To think vegans can’t really complain if they don’t like what’s on the menu when the menu is clearly advertised

[Foodreviews]

NC as I’ve been talking about this IRL

Now we’re allowed to eat out again I’ve been checking out the reviews of a few different restaurants and am astounded how many people complain that the restaurant didn’t cater for their vegan requirements

I’d get it if the restaurant claimed to do so, but from the examples I’ve seen, the menus are clearly advertised on line

Most have maybe 1 vegan option, and often not loads of other options anyway

In my head it’s like going to a Chinese restaurant and moaning that you can’t get a vindaloo or going to a pizzeria and moaning you can’t get sweet & sour chicken and egg fried rice

If the restaurant doesn’t serve what you want, surely you go elsewhere rather than slate the restaurant on review websites because they didn’t make you food that wasn’t on their menu

*restaurants

I have to say though that I am fining Vegetarian food harder to get (I am pescatarian but often eat veggie if out) as the Vegetarian options are now lumped in with Vegan - so no proper butter, no cream no cheese. Vegan cheese is no alternative!

YABU.

I ate out the other day at a seafood restaurant (my Dad's choice). As a vegan, I called ahead and asked if that was okay, was assured that it was.

On arriving at the restaurant, I was told there weren't any vegan options available. so I had fries and salad. I didn't moan about it but was pretty disgruntled, I was excited about eating out and fries and salad really wasn't cutting it.

@Aragog

a Caesar salad because they insist on putting anchovies in the dressing

But a Caesar salad does have anchovies in the dressing. It normally has egg in the dressing too. That's a Caesar salad dressing. Take it away and its not a Caesar salad, but a Vegan version of a Caesar salad.

I think that poster is only vegetarian not vegan so eggs in the dressing wouldn't matter.

However doesn't caesar salad normally have parmesan cheese in? Because that is made with cows stomach so definitely not veggie friendly .

It's definitely difficult eating out, especially when some of the options really aren't that appetising. I will research a menu in advance and check to see if it's ok but some restaurants really are shocking

I'll usually ring a restaurant before I go and ask if they can knock something up for me. It's a bit much to complain if there isn't anything suitable on the menu. There are plenty of places that do cater for us.

A GOOD mac n cheese should be topped with crispy bacon

It really shouldn’t. It’s a garnish, nice to have for some, and should be forgoed for those who don’t want it.

The whole point of going to a restaurant is to eat the food they offer. Not to expect the chef to make you something off menu to your own personal taste

A chain, where everything is bulk bought and prepared, maybe.

A good chef can always adapt or find something.

I’ve not read the whole thread but wanted to comment that I am coeliac and tend to really research before I go anywhere. My absolute pet hate is when the gluten free option is also the vegan option, especially with desserts! I’m already limited enough without taking away my delicious dairy too!

[quote LunaNorth]@JacobReesMogadishu would she countenance fish?[/quote]
No she's never liked fish.

@Frankley possible, sure, but not actually fun or pleasurable...

@LivingMyBestLife2020

I’ve not read the whole thread but wanted to comment that I am coeliac and tend to really research before I go anywhere. My absolute pet hate is when the gluten free option is also the vegan option, especially with desserts! I’m already limited enough without taking away my delicious dairy too!

I don't think I've ever seen this but this would actually annoy me as well. I'm vegan...that doesn't mean I don't want gluten. Give me the gluten-y goodness damn it!

Chains such as Frankie and Benny's, Wagamama's, Zizzi's, etc all have dedicated vegan menus with vegan starters, mains, sides and desserts. Chains that don't have vegan menus like Nando's still have vegetarian options that can easily be made vegan and both Nando's and Pizza Hut garlic bread is accidentally vegan

Trouble is we don't eat the pre-made, reheated from the freezer, food that those types of chains typically serve.

Hence as I said we rarely eat out. If it's a pub I generally have the ham egg and chips without the ham but £10 is expensive for egg and chips (with a bit of lettuce if I'm lucky).

Actually we rarely even do takeaway. That tends to be another fairly veggie unfriendly area too. I'm bored rigid with the 2 veggie options from our local Chinese which is all that is available to me.

@WitchQueenofDarkness

Chains such as Frankie and Benny's, Wagamama's, Zizzi's, etc all have dedicated vegan menus with vegan starters, mains, sides and desserts. Chains that don't have vegan menus like Nando's still have vegetarian options that can easily be made vegan and both Nando's and Pizza Hut garlic bread is accidentally vegan

Trouble is we don't eat the pre-made, reheated from the freezer, food that those types of chains typically serve.

Hence as I said we rarely eat out. If it's a pub I generally have the ham egg and chips without the ham but £10 is expensive for egg and chips (with a bit of lettuce if I'm lucky).

Actually we rarely even do takeaway. That tends to be another fairly veggie unfriendly area too. I'm bored rigid with the 2 veggie options from our local Chinese which is all that is available to me.

I think you must live very rurally? I can't remember the last time I even saw ham, egg and chips on a pub menu without some kind of 'ironic' twist, let alone where egg and chips was the only veggie option and takeaway options are very plentiful. I think it is harder if you're somewhere more remote though - we went on a trip to rural Lincolnshire last year and it was the first time in longer than I could remember where I went into a pub and there was nothing vegetarian on the menu at all. It used to happen a lot when I was first vegetarian, in 2001, but it was probably the first time I'd encountered it in this country for over a decade.

