Vegan inviting themselves to join a dinner resulting in everyone having a crap dinner

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I was away with work meeting several international colleagues.

3 of us were staying in the same direction & decided we'd head back together & get some dinner on the way. The quiet girl, let's call her Mary, heard us & said she was staying in the same general direction & would leave with us. We had no problem with this & so once we were finished up that drink we left the general group & checked if she was ready etc

We get off the metro at a busy area close to where our hotels are & there are loads of lovely bistros etc, all busy so one of the group suggestes we try one that looks v nice & has loads of people dining etc. We go over to take a look at the menu (though if it had been just me & the person who suggested it I'd say we'd have just gone straight in! It was getting late & we'd been slightly concerned we wouldn't even find dinner at that stage. So this place looked perfect.

Anyway Maria is hesitating by the menu & then she pipes up that she's vegan....

She tries asking the waiter if they have anything but he doesn't understand & do we're all standing about dithering & she had NO suggestions of what she'd like to do..we start walking around the square looking at all the menus....its now 10.15pm...I can feel our chances of finding some nice food fading...

She spends AGES reading every menu to reject them all. Eventually she stops in front of a cheap Lebanese place & says 'oh falafel I love them...' so we found ourselves eating a really crap dinner. Essentially it was like a takeaway place with plastic cutlery.

The colleague who suggested the Bistro is perhaps late 60s & has a condition that gives her a tremor & she wanted to sit inside as it was getting chilly outside

Maria the vegan said oh shall we sit outside? It's nicer..more dithering for the group of 4 if us as we don't know each other & everyone was trying to be polite

I was getting to the end of my patience then so went to the bathroom & said I'd find them

Came out...they were outside...poor other colleague was wrapping a scarf around herself. We were surrounded by people smoking those glass pipe things (I forget the name)

The food was v basic. I ordered a vegetarian plate (it looked like that might be the best option ). It consisted of cubed potatoes, rice, a small spoon of veg moussaka & bread - cards on carbs!

I ate it without fuss & also worked hard to keep the small talk inclusive etc . I asked Maria how she normally copes with the vegan diet when travelling & she said she usually gets supermarket food. So from that point of view I was glad she did stay out.

But bloody hell there was a really selfish part of me thar was looking longingly across the square at the lovely bistro & wishing for a lovely glass of red wine & steak et frites...it had been tantalisingly close. I also wanted to chat to the older colleague about a part of work / project we're both involved in but it would have left Maria out of the loop.

And to top it all...I we spent so long faffing about finding vegan food by the time I got back to my hotel the bar had closed so I never even got thar glass of wine!

I REALLY wanted to say to Maria & the 4th colleague who didn't seem at all bothered by any of it - you go for the vegan stuff. Me & other colleague want go in here & eat meat / fish. But somehow that just didn't seem possible.

I woke up today feeling like a horrible person even though i did not let Maria know I was irritated....

Lol at ppl being more understanding if it's allergies. I'm coeliac and I've had the work colleagues going off and sorting themselves out because they really fancy the delicious bistro.

I'm not sure this woman did anything wrong if everyone went along quietly with it, she was probably pleased she wasn't going back to eating a random selection of supermarket items alone in a hotel room.

It wasn't baltic, we were in Europe! But it was 10.30pm & we def needed our coats & i was then conscious of other colleague who seemed cold.

Hard to imagine any restaurant that won't serve a plate of rice and vegetables;
waiters who don't recognise those words (or a place of that kind that doesn't offer picture menus)or any vegan who hasn't long since adopted that as a fail-safe when dining out with omnivores.

Mary sounds incredibly ill mannered and insensitive.

She probably 'piped up' that she was vegan at the point she realised there was nothing on the menu she could eat. Believe it or not, many of us don't shout it from the roof tops ( gets boring being lectured about nutrional deficiency and cave men's teeth) and just take a punt there'll be something. On the odd occasion there really isn't, so then you have to explain or people will start quizzing you as to why you've ordered plain rice chips and dry bread.
There was nothing to stop you saying you were going there anyway if it mattered to you. While it's obviously preferable to have a proper dinner, most vegans accept that at times there won't be one and are generally philosophical about that. Whatever impression the militant minority give to the contrary.

