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?

duhgld - yes, I've long been a south Asian vegetarian on long haul flights, as has DS for the past few years. It confuses the flight staff sometimes, when they deliver meals to two very caucasian-looking passengers, but the food is generally way better than the Western vegetarian meals. But you do miss out on some quite acceptable desserts, like chocolate brownies.

YANBU. Every time I go back to Essex we have to check menus before we go out or go to a chain restaurant because if we try elsewhere, half the time they don't have a vegetarian option beyond "chips and cheese" or fish () and the other half of the time it's mushroom based. I hate mushrooms and tomatoes.

I also hate salad but accept the chips and cheese as my 'punishment' for being fussy!

Even the chain restaurants are shit though as paremsan is usually on most things. I worked in a restaurant in Bath three years ago and had to explain at the new menu tasting night why parmesan wasn't veggie friendly so that's why the waiting staff had to double check when people ordered the veggie options. The chef said "fuck that, just tell them it's veggie cheese then!"

I live in Brighton now and it's so very different! I can eat almost everywhere and I'm now a (mostly) gluten free vegetarian! I'm lucky that I'm not coeliac, it just fucks with my other health problems, so having a bread crumb topping on a freezer dish or similar isn't going to be too disasterous for me. But in Brighton I don't often have to worry about it. I had an awesome Thai last night, Siam Siam if anybody is down this way, two minute walk from Regency car park. Very tasty!

I haven't been to Terre a Terre, I want too. Planet India is supposed to be good and before I went strict on the gluten front I had roasts in The George on Sundays and they had awesome vegetarian options for the roasts!

Try the gate restaurant in London.... And if you ever get to Milan try a restaurant called joia. My husband went there and came back racing and I was all " it's veggie how good can it be? "....(15 years ago before people like ferran Adria and Heston had started inspiring people) and it was amazing!!¡

Both do cookbooks if you like food porn.... Also recommend the 2 ottolenghi veggie books.... Then no vegetarian will ever complain.

I don't think you have to apologise for being veggie but I do find many veggies very entitled when you don't bend over backwards to accommodate their whims.
Most veggies would argue that it's not a whim and seem to view it as akin to some sort of religion but a the end of the day there is (I presume) no medical reason you can't eat meat , you have simply chosen not to.

So fine, be a veggie, but don't come to a dinner party of a dozen or so others people who all like some meat in their meals and expect the whole damn menu to be arranged around you and you alone.

Ever had a dinner party with a pregnant veggie in attendance? So much agro I will never bother again. Cooked 3 separate fecking meals to accommodate all the different dietary requirements, 10 people ate the roast beef, 2 ate the soft cheese based veggie meal and 1 (preg vegan) ate the other revolting bland tasteless pile of shite that was as much grief to cook as the bed that fed 10 of us - for 1 bloody person!

Sorry but veggies at at dinner party are a pain! Fact.

Oh! And! The sodding 'vegetable risotto' or 'vegetable lasagna', where 'vegetable' means 'whatever vegetables we've got hanging round the kitchen at the moment, who cares what they are or whether they go together or if they work well in a risotto or anything. I doubt they'd offer 'meat risotto' to the meat-eaters.

I did complain (very politely, we ate there weekly and I'd really loved the place) the last time I was out somewhere that had recently changed its menu and drastically reduced the veggie options - specifically: it was either mushroom risotto or 'vegetable soup', in starter portion, and the soup turned out to be Heinz minestrone for which they were charging £7.95). Got serious huffiness because "there is a vegetarian option!" Er, yes, and yet...

Nice attitude you have going there man. If you don't want to cater for your guests, don't invite them - but don't expect them to eat meat because it suits you.

I've only recently gone vegetarian and have actually found it much easier than I thought I would, but then I do live in London so have lots of different restaurants to choose from. Last night I ate out at an organic vegetarian Indian buffet restaurant. It was honestly one of the nicest meals I've ever had, no meat at all on the menu but a huge variety of different dishes to choose from, and it was only a fiver each!

chipping

Better Batter and lemeni Yemeni relish

Beer battered halloumi cheese, chips, quails egg, crushed peas (something fancy in them but I don't remember what) with vodka infused tomatoes and relish

DH and friends DH hack fancy nancy and my friend had Greek Chic

So pleased because it was my choice of dinner in the Friday (my birthday) and hers on the Saturday (her birthday), on her birthday we had a kebabs and chips walking back to the hotel...not in the same league!!!!

Can I just say it is your decision to be a vegetarian no one else's. Why do all you veges expect restaurants or friends to accommodate what is ultimately your decision not theirs. I don't understand why you feel you have the right to complain about what a restaurant or friend serves. Offer to bring your own vege food to a friends house I you want and find restaurants that suit you, don't whine at them for not having what you think they should. If I go to an Italian restaurants with friends I don't complain they don't cook Chinese which I may prefer on the night ?!??

Wow, you sound like a delightful host, man.

I hope you came over as more gracious to your guests than you do in your post.

Once went t a country pub to have a roast dinner I asked for the veggie roast and it came with boiled potatoes as well as roast potatoes! Still charged me the same amount!!x

kiki, you and man sound like you're made for each other.

I am a delightful host thank you very much. I have loads of veggie and vegan friends and always accommodate them because I cook loads of great veggie dishes. In fact I have 8 friends over this weekend 2 of which are veggie and my meal plan will be all veggie.

Can I just say it is your decision to be a vegetarian no one else's. Why do all you veges expect restaurants or friends to accommodate what is ultimately your decision not theirs.

Same way meat eaters expect people to accommodate their decision to eat meat. You aren't too tight up top are you?

Same way meat eaters expect people to accommodate their decision to eat meat

It's not often that meat eaters complain that there's a shortage of restaurants that serve meat, is it?

If you are such a delightful host, kiki, how do you square that with your first post? Sounds like a major exercise in back-peddling to me.

Oh, and I don't think you'll find many vegetarians in this thread complaining about food their friends cook them, just about the paucity of choice in restaurants. Seems it's more a case of the hosts complaining about their vegetarian guests.

I live in a city full of vegetarian restaurants or restaurants that cater to veggies so I guess it's not really an issue here tbh plus I am actually a vegetarian and just go to places that cater to me and my friends when we go out.

What surburban says

I don't think anyone had complained about their friends have they?

Seems a bit odd you were referring to "all you vege's" above, Kiki, if you are in fact vegetarian yourself?

What, you're a vegetarian, kiki?

That makes the anti-vegetarian rant in your first post even more bizarre.

I'm thinking split personality

It's not often that meat eaters complain that there's a shortage of restaurants that serve meat, is it?

Noooo - they just complain about people who don't eat meat having the audacity to complain that there needs to be more choice on the menu.

Hence some of the odd posts on this thread. Eating meat is as much a choice as not eating meat and taking the high moral ground saying 'veggies make a choice to eat meat' forget that the same applies to them.

Talking of plane meals- well you were a while back - once coming g back from Mexico, my long standing veggie meal reservation magically resulted in a... plain chicken breast. No sauce. Wih a big v on the front, to show it was the vegetarian option. Yay!!!

On same subject, why does my (lactose ovo) vegetarian reservation always mean that I get margarine not butter. They're not confusing me with a vegan, as I get marge when it comes with cheese and biscuits. I want butter!!

Me and a lot of my veggie friends often pre cook veggie dishes to take to friends houses for dinner for us all to share which all our friends love and it gives them a taste of veggie dishes they would never have thought to make.