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?

My late father ate a very limited diet; he had undiagnosed autistic traits. When dining out, my folks ate at places he liked and always ordered the same things. He managed to lose five pounds on a week in Paris. It’s easier to accept this, and dine out rarely with them at safe restaurants.

Are you not the fussy one OP? Let her choose and suffer the "embarrassment" 🙄

Hungry Horse or Greeneking? Slightly better choices for you but still plenty of traditional food for them

How often do you do this? Probably easier for them to be somewhere they are ok with than them moaning to you

I feel your pain though - I have a DM that will not eat peppers, mushrooms, garlic, tomato based sauces or anything spicy.
So no Italian, Chinese, Indian, Thai, French, Spanish...
Unless it's English with gravy we are very limited!

Presumably, it’s only periodically that you have to having a boring meal out?

My DH won’t eat actual dinner type meals in a restaurant, other than a tea/coffee with cake in a cafe in the middle of the day. Even for my birthday I had to compromise by having an afternoon tea, although I’d have liked to go for an Indian or Mexican meal.

If I want a nice meal out I have to find a willing friend but with Covid, I haven’t been able to go anywhere for some time now as friends prefer to go out in their own family group.

My last meal out with friends was to a pub Christmas dinner type meal in early December 2019.

I’ve given up. 🤷🏻‍♀️

At least they're not pretending to be foodies and then insisting on cremated meat/no seafood etc! We used to be friends with a purple like that who would name drop that they'd been to whatever Michelin star place, but we knew they only ate very plain nuked food.

I’d just take them to a carvery type pub for Sunday lunch. Or anywhere that does a standard, non tarted-up roast.

They can actually be perfectly nice.

Taking them to places you know they are unlikely to enjoy, is akin to trying to feed a fussy toddler whatever you know it doesn’t like, because it jolly well ought to like it.

My DH won’t eat actual dinner type meals in a restaurant

Why?

@armanted

The limited, simple diet that people ate during the second world war meant that the population was the healthiest it's ever been.

Just saying.

Surely the limited diet during wartime due to rationing would have stopped fussy eating as it was a case of you get what you're given and there isn't an option B because that's all we have on the ration card this week?

Just go to brewers fayre or wherever with them once a month and let them have pie and chips if they won't eat this or that why put yourself through the misery of elsewhere?

Part of the reason that the population was healthier was not just because things like sugar and butter were limited but because rationing meant that poorer families who may have struggled to put food on the table got a reasonable level of nutrition.

Take them anywhere for a carvery seeing as they're usually absolutely tasteless, they'll love it.

My partner's aunt (she's mid-70s) is just like this. A very nice woman, feeding her and the uncle here or eating out with them winds us right up - the more so because, despite mentioning her type 2 diabetes every time we do ("I can't eat, this, that or the other..."), she can cheerfully put herself outside a massive piece of cake or scone, etc if we just go for coffee.

She won't eat cheese of any kind, beef or lamb (but will eat pork), "spicy" (that means anything seasoned with anything apart from salt - and there must be lots of it - and pepper) fish except cod in batter - the list goes on and on.

We are enthusiastic, 'international' cooks and very rarely have what we'd term 'bland' food.

My mil is like that . We took out bil , sil and mil to a very nice restaurant , she had the meal , but then said afterwards , that was too much food , the vegetables had some kind of muck of them ( dressing ) that sauce with the meat was too salty / sweet / not proper gravy etc. She then chose a dessert that was £9.50 and ate less than 20% of it .
We paid for everyone . A few weeks later was talking to another relative who told me mil had told her When we went out all she had was soup and a roll !
Never again.

Weird how the OP should apparently just stop moaning, ‘suck it up’ and just eat where they want to eat because she wants to spend time with them, but the same rules/manners/expectation doesn’t apply to her parents…

I'm dreading seeing my parents tomorrow. They favour a local pub with a carpet that has absorbed the carvery and visiting dogs of at least a decade.
It smells, is gloomy but the plates are hot and the food is easy to chew.

"But when I go out to eat I like to eat proper, honest to god food."

What do you even mean by that?

Tbh to me it would roast beef, roast potatoes & yorkshire pudding, fish & chips, Hunter's chicken, lasagne-fairly basic stuff.

I don't live in UK so for me fish, chips & mushy peas is a treat-very few places get that wrong!

It does sound as if an independent pub would suit better than a chain though.

YABU Just take her where she likes. I don't understand the stress. If you want to spend time with them, go to places they like and save places you like for other friends and family. Life is too short to be embarrassed over silly things like this.

If you go to a nice restaurant won't they generally let you take all the interesting sauces etc off for the PiL while you order yourselves a nice treat? Nice restaurants will tweak. Surely eat the steak plain or whatever.

I don't think you are a snob at all, you just want to eat somewhere pleasant with decent food. I would just grin and bear it at whatever place they want to go to and them enjoy going to other places without them, or could you cook at home for them?

Ermmm just don't go for meals, maybe?

I have to admit I don't understand the modern obsession with going for meals. I'm in my 50s and it was never such a big thing when I was young.

If it were your birthday or you inviting them out I could see your point, but their occasions and them suggesting it, just suck up the chain crap. I love a nice meal out, I love trying new things but I still think you sound a bit snobby.

@thatsgotit

Ermmm just don't go for meals, maybe?

I have to admit I don't understand the modern obsession with going for meals. I'm in my 50s and it was never such a big thing when I was young.

So what do you do if you want to visit with family who live a few hours away but can't stay overnight?

It would drive me mad too OP. I'm not a snob, but i do value decent food and that doesn't necessarily mean expensive. Happy to sit at a formica table and eat really good chinese rather than something out a bag or just poorly cooked. It just seems such a waste of money and time to eat low quality stuff. Lots of people don't care, some just like a big portion regardless of the quality.

However, not everyone has the same values on what they eat, maybe they don't taste stuff well or just value the ambiance and the company more.

I'd rather go out less often if it was more expensive.

After many years of encouraging DSs to be bolder and more adventurous, DS2s steady girlfriend is quite restricted in what she eats, we try to get a happy medium with good quality food with plainer options as we also want to include her and have her enjoy her meal, but at the end of the day we'd put her being included above the food. WE've managed to have everyone happy so far.

I agree that a nice cafe and going for lunches if you can might be easier.

OP My son is a chef, he trained for 3 years and currently works for Marstons, he doesn't spend his day shoving meals into the microwave.