Reasonably rurally yes. There are some good vegetarian/vegan restaurants in the nearest city but you have to book well in advance (but according to PPs there is no demand for vegetarian food is there!)

I've had a bag of crisps for my Sunday lunch not so long ago when everyone else tucked into a roast with all the trimmings - there was nothing vegetarian other than a few veggies and they wanted to charge the full lunch price for a spoon full of carrots, some peas and some broccoli. The roast potatoes were done in meat fat as were the Yorkshire puds.

We've never been back.

@WitchQueenofDarkness

Chains such as Frankie and Benny's, Wagamama's, Zizzi's, etc all have dedicated vegan menus with vegan starters, mains, sides and desserts. Chains that don't have vegan menus like Nando's still have vegetarian options that can easily be made vegan and both Nando's and Pizza Hut garlic bread is accidentally vegan

Trouble is we don't eat the pre-made, reheated from the freezer, food that those types of chains typically serve.

Hence as I said we rarely eat out. If it's a pub I generally have the ham egg and chips without the ham but £10 is expensive for egg and chips (with a bit of lettuce if I'm lucky).

Actually we rarely even do takeaway. That tends to be another fairly veggie unfriendly area too. I'm bored rigid with the 2 veggie options from our local Chinese which is all that is available to me.

Where do you live😱 All chinese around me have large number of vegetarian options. Most takeaways do.

I find most genuine Italian restaurants are a minefield for vegetarians.

Nothing is labelled as vegetarian and most is the dishes seem to rely on Parmesan for the extra oomph. The last time I went to a proper Italian in Manchester the waitress was stunned that I didn’t want Parmesan sprinkled on my ravioli.

I don’t trust french ones either. So many bloody lardons... although the worst places I’ve eaten have been very north of Italy and America (not the big cities).

If the restaurant doesn’t serve what you want, surely you go elsewhere rather than slate the restaurant on review websites because they didn’t make you food that wasn’t on their menu

I'd go elsewhere and slate them for not bothering to have a vegan option available.

Vegans/Vegetarians have a much better time of it (especially in the UK) than we did in the 80s when it was all "bean lasagne" or "omlette" or, if you were very lucky a "spicy bean burger". Really really really boring. In Germany you didn't even get that and even if you ordered, say, pasta with mushroom sauce and grilled the waiting staff for half an hour and stressed no meat whatsoever because you were vegetarian... you always got something with bits of ham "you can pick them out". And sure, you can always eat at home, but not always for a business dinner, or if you're going out with a group of 15 friends for a birthday. It was shit and only getting one, increasingly boring vegan option these days (no lovely cheese or cream) it's extra boring.

And so sure I will leave a review saying exactly that "boring and useless and unimaginative".

I'm married to a chef, he has worked in various Michelin starred restaurants, as well as a few other places. And he has ALWAYS catered for a vegan, vegetarian or someone with a food allergy. It's always a bit less imaginative if they turn up on spec, but if they call in advance, he'll have a discussion - and these days will say "it won't be goat's cheese salad or mushroom risotto" because they are so bloody boring it's not true.

If I'd called ahead to a restaurant for a booking with a party who were all going to eat from the menu, and they assured me it was ok and then i ended up with fries and fucking salad i would have been extremely displeased and leaving a very precisely worded review as well as speaking to the manager.

Indian is your friend if you're vegan, or Korean (tell them you're a Buddist - although then you don't get onions or garlic). Italian is pretty good these days as long as you remind them not to go near your food with parmesan (but you do have to check in great detail how their pasta is made)

If restaurants want to survive - they need to up their game.

I'm part-time vegan (yes, it's a thing: only eating meat and dairy products occasionally, because I'm a crap dietetician and it's the only way I can be sure I get enough proteins, iron and vitamin B12, while minimising my impact on the environment

BALLS You can't be Vegan "part time" - you are or you ain't.

@Iwalkinmyclothing

If the restaurant doesn’t serve what you want, surely you go elsewhere rather than slate the restaurant on review websites because they didn’t make you food that wasn’t on their menu

I'd go elsewhere and slate them for not bothering to have a vegan option available.

If a place have no options for your dietary choice, it's not a place for you. Simple. That's like "slating" a cinema that specialises in foreign subtitled film for not playing a box office movie you like because a different cinema in a different town plays it🤷🏻

Somehow this subject always makes me giggle, mainly at the vague hipocrasy of some posts.

Vegan/vegge dishes in most restaurants apparetnly lack taste and/or imagination

But vegge restaurants usually aren't that good.

So the specialsist can't make a good meal but the main liners should?!

DSis is coeliac. That has opened our eyes to the options in all menus. As far as I can see there are more vegge and vegan options than ever before. More interesting ones too.

And we found a great chain called The Lounges that have separate, large menus for everyone! Now we can go for a burger, a Mexican etc and eat virtually the same dish!

thelounges.co.uk/locations/

@Hangingover

I'm part-time vegan (yes, it's a thing: only eating meat and dairy products occasionally, because I'm a crap dietetician and it's the only way I can be sure I get enough proteins, iron and vitamin B12, while minimising my impact on the environment

BALLS You can't be Vegan "part time" - you are or you ain't.

Of course you can. My diet is 95% vegetarian. VERY occasionally I will eat fish or meat- perhaps once or twice a year, if that. I tell people I am vegetarian because it's easier than explaining. I consider myself "mainly vegetarian".

You either is or you ain’t... at least you can say you choose to loyalty eat veggie but will was fish or meat (less hassle of someone is stressing about catering).