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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

birthday meal

234 replies

helenenemo · 31/08/2014 20:32

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?

OP posts:
WeirdCatLady · 01/09/2014 20:48

YANBU as it is your birthday and therefore should be your choice.

However, I personally wouldn't look forward to eating at a vegan restaurant as I love meat and cheese etc so I probably wouldn't go.

As long as you are prepared for people not to come then just go out and enjoy yourself, it's YOUR birthday :)

SolidGoldBrass · 01/09/2014 20:52

I think there may also be a perception that vegetarians are just being whinyarses, and it's their own fault if there's nothing on the menu they will eat.

Janethegirl · 01/09/2014 20:53

If I'm invited out for a meal at any restaurant and I'm paying, I look at the menu choices and the generally make up my mind if I'm going. If it's a very close friend I'll go anyway, if not it does depend on the menu, irrespective of if it's vegetarian or not.

Bunbaker · 01/09/2014 21:04

"However, I personally wouldn't look forward to eating at a vegan restaurant as I love meat and cheese etc so I probably wouldn't go."

I love meat and cheese, but I can happily eat a meal without either. Is it so hard for you to do so? Why do you have preconceived ideas that a meal without either will be lacking in taste and texture?

This really does prove that hardened carnivores need educating about all the lovely vegetarian food options available. Jewels234 is so right.

Stealthpolarbear · 01/09/2014 21:06

Yes as a vegi I can confirm butternut squash is the new Aubergine
Goats cheese is the new erm...can on,y assume oxygen as its everywhere

SarcyMare · 01/09/2014 21:46

Goats cheese is the new erm...can on,y assume oxygen as its everywhere

as someone who eats mainly veggie food out, but doesn't like goats cheese, it is bloody everywhere

SarcyMare · 01/09/2014 21:50

Would you go to a restaurant that only had a couple of options?

yes whenever I can, as they are the best resturants cooking a limited menu of hand crafted dishes with real fresh ingredients.

MrsCurrent · 01/09/2014 21:52

YANBU, if they can't see that then they have a problem. I'm not veggie, I just prefer veg to meat and the options in normal restaurants are pretty rubbish, veg lasagne again anyone?

CornChips · 02/09/2014 07:17

Oh true true about goats cheese. I also mainly eat veggie and cannot bear the stuff. Althoug thankfully the roasted onion and goats cheese tarts that were bloody everywhere have fallen off the menu. I can't look at those without feeling queasy I have eaten so many.

Local to us there are several pubs. I got really excited when one offered as the veggie burger a butternut squash patty. It was pretty tasteless but full marks for trying I thought. Then noticed that almost all the other pubs also offered the same (we go to the pub a lot). Turned out of course they were all being supplied by the same company and just ticked the box. Right. Veggie option sorted.

We were at a wedding recently and the starter was melon and parma ham. So the vegetarian couple opposite to us got - just the melon. It's so boring, so uninspiring. There are so many brilliant veg cookbooks out there too.

JennyCalendar · 02/09/2014 07:19

YANBU

A close friend of mine is vegan. When we go out with her, we choose places with plenty of vegan choice.

On her birthday, she chose a veggie/vegan restaurant. I wouldn't have dreamt of not going, though I can be picky, so I studied the menu before going and preselected what I was going to have to avoid looking like I was being picky in the restaurant. It was delicious.

ThinkIveBeenHacked · 02/09/2014 07:23

If someone is important to you, then, finances available, its only right that you accompany them to their choice of restaurant on their birthday.

"I dont like Thai food so I wont be coming" is a horrible attitude! Might as well say "you arent important enough for me to put myself out slightly that one night, even if it is your birthday"

CornChips · 02/09/2014 07:26

See, that is so thoughtful jenny , IMO.

This thread is inspiring me to go veg again!

Blu · 02/09/2014 07:40

YANBU. And if my friend was veggie / vegan (well, at least one is) I would be pro actively suggesting a lovely specialist veggie place for her

Especially as she has supported their birthdays without a foot stamping tiff.
Veggie food is inclusive . It is childish to whine 'yuk, I don't like it' before they have seen the menu or tried it. Like the kids on the current thread where the mother threw the dinner in the sink. How can you not like veg? We eat it with and in other meals all the time.

OP, I would feel quite hurt by their attitude I think.

SolidGoldBrass · 02/09/2014 10:13

Vegetarian food is not always inclusive, though - see the post upthread from someone allergic to both nuts and dairy. I know food 'intolerance' can be just as much of a marker of whiny, attention-seeking self-obsession as veganism can sometimes be, but some food allergies are genuinely life-threatening and certainly a valid reason for declining to eat in a restaurant you are not sure about - or which you know cooks everything in groundnut oil or some such.

