To find eating out with my parents embarrassing and frustrating?

[NeonJellyBaby]

My parents are both fussy eaters. Both are very ‘meat and two veg’ and traditional. DF is a nightmare to feed, although in fairness he admits it. DM on the other hand is marginally better, but still very picky and would hit the roof if you pointed out how limited her diet is. She has a made up ‘dairy allergy’. She isn’t allergic to it, she just doesn’t like cheese or butter, but as you can imagine that brings its own problems when eating out. She also doesn’t have any problems eating ice cream. So allergy my arse!

Eating out anywhere nice is a nightmare. They will only eat very bland stuff, British stuff nothing fancy. No creamy or spicy sauces. Think egg and chips, pie and chips, gammon and chips, fish and chips. But even then they will get funny if it’s too fancy and not traditional. DM will eat a curry but only the blandest one on the menu. If you go out for Sunday lunch they will reel off all the stuff they don’t want on their plate whilst ordering. Meat has to be cremated or it will be sent back.

A few years ago DB, SSIL and I took them out for a lovely meal for DF’s milestone birthday and they moaned about how fancy and rich it was and there wasn’t really much they liked on the menu (there was loads on the menu). It was an American style upmarket chain place, think Miller and Carter type price range.Food was amazing. It was mortifying.

DM has now asked me to go out to lunch with her today. Guess what? She’s already turned down an Italian place because ‘everything has cheese on it(no it doesn’t), a tapas place because cheese again (once again not everything has cheese on it because I fucking looked), she ‘doesn’t fancy’ Chinese and ‘doesn’t like Thai’.. Looks like it will be the Marstons two for one shit shoved in a microwave again place doesn’t it.. I’d say sod if and suggest McDonalds but she’d probably find fault with that as well.

I love them and want to spend time with them but honestly going anywhere with them is a fucking minefield. AIBU to find them a bit embarrassing?

Lifes too short just go to the pub and go to the other places on your own.

YANBU - it's not ok for adults to be like this-a mental health problem if you ask me - actual unrecognised eating disorder - but a nice fish and chip restaurant with good fresh fish shouldn't be too hard to find I would have thought - my mum was a bit like this so we would go out for really good f & c once a month, which was fine by me. More often, or trying to do anything different just didn't work

@Lapun

I love Mumsnet, but by the time you are all old I will be dead. I do not eat spicy food because it upsets my stomach badly. I have to watch what I eat for health reasons and at 87 these can be annoying. I love this thread and I imagine you all cook amazing, tasty meals and that crushed avocado on sourdough toast is de rigeur for breakfast. Don’t be embarrassed by your parents as long as they are not grossly rude at the dinner table. Your intolerance towards us oldies is not becoming. I am having fresh haddock and salad for dinner with a glass of excellent Sauvignon Blanc and I really never eat in Nando’s (shudder)

Don’t

@Lapun

I love Mumsnet, but by the time you are all old I will be dead. I do not eat spicy food because it upsets my stomach badly. I have to watch what I eat for health reasons and at 87 these can be annoying. I love this thread and I imagine you all cook amazing, tasty meals and that crushed avocado on sourdough toast is de rigeur for breakfast. Don’t be embarrassed by your parents as long as they are not grossly rude at the dinner table. Your intolerance towards us oldies is not becoming. I am having fresh haddock and salad for dinner with a glass of excellent Sauvignon Blanc and I really never eat in Nando’s (shudder)

Don’t

My parents don’t embarrass me when we eat out. They’re happy to eat anything but OMG my children! Despite my best efforts one teen only eats plain pasta, or fish and chips, another won’t touch anything which has a sauce including gravy. Makes eating Italian or Indian very difficult. They’re not vegan or vegetarian but really fussy about any meat except chicken. Nowadays if we want to eat somewhere nice, we leave the children at home and go out with parents. The children do like Harvester restaurants so for a family outing, that’s where we go.

Some of the OP's gripes about her parents could easily apply to me too.

I'm allergic to so much that every visit to anywhere to eat out is an absolute nightmare for me (never mind the staff or anyone eating with me)!

Everything has to be really bland, no spices, sauces, etc, practically no veggies allowed (peas and carrots only). Gravy can't be made with vegetable water.... and so it goes on.

This is embarrassing for ME but there's nothing I can do about it other than never eat anywhere but at home.

Any pub, restaurant etc that values its customers will have systems in place to help accommodate allergies, intolerances and preferences, sometimes having a specific member of staff assigned to ensuring that everything is done to give the customer as fuss-free an experience as possible.

At the end of the day if someone is allergic or intolerant to certain foods or even simply doesn't like something, they should not be made to feel any more awkward by their dining companions than they already feel because they have to go through all this rigmarole every time they try to eat out.

@Harmonypuss
If we were eating out together I'd tell you to choose wherever you felt best suited you, and then I'd fit in.
If you felt that eating out was too stressful, we'd do something else together instead.
I would have no wish at all to push my favourite foods/restaurants onto you, because its rude, makes for an uncomfortable meet up and certainly will not be remotely enjoyable and I want no part of doing that to others.

They're old and probably a bit bewildered by it all. Let them choose the place, but limit how often you are "free" to go to a meal with them. Someday, you're going to old, and one of two things will happen...either you wo'n't have children (or they will be far away) and would love to go out with someone and can't, OR you will be as big an embarrassment to them for one reason or another!

Cook for them instead and eat out with different people? It's not a treat if they don't enjoy going, is it?

