AIBU to hate the veggie option?

[BabooshkaKate]

It's always halumi.

Why? Why must it always be halumi?

How many different ways can you do halumi?

Why do restaurants never think outside the box?

No Dixie we haven't crossed swords before. You would have remembered and I dare say you'll not forget

You know it's not my fault a) Americans are getting it in the neck online in recent days and b) you're feeling upset about anti American posts that others have posted in recent days and before.

But that doesn't change the fact your post was racist, and your belief that tit for tat slurs is acceptable somehow, doesn't excuse it either.

As I said, just change Irish for Blind/ African American /Jewish and see if it rings a bell of being unacceptable for you.

For example:
"Do African American people like seaweed in their grilled cheese sandwiches?"
"Do blind people like seaweed in their grilled cheese sandwiches?"
"Do Jewish people like seaweed in their grilled cheese sandwiches?"
"Do Irish people like seaweed in their grilled cheese sandwiches?"

See what I did there?

I find racism and lazy stereotyping unacceptable and I'm calling you out on it.

A few years ago me and DH were at a set meal thing in a pub and they brought out our veggie starters: a glass of orange juice each!

Hill walking area for nice lunch I would like to see

1. A big bowl of something spicy and warming. Like veggie chilli /gumbo, tagine with preserved lemons and chickpeas, Dahls, ramen, hot and sour tofu. Something that is veg & protein packed but carbs served to side.

I know the old veggie chilli looks dull but if you have lentils + beans and good spicing it's great. We have a place here that serves it with mini wraps, small bowl cheese, water melon and a mayoless slaw. Tagine with mini flatbreads would be nice, or a gumbo or tex me with cornbread.

1. A tart, en croute, lentil cottage pie. Homemade veg sausages & mash. I make a great wild mushroom en croute with madeira gravy.

1. Pasta or risotto. Maybe a Lebanese flavoured rice dish.

In summer fritters, tempura, falafel, arancini with a big salads. Posh bubble and squeak with asparagus and poached egg.

I think it's about getting the right balance of choice one dish can be spicy, one can be cheesy or creamy, but the other should be plainer and maybe tomato based.

Look all you angry vegetarians, the meat options for compani/groupChristmas dinners etc. are equally awful.

IMO, places that don't do a decent veggie option, are rubbish at ALL their food.

We suffer equally , yes we have more choice, but it's all crappy hotel food anyway.

At least it's not brie and cranberry filo parcel, which I got at 3 Christmas events in a week last year.

Thanks everyone for replying, it's really helpful to hear what people like rather than dislike, and thanks for links to restaurants you enjoy.

I guess we're Classic English, and everything is cooked on site to order. Nothing is bought in ready made. The veggie options we have are all fresh and beautifully presented but mainstream and dare I say it boring. Chef says there is too little demand for it to be commercially viable to work on the veggie offerings. I disagree!

I'll run through all your ideas properly when I get some child free time this evening. Thanks again

Get how you feel, not vegetarian but have to eat gluten free so sometimes my choice can be very limited (although nowadays it seems there's much more gluten free options than vegetarian options, which, as much as I appreciate that, seems rather shitty considering there's more vegetarians than Coeliacs)

Just looked at my local restaurants, all of them had just one veggie main - mushroom risotto, except for one place that had instead Emmer Wheat with...mushrooms.

Surely the restaurant can serve whatever the hell they like? I wouldn't go to a vegan cafe and demand a beefburger, or a Halal branch of Subway and ask for bacon. (Or any branch of Subway and ask for anything, come to think of it.)

It's supply and demand, if there was the demand for better vegetarian options then restaurants would make a bigger profit from supplying them. Vegetarians need to support businesses that give them the options they want instead of putting up with halloumi or whatever else. If such businesses don't exist, then why not start one?

WLF46

It's supply and demand, if there was the demand for better vegetarian options then restaurants would make a bigger profit from supplying them. Vegetarians need to support businesses that give them the options they want instead of putting up with halloumi or whatever else. If such businesses don't exist, then why not start one?

Thank you so much for the patronising lesson in economics. I now understand business models

Of course I eat where I can and support those restaurants that way. But if I look at the menu and there isn't anything for me there I will go elsewhere. I'm not going to go into the restaurant and demand a vegan meal. It's also too much bother to write to the head office and say it'd be nice to have something vegan when there is a nando's across the street with 3 vegan options and all veggie sides.

Because people don't go out on their own as much as they go with other people. Vegetarians are in a small minority, so most people will be meat eaters. Just look at all the posts on this thread where the meat options have been fine, and the vegetarian option substandard. That's why they get away with it, because if a vegetarian wants to be social they have to put up with it.

