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AIBU?

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Original poster

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

409 replies

Loopylala7 · 11/10/2014 22:12

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?

OP posts:
SuburbanRhonda · 12/10/2014 15:51

duhgld, so you're assuming only vegetarians eat meat-free dishes, are you?

Fixed-price menus are completely different. If I found a restaurant where 25% of the normal menu was suitable for vegetarians (and by that I mean no animal products at all, so no Parmesan), I would get the flags out.

Why so aggressive? Is it all that meat you're eating?

PterodactylTeaParty · 12/10/2014 15:52

A typical set of choices on the fixed price menu in a restaurant will be one two meat, one fish, one veggie. 25% of the menu. For 5.6% of the customers.

a) I think you'll find that's 100% of the customers, unless meat- and fish-eaters are also allergic to vegetables.

b) If you think 25% of a menu being vegetarian dishes is normal, I would like to come and eat where you live, please. When I say 'poor choice' I mean more like 'one dish out of 20 is vegetarian, and/or it's horrible'. See: paying nearly £8 for a bowl of what turned out to be Heinz minestrone soup.

ChippingInLatteLover · 12/10/2014 15:53

What more do you want?

A choice of what to eat. Not too big an ask.

riverboat1 · 12/10/2014 15:57

Here in France I always think it must be extremely difficult to eat out as a vegetarian. Main courses are often a mixture of just meat and fish dishes. If you are OK with eating eggs/cheese you might be OK in some places, especially Italian restaurants. But if you don't eat eggs or cheese you're probably screwed everywhere, to be honest. I'd imagine the percentage of vegetarians in France is less than 1%, though.

EmbarrassedPossessed · 12/10/2014 16:01

riverboat1, when in France, I either just have omelette and chips or goats cheese salad. But often if you explain that you are vegetarian (and what that means), the restaurant will produce something suitable especially if you phone up and ask in advance. I've had some very nice dishes that way.

duhgldiuhfdsli · 12/10/2014 16:05

A choice of what to eat. Not too big an ask.

You've got a choice. It's just that you won't eat most of it.

If you think 25% of a menu being vegetarian dishes is normal, I would like to come and eat where you live, please.

I often eat at a restaurant where it's 100% vegetarian. And if I want to go and buy take away from a 100% vegetarian sweet centre, I've got about a dozen to choose from; actually, I can't think of a sweet centre that isn't vegetarian. The same's presumably true in most cities with a large southern Indian population.

RufusTheReindeer · 12/10/2014 16:05

My DH used to be a veggie

He doesn't eat much meat at home but does eat meat at restaurants etc

His main reason for going back to meat was that the veggie options were always so expensive for what they were

The biggest markup/profit at one of our locals is on the veggie dishes

I understand why it's just annoying Smile

RufusTheReindeer · 12/10/2014 16:07

duh

That's the point of the thread!!!

Most of us don't have the option of veggie restaurants like you do

duhgldiuhfdsli · 12/10/2014 16:08

so you're assuming only vegetarians eat meat-free dishes, are you?

No. I eat in vegetarian restaurants, and in others I tend to have the vegetarian dishes because they're better and I'm sceptical about the hygiene. Balti Channa Saag is the food of the gods.

But if I were in a non-meat-eating phase (comes and goes, longest I've done is about five years) I wouldn't go to restaurants that mostly serve meat, and then whine that the options were limited, just as I wouldn't go to a Thai restaurant and complain the pizza wasn't very good. If you want to eat veggie, go to restaurant with a decent vegetarian menu.

SuburbanRhonda · 12/10/2014 16:14

I don't think you'll find many vegetarians deliberately seeking out a restaurant that serves "mostly meat" and then "whining" about the vegetarian options.

Most mainstream restaurants simply have a poor choice for vegetarians and those who choose a non-meat meal.

If there were as many "restaurants with a decent vegetarian menu" as you seems to think there are, there would be no need for this thread.

duhgldiuhfdsli · 12/10/2014 16:27

Most mainstream restaurants simply have a poor choice for vegetarians

Most restaurants serve the food they think they can stay in business selling. Presumably, they're calculated that the extra business isn't worth the hassle. If you want to convince them that they're wrong, set up next door and put them out of business.

