Who is in the wrong - vegan or manager?

[iloverobbrydon]

A group of friends go into a pub that do food. One of them is vegan. She looks at the menu and sees that there are no V or VE signs on the menu at all. Even for items that clearly veggie and vegan, the pub don't use the signs. However, they do list the ingredients and a description of the meal under the meal title.

There are 2 or 3 vegan options. One of them is a pasta where the ingredients are listed as pasta, tomato, basil etc. And have a little description of the taste. No animal products listed at all so the vegan orders this.

The meal comes out and it has a fried egg on top of it. The egg was not listed in the ingredients so she sent it back explaining why.

The manager who took the order is not happy because she never actually said she was vegan and they arent mind readers. They come out and say if you can't eat certain foods then you need to tell the staff to make sure that those things are actually 100% ok for you to eat.

It does escalate into a bit of an argument because the vegan is saying well if you list your ingredients then how am I to know that you only list some ingredients and not others? Where on your menu does it say how your menu works and that you won't list everything? That's just confusing. Either list everything or nothing. The manager is saying if you need a meal to not have an ingredient you need to tell us.

You can probably work out which one I am but I didn't want to write it one sided, just wanted to explain the situation and ask who you think is in the wrong here?

If you’re not used to eating egg anymore, having the fat from the egg dripping on your food might be off putting.

If there’s going to be a fried egg on a pasta dish it needs to be called out.

Agreed. The restaurant need to describe their dishes clearly. I am not a vegan and I don't have allergies but I can't imagine anything weirder than pasta with an (unexpected) egg on top. Utterly bizarre and not what anyone would expect when ordering pasta

Venue/manager is wrong.. dont list trivia like a basil leaf, and forget to mention a bloody great egg.

Im not vegan and I wouldnt eant this surprise on my pasta either.

I dont think you should have to tell them all the things you dont eat if the menu gives what appears to be the ingredients so you can avoid them yourself

Vegan could always flip the egg off and eat the meal ... Or maybe vegan would prefer the drama and attention ?

Manager could also ask vegan to leave the premises and insist it never returns as Manager of licensed premises doesn't need to justify such actions.

The vegan is wrong. You can't assume a menu will list everything and tbh if they're vegan then unless they ask, they don't know about the risk of cross-contamination. There are pastas that contain milk or cheese but that don't always list that on the menu.

I'm not a vegan but I don't like eggs so if I'd ordered that meal I'd have sent it back.

It is and it isn’t. A non-vegan would have had no other reason to enquire about the ingredients as stated.

A vegan should have known that the dish could possibly be made with meat and dairy and should have enquired. This would have flushed out the addition of the random egg topping.

So the meat-eater who does not like egg/does not like the idea of an egg in this dish has more right to be annoyed than the vegan.

Obviously the manager. If you’ve listed ingredients and added blurb about the dish, you can’t then plonk some random additional item onto the plate. Especially not a significant item like a fried egg!

There are many people allergic to eggs or dislike them, especially fried eggs.

It was a component of the dish. I would fully expect the description to say
"topped with a fried egg".

Yeah, you’re completely right. Silly me. 🙄

I gave you the benefit of the doubt and chose to believe that you were asking in good faith and were just a little bit daft. Now I can see you’re just on a wind up.

Manager is in the wrong, especially in this case, as eggs as known allergens.

A food establishment need to state to ask for ingredients list or it needs to have everything listed.
Your friend could of checked but if there's no warnings legally they are in the wrong too

I'm not a vegan I would send this back who the fuck puts fried egg on tomato pasta 🤢

Why didn't you say "I'll have the pasta please, is it vegan?".

What if the tomato had been roasted in butter first, it wouldn't then be vegan.

Bit odd imo to not mention vegan when the menu was presented how it was

Food establishments are NOT required to state allergens on the menu. Parliament debated this exact issue a few weeks ago. Campaigners are pushing for “Owen’s Law” which would make it a legal requirement for all allergens to be labelled on the menu. But currently this is not the case.

This

Shocking manager and crap set up all round by the sounds of it.
Putting a partial list of ingredients is a cock up for starters.

Fucking hell. Do you understand why people become vegan? Do you think it’s just a taste thing?

I am gluten-free for medical reasons. I tell the staff, every time. It's not worth a gamble.

You, the diner, have to take responsibility for informing the staff that you have an allergy or are veg(etari)an. You need to start that conversation with the waitstaff. Even if there are icons on the menu, I still tell the staff because often the chef will make an extra effort cleaning the worktop if (s)he's aware of an allergy.

OP described it as "a pub that served food."

The number of people expecting fresh pasta (made with eggs) from a bog standard pub is hilarious.
It's not the Fat Duck at Bray.
Pubs serve regular dried durum wheat pasta (unless they make a fuss about their freshly made pasta.) It's far cheaper and lasts longer.

Manager was wrong to be an arse about it, OP was wrong not to check as there could easily have been be parmesan (non-veggie) or butter (non-vegan) used in a tomato pasta meal.

To be honest I also fussy eaters, unless they have a genuine allergy, intensely irritating. But the menu does need to state what the food is, so the restaurant is in the wrong.

Both are in the wrong. The pub should add V or VE signs to their dishes to make it clear for customers which dishes are vegan and which are vegetarian. Just listing ingredients hasn't worked due to the ommitance of the egg. So to save the pub more hassle in the future I'd start adding labels to the menu.

In this instance however, due to the fact that the menu was unclear, if I were the vegan I would have asked the server the question. You say the menu said pasta, tomatoes etc but as far as I am aware standard pasta dough recipes contain egg anyway ,so unless it said egg free pasta then I don't think the vegan friend could have been 100% confident the choice was vegan friendly. If dietary requirements must be adhered to then I would always ask just in case the kitchen has made an oversight.

Who puts eggs on tomato pasta. Manager in wrong here

But what is the point of listing half the ingredients ? Whilst not listing one that is a common allergen?

And who adds an egg to that dish?

And you’re perfectly entitled to think that, just as I think you’re embarrassing yourself by demonstrating both a complete lack of empathy and basic comprehension skills.

I was trying to get it through to the other poster how a vegan might feel about finding an unexpected animal product in their food. You might view an egg as a perfectly acceptable food item that you would eat or not eat as the fancy took you, but a vegan may feel that an egg on their food is comparable to my example, with both egg and bird faeces equally as unacceptable. Taking the egg off their food would be the same as someone taking an unacceptable item off your plate. It has still been on your food. The thought of eating it would still be repulsive. There doesn’t have to be any ‘childish eew’ reaction. But they aren’t wrong because they would find it inedible.

Did that help make it clearer?

Who the hell would imagine there's going to be an egg on top of a plate of tomato and basil pasta. Bizarre!!!!