birthday meal

[helenenemo]

I'm vegetarian. On most other birthdays we go to a local steakhouse and I have the one veggie option on the menu!!

It's my birthday next and I've chosen a lovely vegetarian/vegan place. Apparently I'm totally unreasonable and should change to somewhere with meat. I disagree so I'm turning it over to the lovely folk of MN!

Aibu?

Haven't read full thread so sorry if I repeat what someone else has said..

YANBU, however if you introduce them to a new restaurant with a nice selection of either meat or veggie then one if them may choose it for their birthday and you'll benefit then too. You won't just have that single choice at the steak house.

I don't eat red meat myself but I'm fine with chicken and fish, but I won't eat anything off a bone or shellfish. I have problems eating out, it must be even harder for you.

This thread is making me so hungry!

Who's in for a group veggie trip right now??

I went to Tibits recently in Mayfair. It was incredible.

[Shock] at some of the attitudes on this thread. Some people must have been to some pretty terrible vegetarian restaurants if they think it would be more of a punishment than a treat. Or do they think that all you get is the vegetables and a big space where the meat 'should' be?

I'm not vegetarian but I don't think a meal needs meat (or fish) to be a meal and have had some great vegetarian meals. The other day, we had a pub lunch and I had a lovely spiced halloumi salad. My second choice was a chick pea, spinach and squash curry. This was at a pub in a small town in Wales - not high society London by any means.

One of my other recently culinary successes was falafels with an avocado and feta salad - the main limits to enjoying a vegetarian meal at a restaurant are the lack of imagination and an open mind, rather than a lack of meat or fish.

I feel bad for vegetarians eating out too as most of the choices in mainstream restaurants are pretty predictable and conservative.

I live in a city that has OK, but not great restaurants - there are far too many chains for my liking and inexplicably most people tend to prefer them, despite them charging more money for worse food than most independents.

How would all the meat eaters feel if they had to choose from the same five dishes every time they ate out, three of which they didn't actually like? And anything that is of the tomato pasta genre - FFS can you think of anything less cheap and miserable than that apart from mushroom risotto FFS.

It just goes back to how some people are ridiculously rigid about the food they eat. Someone mentioned not liking sushi and refusing to go somewhere 'that only did sushi'.

I find it hard to believe that anywhere would only do 'sushi' - Japanese restaurants almost always do sashimi and salads instead and if you don't don't like raw fish, which is delicious BTW, there are plenty of other types of sushi - there are usually dozens of things on the menu - can you honestly say that you couldn't find two or three things out of close to a hundred options that you would eat?

I see no one forcing them to. If they don't want to go out to a place to eat, don't do it. There's coffee shops, shopping trips, drinking at pubs, movies etc.. they can go to for socializing. A restaurant is not their only course of action here.

No, perhaps we are just nicer people and rather than whinge and whine about it, just keep on keeping on. Last thing we want is meat eaters rolling their eyes at us wanting anything resembling decent food.

YANBU.
Meat is delicious, your loss , but it's YOUR Birthday. Everybody can live with one meat-free meal now and then, especially as vegetarian food can be very creative and tasty.

I'm in the minority here as I like goat's cheese, and I quite like the fake bacon stuff you can get.
However, I wouldn't want it all the time.
I would quite like to have a proper fry up breakfast that wasn't bulked out with hash browns or baked beans though.

This thread inspired me to look for vegetarian/vegan restaurants around where I live. There are none. There are places that 'cater for vegetarians' but offer things like roasted red pepper and tomato soup or a glorified quiche. My usual option is to go for Indian or Italian as I know there'll be a few things on the menu I can have rather than some half-arsed attempt at a meal.

Nothing wrong with roasted red pepper and tomato soup, that's what we had for dinner at home tonight! (with lots of bread on the side)

Although I'll agree that if I was eating out I'd expect soup to be offered as a starter or light lunch rather than an evening main course.

Sorry Shadow - I'm allergic to cooked carrots and cooked red peppers, and they seem to crop up in everything at the moment!

Ah. I understand the objection to the soup now!

Yes, it must be very annoying if the only vegetarian option is something that you're allergic to.