To feel that restaurants should provide more vegetarian options ?

[Lovelybangers]

Maybe to some people I am BU - but since quitting meat I have noticed that many menus have a very limited selection of non meat/fish options.

I was out this weekend for a family meal ( restaurant chosen by someone else) and the menu had 6 starters, 6 mains to choose from Only 2 starters were suitable and 1 main course.

I am certain that it can't be so difficult to add another choice - the main course option was very mushroomy - so if I didn't like mushrooms then I would have been going hungry.

DH was happy as he got to eat a big plate of roast beef - despite him being happy to share my veggie offerings at home.

I was just perusing a few local eateries' christmas menus -and many of them don't have ANY option for non flesh eaters.

Sixisthemagicnumber Ignore my previous comment. An allergy sounds horrendous.

Never knew some wheat allergies could be that bad Sixisthemagicnumber. I can see why you can't get him tested for coeliac because they need to see the damaged intestine from gluten in the biopsy to know. Must be tough with him being that sensitive. My dd had coeliac crisis where her body slowly shuts down if she continually eats gluten but it would happen gradually not like what you have to contend with

Well one choice would be nice user for my gluten and dairy free ds. Just one

Of course it would be nice. It would also be nice to have an option for the nut free coeliac, and the egg free veggie, and the wheat free fish allergy, would'nt it? I'm not saying it wouldn't be nice.
But are you seriously suggesting every menu should have a choice for ALL of those options, and every other individual need? It's simply not possible for most restaurants

Yanbu. Too much goat cheese IMO.

I'm getting less tolerant of poor choice of vegetarian meals at restaurants. You see a wonderful selection of meat and fish based dishes and an obvious poor relation of a veggie dish right at the bottom - usually a thrown together mushroom risotto or cheap pasta dish or a bought in bean burger. They are not generally any cheaper though than the better quality meat based dishes. I've now walked out of a few and told them why I'm not eating there after all.

I was taken to lunch by a friend to his local pub this week - first dish was mushroom risotto and I was considering ordering ham egg and chips without the ham ( done this quite a lot in the past!) when I spotted 4 more choices. I had a divine spinach, mushroom and hazelnut pie ...with peas, mash and gravy! I felt like a normal person and that is one pub that I'll be visiting regularly now.

It's worse when you have to pre-pay £150 for a Michelin starred vegetarian menu only to find that it's seasonal and they actually have no vegetarian choices available at all. I got a full refund for the party & we managed to find somewhere else to eat last minute but it ruined what was supposed to be a special day.

You often don't need an entirely separate item on the menu though user148. If you are making fresh food then it isn't hard to exclude or substitute certain things. Most soups can be made without top 8 allergens very easily. A steak and chips can easily be top 8 allergen free as long as the restaurant is prepared to use fresh oil for frying or bake some chips in the oven. Mashed potato can easily be made top 8 allergen free. It is very easy for a restaurant to keep some free from
Pasta ready for cooking in a separate pan upon request and there is a wide range of very easy to prepare pasta sauces which are top 8 allergen free.
It really isn't a case of restaurants having to keep in a huge supply of free from foods on the off chance that some body with allergies comes for a meal. It is a simple case of adapting the normal menu in very easy and inexpensive ways.

If you're a vegetarian, isn't it strictly-speaking you who have restricted your menu choices, rather than the restaurant?

dailyfail - really?! Name and shame!! There's plenty of seasonal winter veg!

Sixisthemagicnumber

Fresh oil for frying (assume you're talking about a commercial fryer) would be a pain in the arse and fairly costly.

Having googled the top 8 allergens (top 10 doesn't seem as readily available), I guess most pasta sauces are free from those 8. As someone else complained about though, this is cheap, even taking into account the extortionate price of 'Free From' pasta and hardly inspirational food.

You say adapting the menu is easy and inexpensive. Whilst the printing costs us very little as it's a paper insert, the costs of changing a menu are surprisingly high. We do it three times a year. We're closed for lunch Mon-Thurs so will pay for the chefs to work one of those days to practice the new menu as well as another day to serve it to the staff. 6 hours overtime for every member of staff, plus the ingredients is costly.

A long list of 'also available' makes the menu look ugly and slightly confusing. My father always advised never to eat anywhere with an overly long menu as it was a 'jack of all trades, master of none'. Someone else has said that they check out the menu before going there so having the ingredients but not advertising the dish is pointless.

Elphame

"I had a [delicious] spinach, mushroom and hazelnut pie ...with peas, mash and gravy!"

