presented with, including pizza with Brussel sprouts.

I once worked with a cook who asked me to put out the vegetarian alternative to the starter oxtail soup. It was plain meat bullion! When I said to her that I didn't think the vegetarians would eat that she replied "do you think they're that strict?"

Surely, that Stoneaway Black Pudding shold be Stornaway black pudding?

And tartare sauce instead of tartar sauce.

Frankly, it looks as if furriners have drawn up this menu. Well, the menu you read rather than the one you eat.