Bunbaker · 02/09/2014 10:15

I agree Solid, but I imagine anyone with dairy ,nut or other allergies is going to be very careful where they eat regardless of the type of restaurant. Generally, allergies aside, a vegetarian restaurant is going to be more inclusive from all standpoints - ethical, religious and cultural.

SolidGoldBrass · 02/09/2014 10:16

Mind you, when you have to find a place that caters for a variety of... shall we say dietary quirks? Wagamama is a chain that not only does lots of different, generally nice food but has a special menu guide for vegan/vegetarian/nut-allergic/gluten-intolerant/you name it.
(I sometimes eat out with team-mates. One vegan, two vegetarians, two coeliacs, one with multiple allergies. It's either Wagamama or Pizza Express... or a steakhouse.)

vezzie · 02/09/2014 10:33

YANBU.
but - vegetarian restaurants are awful if you are low carbing.

Also - as many posters have pointed out - there is often little choice for veggies in non-veggie restaurants, and the veggie thing is usually vastly overpriced. I totally agree that if you want veggie food you are best off at a veggie restaurant - this is not just because there is more choice, but because the food will be better and cheaper.

(this is to do with how menus are priced - you can only have a certain level of variation of prices for each course - so if you are going to put on a prawn starter for £8 you have to charge min. £5 for tomato soup, which is a rip off. Similarly if you put steak on for £18 you have to charge £12 for the sodding mushroom risotto, also a rip off)

So - your friends, if they are always going to the steak house, are thinking, "what, pay £30 for some watery tomato soup and a plate of stodgy rice with a mushroom cut up in it"? If that is what vegetarian restaurants are like, they'd be right - but of course they aren't, which is why you want to go to one

ephemeralfairy · 02/09/2014 10:39

The thing with allergies to cheese/ nuts etc is fair enough, but vegetarian restaurants tend to be much more clued up about food intolerance anyway, and will list them on the menu. Especially with dairy, because of course vegans do not eat ANY dairy products. Someone up-thread mentioned Terre a Terre in Brighton (one of the best restaurants in the country in my opinion). Their menu lists vegan and gluten free options, and always indicates if nuts are present.

notinagreatplace · 02/09/2014 10:48

I don't even think no nuts/dairy would be that bad in a vegetarian restaurant.

This is my favourite vegetarian place in London - thegaterestaurants.com/menu.php - and I can see a couple of things that would be fine:

Japanese rolls V G
Smoked tofu, shiitake mushrooms, roasted red pepper, grilled courgette rolled in cos lettuce and

Chipotle corn cake V G
Corn & polenta cake , pan-fried & seasoned with chipotle chilli and coriander , served with aubergine, oven-dried tomatoes, sweet potato & served with a red pepper & black bean salsa lime and coriander dressing and crispy fennel

As well as quite a few more that would be quite easily made nut/dairy free if you asked them to leave one of the elements out.

I think the issue is that lots of meat eaters don't realise that vegetarians are ALWAYS eating stuff that isn't especially nice and doesn't really appeal to them. It really shouldn't be that big a deal for meat eaters to do so once in a blue moon.

WooWooOwl · 02/09/2014 11:03

I'd happily go to a vegetarian restaurant, but vegan food doesn't appeal to me at all.

Is it a vegetarian restaurant that has vegan options or is it a fully vegan place? If it was, I wouldn't be spending my money to go there, it's wasteful to pay for something you know you're probably not going to like and that you have no inclination to try.

notinagreatplace · 02/09/2014 11:07

The OP quite clearly says vegetarian/vegan - i.e. a vegetarian restaurant which has (as most do) vegan options as well.

If your vegetarian friends took the same 'don't want to spend my money on something I don't like' attitude, you'd hardly ever see them and, presumably, you like them!

ChickenMe · 02/09/2014 11:12

Yanbu
What's wrong with veggies? It's one meal. It won't kill anyone.
My mate is a veggie. We went to a lovely veggie place in Brighton. Deep fried haloumi yum!! And I'm a carnivore.

RufusTheReindeer · 02/09/2014 11:17

YANBU

Some people won't come to your birthday for various reasons if you do this so you need to think how important this is to you and maybe look at a good Indian restaurant or Italian as sometimes these have more vegetarian choices

SlothNinja · 02/09/2014 11:20

YANBU. It's one meal. It's your birthday. As long as they serve booze...

I'm a big meat eater, but often get food delivered from a vegan restaurant. Most people have never even tried vegan food.

Theas18 · 02/09/2014 11:25

Your birthday, your choice. Take me! I'm very omnivorous and love a good veggie/vegan meal!

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