I sometimes just do not want a meat dish, so look hopefully at the veggie options, almost always they are:

Goats cheese and red onion tart
Mushroom and halloumi burger
Mushroom Risotto

It get's very repetitive.

Oh the irony that a good place for vegetarians to eat is a chicken restaurant.

But seriously, Nando's have got it right in offering a choice of edible vegetarian options, as long as you like halloumi .

Less enlightened 'we sell very few vegetarian meals' restaurants might wish to consider that the reason that they sell very few vegetarian meals is because what they offer isn't attractive, so no-one buys it, not because there is no demand. If they offered good vegetarian options, they might find that they sell more of them.

I'm never going to buy pasta in tomato sauce, or tortellini, in a restaurant because that's a no effort CBA quick easy meal at home, especially as most chain restaurants will use pre-made sauces. Lucky for me, I am not vegetarian, so I will pick something else, but anyone who is vegetarian is either going elsewhere, or if at a restaurant where they didn't get to choose, having a crappy time, with a miserable meal.

YANBU

Though I do love hallumi. My main for the work do is masala spice roasted fecking cauliflower. It doesn't have fecking in the title but I've added that in because a) cauliflower is possibly the most dull vegetable in the world and b) why can't the veggie option be Christmassy like everyone else's so now I'll get the Spanish Inquisition as soon as it turns up

/endrant

I went to a lovely pasta place abroad where you went through a sort of conveyor belt. You chose the pasta/gnocchi then your meat then your sauce and topping so you could have anything if you're a veggie. I know that some dishes require a good soaking but pasta doesn't really and more and more places are doing veggie pastas with the option to add meat or halloumi if you choose. Such a simply idea that opens up at least half a dozen more dishes for veggies in most Italians.

Venus, I've just gone back and re-read Dixie's post. As I thought when I first read it, that sentence you're taking so much exception to is a rhetorical question, not a racial slur. Dixie is not poking fun at the Irish. She is saying why on earth would anybody (ethnicity irrelevant here) want a cheese sandwich with kale?

I went to a lovely gastropub in Walthamstow yesterday. They had a terrific vegetarian think (think celeriac and other vegetables in pastry with a mushroom gravy). It looks as though their menu changes daily but the vegetarian main course for today looks nice too. Might be worth a visit if any of you are in or near Walthamstow?

lovely vegetarian thing

foxtrot - maybe send your chef on a Cordon Vert course?

I've had the 'our chef will cook anything vegetarian, what would you like?' line a few times. Well, I don't know. I was hoping for something cheffy that I couldn't make or wouldn't want the bother of making at home, you know, something special.
Not spinach and bastard ricotta canneloni - that's a midweek meal for me.

I like the rise of halloumi however, better than the ever present mushroom or the tire old fave, veg lasagne.

Dixie, no it's not a thing in Ireland. Coleslaw maybe (on the side with a salad that it). Kale in a sandwich is strange (and I like kale), the Irish restaurant you were in are plonkers. (Not a racist question btw)

I don't get Hallouni either, especially served bland and squeaky.

There is a lovely local pub here that does a Sunday lunch menu. It changes every week with fresh, local seafood, locally reared meat, Yorkshire pudding and 'all the trimmings'. For vegetarians? Penne pasta with tomato sauce and garlic bread. Every sodding week!

I've been to 5 star hotels where the veggie option was spinach and ricotta tortellini.... shop bought ... lazy

Just another suggestion for foxtrot - if you would like ideas for vegetarian fine dining, have a look at the menu for cafe paradiso in Cork, we had an amazing meal there a few years back.

Acorn Vegetarian Kitchen in Bath was amazing. Small plates (tapas) section - yummmmm.

I am fed up with the sad veggie option in many restaurants too. I think that's why I always want Indian food whenever I go out now.

Recently I met friends for a meal at a restaurant that does fantastic Sunday roasts (or so they say). I loved the idea of a vegetarian roast, but didn't build my hopes up - I thought I will have to have something else that's vegetarian if they don't do roast dinners for veggies.

They offered beef, pork or lamb roasts but nothing else. They said they had veggie options during the week but not on a Sunday. I couldn't have the roast minus meat, as the potatoes were made with goose fat and they couldn't make a veggie gravy either.

They made me a mushroom omelette :(
I asked for salad but was given a bowl of dry rocket with some red onions dotted about. The omelette was so overlooked I couldn't eat it, it was bone dry - with a load of (more) dry rocket plonked on top.
I sent it back and got smashed on red wine instead.

It's not like vegetarians are a rare breed is it? There a loads of us.