I wouldn't order it but can see the appeal. I assume that that was veg. friendly only. It wouldn't have been as delicious with dairy free pastry (possibly cream in the tart filling?) and gluten free flour. No idea about gluten free gravy. I'd imagine it's shite too. This thread's about vegetarian options but are you saying 'screw other people's dietary restrictions'?

I have no idea so would be interested to know, if you say something is 'free from' then how responsible are you? Is it different depending on danger levels which is why almost everything seems to have a "may contain traces of nuts" and you'd be in far more trouble for making someone sick whereas finding out your vegan dish contained an animal product (small amount in one of the ingredients) would be less of a problem?

I wonder if it's easier for restaurants which make food from scratch to have a limited on nonexistent 'Free from / veggie / veggie + (vegan) menu.

Most soups can be made without top 8 allergens very easily

But not with anything like the level of taste as with them! And why would a restaurant want to give a far inferior product to 99% of their customers so the 1% can eat the same soup?

And you can't just "use fresh oil for frying"! If you need something to be gluten or allergen free, you would need to empty and fully clean down the fryer each time to make sure it had no traces of gluten or allergens. OR you would need a separate fryer, but you would need a separate one for EACh allergen in that case.
It's not as simple as you think it is. And you can't just whip something up in the middle of service, most things are pre-prepped to an extent.

Bloody hell, you can fry things perfectly easily without an actual fryer.

And yes, of course things that are top 8 allergen free are not going to be as tasty but you know people with severe allergies are actually used to that and accept it in order to stop themselves from dying. Sometimes people with allergies would just like to be able to eat out.

Completely off topic, but I think only 6 options is rubbish in otself

I'm not a veggie but often have the veggie option- I find the idea that omnivores always have meat/fish a bit weird and old fashioned. Lots of places are great for this (Italian, Indian etc). Pubs probably the worst.

Bloody hell, you can fry things perfectly easily without an actual fryer

Chips? Tempura? Fish? In a restaurant, you use a proper fryer. You don't just whack it in a pan and hope for the best, its not just another kitchen.

Completely off topic, but I think only 6 options is rubbish in otself

Thats what you get, at most, in a GOOD restaurant. Anywhere with endless options, its all out of the freezer or bought in from a catering company.

And yes, of course things that are top 8 allergen free are not going to be as tasty but you know people with severe allergies are actually used to that and accept it in order to stop themselves from dying

Yes, but YOU said that the soup for everyone should be made to suit people with all the allergies. That we should all eat the poor version just to suit the tiny minority.
I've got kids with allergies and I still think thats insane.

If you're a vegetarian, isn't it strictly-speaking you who have restricted your menu choices, rather than the restaurant?

Yes of course it is. In the same way that people whose diet is in theory omnivorous choose not to eat certain foods, such as beef, pork, fish, vegetables, rice, lentils and so on (examples from actual omnivores I know).

I didn't mean that everyone should eat the soup user. In fact I didn't say that at all. I said soups can be easily adapted to be top 8 allergen free.
If a restaurant is making stuff fresh then it doesn't need to make a big batch top 8 free for everyone, just the one portion will suffice. Or they can make a bigger batch and keep in the fridge because I reckon if a restaurant is Known to cater well for allergens there will be regular requests for free from foods as word spreads Quickly among the allergy communities. You know there are lots Of social media groups dedicated to people with food allergies / intolerances / coeliac and restaurant recommendations are something that is frequently discussed.

And I wouldn't expect anything like tempura or battered fish to be top 8 free in any restaurant. Those foods are not easily adapted. Chips are simple enough and can actually be done in the oven (I have had his done for my son). Obviously they are not the same As deep fried chips but they are a reasonable substitute. Oh and Nandos manage to do their normal chips allergen free without needing to adapt anything. You just let them know when you order to avoid any cross contamination with other foods which are not allergen free. Nandos feels a bit fast food for me but the kids like it and it is one of the few Places where there is things on the menu that my Son can actually eat. If somewhere as mainstream and busy as Nandos can manage a few options it can't really be that difficult (and they have no shortage of customers so the food can't be seen as that awful
By many people),

I love a Nandos occasionally.

They probably have banks of friers so it's easy to keep one for only chips and monitor them so they're 'safe'.

Agree. I eat veggie options as not keen on fish and I don't eat meat. Some places are great, but others have barely any choice (usually gastropubs). Luckily am
Not that fussy & will eat the fish if I have to - lol! Its much better than it used to be, where you'd have veggie lasagne & that's it.

YANBU, I'm a vegetarian and I hate mushrooms. I visited a friend in Bath a few months ago and she took me to an Indian restaurant that only does veggie food, it was amazing