ChippingInLatteLover · 12/10/2014 16:29

riverboat it is a nightmare in some of the villages in France or proper 'French' restaurants . Most of the more 'touristy' places aren't too bad now. However, it was while travelling in France a few years ago that I stopped being vegan :( I just couldn't find stuff to eat 'out'. Fine if buying from a market or supermarket, but travelling companions don't always want to do that - understandably.

ChippingInLatteLover · 12/10/2014 16:35

duh I live in a GU46 postcode. How about you find me a 100% vegetarian restaurant which is close enough for me to go to dinner at.

Eating vegetarian is nothing like wanting to eat pizza at a Thai restaurant, it's simply wanting to eat Thai that doesn't have dead animals in it.

I never 'whine' as you so charmingly put it IRL and I would never 'whine' about a Steak Restaurant/Fish Restaurant being crap for vegetarians, that's not the same thing At All.

Lastly, I don't want to start up a restaurant, I want to eat out.

PterodactylTeaParty · 12/10/2014 16:37

If you want to eat veggie, go to restaurant with a decent vegetarian menu.

And the Tofu-Plated Award for Spectacular Point-Missing goes to...

Seriously, duhg, most of us just don't live in places where these 'restaurants with a decent vegetarian menu' can be found. That's what we're complaining about. Nobody's waltzing into Doris's Meat-O-Tastic Steakhouse and whining that they don't do quornburgers.

daisychain01 · 12/10/2014 16:43

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

So proud of my DP for his flexibility and willingness to accommodate in the face of mans crap attitude. DP does all our cooking 7 days/365 and he's happy to knock up a tasty dish separately for any veggies who sit at our table. Including me - generally, it's something new. It's never a problem to him.

Obviously he is a great chef, who doesn't get the least bit troubled by a simple culinary extra. Maybe man just isn't able to cope, poor thing there,there.

duhgldiuhfdsli · 12/10/2014 16:45

Hampshire's not my part of the world, given it's all a bit scary and white, but I can recommend the food at the Hook Tandoori, a mere eight miles from you, who did (if memory serves) a rather fine vegetarian set of options. I think I also once at the Mogul Bagshot, which is rather closer to you in GU19, which has a whole vegetarian section of the menu which kept the vegetarians I was with happy.

That's two in less than ten miles of you with decent vegetarian options.

SuburbanRhonda · 12/10/2014 16:48

Doris's Meat-O-Tastic Steakhouse

Well, we may not have the restaurants, but we have better jokes Grin

SuburbanRhonda · 12/10/2014 16:53

daisy, your DH sounds wonderful Smile

SuburbanRhonda · 12/10/2014 16:56

duhgld, it's already been stated many times on this thread that Indian and Bangladeshi restaurants offer good vegetarian options. I live in the arse-end of Surrey and even we are well catered-for in our local curry houses.

It's the wider picture that's the problem.

ItsAllGoingToBeFine · 12/10/2014 17:01

OP, YANBU. Try being vegan Wink

It'd also be made much easier if restaurants made clear on their menus what is veggie/vegan/nut free/gluten free etc. They don't have to make it so you have to specifically ask about the ingredients of every dish.

I feel lucky though, living in the top vegan city in the UK ?

Rumandcokeplease · 12/10/2014 17:01

Don't be so fussy and just eat meat!

FunkyBoldRibena · 12/10/2014 17:02

Don't be so fussy and just eat meat!

Why don't you make it easier for everyone, and just stop eating meat? I hate fussy bloody carnivores.

duhgldiuhfdsli · 12/10/2014 17:04

It's the wider picture that's the problem.

There will be good vegetarian options at your local Chinese, too.

For the (non-trivial) group of people who eat fish even though they don't eat meat, there's your local Japanese restaurant.

Vegetarian is easy at Pizza places.

People speak highly of the vegetarian options at Nandos (I'm too busy eating the chicken, to be honest).

What is the "wider picture"? If the complaint is "I live in the sticks where the restaurants are a bit shit", then the same problem applies pretty much whatever you eat.

HSMMaCM · 12/10/2014 17:08

When I go to friends I always offer to take a veggie something that will go with what they are cooking for everyone else. At Christmas I will take food for myself and my vegan niece, to go with the veggies everyone else is having.

ChippingInLatteLover · 12/10/2014 17:10

Duh two Indian restaurants, as I have said, many of my friends don't eat Indian food and I don't always want to. Try again...

Oh and I'd love to see how well the opposite of given it's all a bit scary and white would go down Hmm