To feel I almost have to apologise for being veggie...

[Loopylala7]

We were invited out tonight with a big group, but I couldn't go due to no babysitter. Anyway DH casually mentions that, well there was nothing on the menu for me anyway. This is following a holiday where being a vegetarian was considered weird, so had to survive on junk food.

These are just a few of my recent experiences. TBH I feel lucky if I go to a restaurant and have two dishes to choose from. Am I being unreasonable to think this is unreasonable?

I haven't spent much time out of urban Britain, but I find veggie food easy to get (I live in London)

This really does make a difference. I do okay for veggie food where I live now (Glasgow), but where I've lived previously outside big urban areas it's not the same. And if it's somewhere you don't live and don't know where the one restaurant out of 15 with a semi-decent vegetarian selection is, it is annoying as anything to have to traipse from place to place to place to find somewhere, not to mention how annoying it is for the non-vegetarians you're with who would also like more choice than "the one restaurant the vegetarian can eat in".

Although, even where I live now... there are an increasing number of places that used to have a decent vegetarian selection and now don't. Especially annoying when we took my late GFIL out for lunch weekly, because he was 101 and wanted a basic Sunday lunch he was familiar with, so Italian/Chinese/Indian/Japanese were out.

there are an increasing number of places that used to have a decent vegetarian selection and now don't.

Presumably they tried it, didn't make any money out of it, and are now doing better without the hassle.

As a lifelong veggie I actually I think England isn't too bad. Maybe that's because I live in London where veggie is the norm, or I'm just not fussy.

Try going to Eastern Europe. If you ask for vegetarian there they would probably give you chicken (voice of this experience)

Presumably they tried it, didn't make any money out of it, and are now doing better without the hassle.

Well, one in particular just went from packed out every dinner time to near empty every dinner time to closed, so, no.

I'm vegetarian; I don't cook meat for anyone, but I do cater for all sorts of dietary requirements when people visit because, weirdly, I actually like most of the people I invite into my home, and I want them to enjoy what they are eating.

So if that means catering for the friend who is an odd pescetarian/vegan hybrid (eats fish, seafood and eggs but no dairy products), or the friends whose son has a severe wheat intolerance (can't even take anything made with wheat-origin glucose syrup or soy sauce), or my in-laws who just like traditional British food (nothing spicy, no tofu, no beans, no lentils, no rice or pasta, no garlic etc etc) then I do it. Quite a lot of those things are considerably more effort to cater for than simply 'no meat or fish, please'.

Well, 100% of the population can eat vegetarian dishes. Somewhat less than 100% of the population can* eat meat dishes. So if we're going by that logic, all restaurants should be vegetarian, and meat-eaters have an unreasonable sense of entitlement by expecting 19/20 dishes on the menu to be things nobody but them can eat. Those unreasonable picky carnivores!

(yes yes fine, I can eat meat. Just like you can eat guinea pig. You would still be a bit if you turned up at a restaurant only to find that 19 out of 20 dishes were made from guinea pigs.)

(also I will happily settle for one veggie dish on the menu most of the time, as long as it isn't Mushroom bloody Risotto.)

Somewhat less than 100% of the population can* eat meat dishes.

Wrong I am afraid.

Somewhat less than 100% of the population HAS DECIDED THEY DO NOT WANT TO EAT MEAT DISHES.

BIG difference.

f you go to a restaurant and more than 1 in 20 of the options are veggie then you're doing pretty well

Why? Meat eaters shouldn't be forced to eat meat to what every meal or te one solitary vegtable dish.

PS , nothing wrong with guinea pig - I am told the taste much like squirrel (which I am a huge fan of eating).

I really like mushroom risotto. Sadly quite often they don't clean the mushrooms properly. Yuk!

For some reason, some meat eaters really like to bitch about veggies. Not sure why. They are usually the squeemish ninnies who get all red eyed when you say that you are cooking rabbit for the kids' tea.

Somewhat less than 100% of the population HAS DECIDED THEY DO NOT WANT TO EAT MEAT DISHES.

If only I'd addressed that very point in the sentence before the one you just copied, eh? Anyway, my point stands: vegetarian dishes? Suitable for meat-eaters and vegetarians alike. Meat dishes? Suitable for meat-eaters only.

To be fair, I wouldn't want to eat the paltry tat that passes for the vegetarian option in a lot of places either if I ate meat. But this is why you should join us in support of decent non-meat options on menus! Jooooooin uuuuuuuus.

(Also, on behalf of all veggies, stop nicking the veggie burgers off the barbecue because you're peckish and they're done first. Someone always does this and it's really annoying. I stand by the kebabs like a watchful vegetarian hawk these days.)

Yes but a few sentences later you void this point by stating :
I wouldn't want to eat the paltry tat that passes for the vegetarian option in a lot of places either if I ate meat

You are right of course, most veggie food in the UK is awful - it's just the same food with the meat removed. When these dishes were developed, they would have been developed around the flavour of the principle ingredient - the meat! If proper veggie dishes were more widespread then I suspect meat eaters and veggies alike would probably be happy to go to restaurants which had a lot of veggie stuff on the menu but as it is, if someone suggests a veggie place I generally find a way to politely decline.

In my experience if it's a 100% veggie/vegan place, the food is usually great - varied, tasty, menu put together with a bit of thought involved. It's the places that do one or two veggie options that tend to give you the meat-dish-minus-the-meat approach, or reheat some canned soup, or act surprised when you point out that salmon is not really a vegetable.

Like playing the patronising part, do you? Get some kind of kick out of it?

man, if you don't like being slightly sworn at by ouryve, then just tell her so, and then continue making your reasoned and logical posts. Resorting to being deliberately patronising and sarcastic just makes you look as immature as you think she is being.

When did she say arsehole???

Those biscuits looked more like tits to me

OMG, are they arseholes?

Actually, I can see myself using them a bit more now

Well I'm assuming so because I know the little face is a HMM face

And my arsehole does not pull a face

It pulls a face!!

I am a very determined meat eater. But I have just one word for you all.

Henderson's.

(Vegetarian restaurant in Edinburgh - amazing.)