I’m coeliac and honestly don’t mind just fitting in as much as possible- I’d be happy with just a drink if necessary- but folk then get fussed if you’re not eating and it’s all awkward, though I won’t ‘risk’ it any more as I have done before to keep everything smooth. It is awkward dragging folk around checking menus out too though 🤦🏻‍♀️
Colleague things like this can be difficult anyway without the accommodation of additional food requirements - I’d be fed up too not getting hoped for food - I often am 🤣- but I do it quietly inside like you did. It’s lovely everyone was included though probably no one fully enjoyed it - I have no answer as just saying I’m going here is awkward I think - but hopefully another time you will get meat and wine. You did a lovely thing though.

I hate this kind of group situations, you can never please everyone.

@UnaLaguna that's actually how I felt about it too. I was glad she wasn't on her own eating supermarket food but I also wished I could have had what i wanted too.
And people are right..it wasn't the end of the world just a vaguely dissatisfying dinner

Urgh this has happened to me before as well, having to go to a crappy place to please a vegan. When so much amazing food was on offer in a cool city.
the most annoying thing was they turned down a lovely place because they could only have one thing on the menu. so we went to another restaurant with a huge (but lower quality) menu and they ordered the same bloody thing they could have had in the bistro!
I feel your pain.

Voted for YABU based on you not sticking up for yourselves, should have said ‘no I need to eat inside, you can stay here if you like?’

It’s just weird though, it was a meal
of convenience with random coworkers you barely know due to travel. It was never going to be a stellar night.
Just let it go.
You were hardly railroaded because you didn’t get your own way. It was one dinner.

As a long term veggie I've had my share of crap meals when out with a group of meat eaters.

However I am in the minority and wouldn't expect everyone to pander to me. No way would I have been sat outside though. That would be a compromise too far.

Who was it that said “no good deed ever goes unpunished”? I think it was good of you to try to include her: you sound nice.

She clearly struggles socially in that she didn’t pick up on cues that she was out the three of you out.

i don’t think there was an easy way, really, if she was so timid. Perhaps just put it down to experimence. Hopefully she had a pleasant time and has gained a bit of confidence, socially, from the encounter. Shame nobody else did.

I hope your older colleague didn’t catch pneumonia. (I know you can’t catch it but you get my drift.)

I think potentially due to the language barrier she was nervous to trust the bistro could guarantee that she could order something vegan

I'd have been in the Bistro. Indoors. Mary could come, or not.

I mean honestly, did she not know that we protest less meat than the rest of Europe 🙄?

I can imagine the waiting staff thinking “OH FFS!”

What I would have done is either put the choice and comfort of the many first and pick somewhere nice ( hopefully Maria would have come as well) and ate indoors and got back in time for wine or I would have put Maria’s wants first and gone to the place she picked and chalked the experience up to a less than optimal night out and not complained about it on Mumsnet.

You’re not being unreasonable because only because she sounds annoying, not because she’s vegan.

I am vegetarian and if someone else wants to go somewhere specific to eat, I just go there and find something on the menu that will do. Or I don’t go. I am only picky when i’m the one suggesting the place! (In advance!)

So don’t hate on vegans, hate on Mary.

You're a grown up and you should have said it doesn't work for you and just headed into the first restaurant. End of dilemma.

*probably, not protest.

On phone hence stacks of typos

I've voted yabu as I can't believe you let one person dictate your evening.
And you feel guilty ?

Urgh my first line makes no sense! Delete a “because”!

Oh god typo again! Never mind!

People who don't know each other wandering round looking for a restaurant in never going to result in everyone happy. You couldn't have done anything about that in this case but it's always easier to say "Some of us are going to eat at X, if you want to join? ". Chalk it up to experience and don't invite her next time.

I'm vegan but this sounds miserable as does night time falafels in the freezing cold. I think the nice thing to do would have been to try another option than the bistro then draw a line. You could have all helped her communicate what she needed. Anyway you were all very kind although maybe not to the freezing lady and its done now. No use worrying after. It sounds like maybe she was a bit overwhelmed trying to find something and relieved to find falafel rather a deliberately being a CF.

I don't think I've done anything wrong posting this on mumsnet 😂