@ISpyCobraKai

Thank you for that.

My son has always accommodated my issues by choosing restaurants/pubs we know are sympathetic to my dietary woes but has occasionally apologised to restaurant staff for my awkwardness, saying it's quite embarrassing for him, but most restaurant staff are really good and say that they would rather someone tell them exactly what they can and can't have whilst ordering their food than have lots of complaints when plates are put in front of diners or even severe medical reactions because of hidden ingredients.

He has learned to be more tolerant in the last few years and we laugh it off now, he sees this as a way to try to make me feel less awkward.

Sounds like you have a lactose intolerance like me. Very common.

Strong mature cheeses have little or no lactose .milk and yogurts have lots.
All the main supermarkets do lactose free milk and various other dairy products. Asda and Sainsburies do yogurt. Morrisons has cream.

OP, it sound like a kind of power play, rather than an enjoyable outing, for your parents as well as for you. a case of mismatched expectations.
hope some of the suggestions and comments on here can help you find an accommodation.

Personally i dint mind brewers fayres or tiby etc. You come across as really snobby WHY would you take your DF out to a 'posher' restaurant for his milestone birthday when you know he does not like it? Thats about what you, DB and SiL want, not thinking about your dad whose birthday it was.
Just go out to somewhere they like on these days, as pp say do the other restaurants when theyre not there - you know they dont like them so they will complain.

Maybe suss out a good chippy - straightforward fish and chips, and possibly mushy peas ?

You’re not going to change them. You should just take them down to the local chippy; problem solved.

My husband has quite recently decided he will not eat anything hot (as in heat), sweet or spicy.

I have a friend (male, early 40s) who is just like this. His mother, aside from various other delusions, instilled in him imagined intolerances to garlic, eggs, beans, and god knows what else and it has now got tot he point where unless it's to an English pub which does roast meat and two veg then he won't go. It's exhausting.

My own Dad creates a different problem. He lives in one of the cheapest places in Europe. In his home town is a restaurant where they do bread and olives, a barbecued platter of fish (whole sea bass, a whole sea bream, a whole red mullet and three or four sardines) plus boiled potatoes, half a litre of wine, and dessert for €10 per person. That's the town's expensive restaurant. So when he comes here he expects the same.

It genuinely does not compute that anywhere which serves food which hasn't arrived in a bag in the back of a 3663 lorry charges £15-25 for a main course, £8.95 for a sandwich, £25 for a bottle of wine and so on. So he will only eat at 'two for £10 when there's a full moon and the wind is in the east' chain places, and then complain about how crap it is, and how much he could have got back home for less money, etc etc etc. Equally exhausting.

@girlmom21

Take her to a vintage inns pub if there's one local. They're fab.

Your experience has been very different from mine! I've eaten at 3 different ones, each time as a guest of a family member, and every time it was dreadful. Awful food, dreadful service and at the last one we were issued with a parking ticket, despite entering our reg no on entry, and it took 3 months to sort out.

Said relative always ends up booking a bloody Vintage Inn because there aren't that many places that are happy to accept a party of 20 with an age range of 2-82. If it's another Vintage Inn this year, I'm not bloody going.

Thank god for my lovely father in law who loves all sorts- although he too likes meat well done and mushy veg. Am I allowed to saythough a lot of people as they get older have crap teeth and are more prone to a gippy tummy but dont like to admit it to others. I don’t eat steak for this reason Indian food upsets me and I’m not mega fond of salads.

@FortunesFave

I've no patience for snobbery and that's what this is.

I can't abide people judging others for having simple tastes. Leave them alone. If anyone's embarrassing it's you OP!

I have to agree with this. God forbid people have different likes and dislikes.

@Lighthouseblue

My husband has quite recently decided he will not eat anything hot (as in heat), sweet or spicy.

I suspect he knows his bowel tummy habits better than you

Honestly- just go with it! They'll be a long time dead! Mine are like this - not that I'm the most adventurous eater, but they wouldn't eat 'foreign ' food. I just look for a pub and check out the menu on-line to make sure there is at least one thing they can eat and off we go. I tell them I've checked and even if there's not a huge choice, there will be something for them.

Nice carvery roast where they can dish the veg and saving you the moaning? Or a cafe for coffee and cake?

Bloody nightmare dealing with people like that - we have allergies to accommodate but it is not as bad eating out as with your lot!

@LoveFall

We had British relatives (young) visiting. They were planning to go out for dinner with our kids (young adults). We were making restaurant suggestions, including a list of different types of asian food as we are very spoiled for choice in Vancouver.

Also suggestions of Mexican and numerous others.

We had a good laugh when they asked why not a Canadian food restaurant.

We couldn't think of one!

Their father is very picky and when he visits I have to worry about banned ingredients. British proper food all the way.

Dh was educated early in our relationship. His first question when I cooked him bolognase was whether there was garlic in it. Yes there was and he ate it. Smart man. 35 years later he eats pretty much anything.

I poutine near you?

I understand OP. My parents are similar, right down to the fictional lactose intolerance (ice cream fine). I wouldn’t mind so much if they were just a bit fussy but their eating habits really are vile.

Today 12:58 wofs

Honestly- just go with it! They'll be a long time dead!“

Well quite. After everything we’ve all
endured these past 18 months or so, just enjoy each other’s company whilst you can.

I’d love to sit with my parents, with or without food (of their choice). Haven’t seen them since December 2019 and they won’t see any of us until “Covid is over” because they’re frightened