To be disappointed with a veggie only menu?

[Chewbecca]

We booked an event at our local wine shop ‘summer Mediterranean supper club’. £45 for 3 courses including paired wines. Menu tba.

Event is tomorrow and the menu has arrived today and it is 100% veggie. I do enjoy veggie food but can’t help but feel a bit ‘short changed’ and my committed meat eater DH is really unimpressed.

It is a fab venue with great owners that always put on a good evening.

AIBU to be disappointed?
Would you tell the venue you were a bit disappointed?
If you would, how would you say it, terribly nicely?

Thanks.

Thank you for coming back OP and for the comprehensive review!

That is not enough wine.

The menu is still a bit too dairy heavy, and a vegetable based starter would've been better, but I approve of the sides to the cheesecake. Dry bread though?!

Food sounds better now but the wine seems very miserly as the ingredients for that would not cost much.

Bit stingy on the wine though OP.

I’d ask for a refund

£40 for two would be dear. £40 each is shocking. I would never use this place again, ever.

£20 a head for an aperitif, three courses and two glasses of wine? Can I come and live where you live?

We regularly take advantage of exceptional advertised deals at chain restaurants. We tend to get substantial meals with a drink at 2 for £30, or maybe buy one get one free. We also tend not to have 3 courses, because generally one or two are more than sufficient.

Cheesecake and salad (no potatoes?) should be no more than 7.99 (max) in any garden centre, or national trust café, and I wouldn't really want to pay that much to be honest.

for £40 a head, I would have expected a lot better meal, and a lot more to drink.

People are unreasonably tolerant of restaurants. Happy to get ripped off, and give them a tip as well. They serve you stuff you wouldn't eat yourself. They serve you badly cooked stuff, and they know it's badly cooked.

A wine shop shouldn't be ripping you off on a meal - they should be running at a small profit, or even break even, knowing you will probably buy a case of wine, and tell all your mates what a good place it is.

I’d much prefer a small but interesting freshly made meal with unusual wines vs a substantial mass produced meal in a chain restaurant any day to be honest. I don’t think the two are comparable. I honestly would not expect to get this sort of meal with (albeit not very much) drink for £20 a head, without using dirt cheap, poor quality ingredients and poor working conditions for staff.

And I don’t think it is fair to suggest they need to just break even and hope we buy a case of the wine. They are also paying staff, building and all the other costs that go with running a small business, I don’t begrudge them a profit. None of it was badly cooked at all.

Butter beans replace the need for spuds IMO.

Cheesecake and salad (no potatoes?) should be no more than 7.99 (max) in any garden centre, or national trust café, and I wouldn't really want to pay that much to be honest.

Boak! Who wants to eat that over-processed sling and ping crap? Why not just trot over the ASDA and pick up a couple of cartons, that's even cheaper and probably better quality than you get in Harvester or Weatherspoon's. Yuk.

My MIL eats in dumps like that. I'd rather skip the meal than pay a penny for that rot.

I understood that this was a freshly cooked meal using quality ingredients? You’re not going to get that in the garden centre!

I actually think that sounds a nice menu and not bad value OP. Surely a 50ml measure of desert wine is the normal amount? I would imagine the others were 125mls.

I'd feel short changed too

I wouldn’t be happy. The pudding sounds good but otherwise the menu quite dull and cheap. Wine very mean!

tinyteatime my eyes told me the quantity of wine poured was less than your imagination told you.

I would definitely rather have that than a garden centre's offering!

I'm happy to pay more to support local businesses, but they needed to give you more wine.

I think the meal sounds really nice, OP, though I agree with you about the olive oil or something for the bread. You also got a cocktail, two small glasses of wine and a dessert wine. £40 is probably a bit too much, but not by a long way. If they'd been more generous with the wine, I'd have said that was a fair price. I hope you enjoyed your evening anyway!

I think £40 for what you got is on the dearer side, perhaps, but not too unreasonable... For those sorts of vegetarian dishes around here in decent non-chain places I'd have thought you'd pay £6-£8 for a starter, £10-£12 for a main and maybe £6-£8 for a dessert, so between £22 to £28 for the food.
Two small glasses of decent wine, a dessert wine and an aperetif would probably bring it to around that cost. So I think the main problem is that the portions of wine were too small. I think it would have felt reasonable even with 175 ml servings.

Was there anything additional, like a talk on the wine or any entertainment? I can't say the menu would have me jumping for joy. Do they serve food usually or just for these nights?

Oh and bread needs dips!

The bread just on its own. WTAF? But I'm with you, Namechange, I'd rather eat sawdust than in a garden centre or a Harvester or Toby's type place. Blech.