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?

How can you ask for the meal without the egg if you don’t know that it comes with an egg? This makes no sense whatsoever!

So are people seriously suggesting that every time you order in a restaurant you must provide a list of stuff you don’t want dumped on top of your food just in case they decide to add random stuff? Like a tin of pineapple or a chocolate digestive?Does no one think a fried egg on top of tomatoe and basil pasta is just batshit?! Soon as OP said she’s vegan, she’s in the wrong. MN territory eh.

If you’re vegan you should KNOW. Just so as not to offend anyone eh? 🤔

Isn’t there egg in pasta too?

it should have been in the description but you also should have checked, as a PP said there is often actually egg IN pasta and it could easily have had butter, cream, cheese etc in the sauce. Both sides are somewhat in the wrong.

Vegan or no, if I order some pasta with a tomato basil sauce, I neither expect it nor want it to have a fried egg on top, that's just weird! It doesn't go.
But the manager is in the wrong as the above ie weird but all they needed to do was apologise and bring a fresh one without the egg, no need to be 'unhappy' with the customer over it.

The manager is out of order and probably breaching consumer protection laws concerning allergies etc.

I think you are both wrong-
Pasta is made with eggs- you shouldn’t be ordering pasta as a vegan unless you’ve clarified it’s not standard pasta.

Manager is wrong for misdescription of menu and also for not labelling correctly. (We’d all want to know if a dish comes with a whole egg)

inform environmental health. this is against all sorts of food regulations. i fecking egg on top of pasta!!

Both in the wrong, but the manager more so. The pub absolutely should indicate which meals are vegan, vegetarian etc or make it a part of the server's training to ask about dietary restrictions before taking orders.

But at the same time I certainly wouldn't trust or even expect a pub to list all the ingredients they used, for example they might have used something fairly minor like bacon seasoning to give it some heft, or fresh pasta which contains egg anyway, so I'd also have asked at the point I gave my order. I have been in restaurants before where they've picked out three or four of the key ingredients in a dish and listed them but it was fairly obvious (to me, anyway) that those were just the major ingredients and that it would have more besides that in there.

@Avatartar again (and I know I am going to get sick of typing this) standard pasta is not made of eggs. The only kind of pasta that has eggs in is the expensive fancy fresh stuff…a pub is hardly likely to sell the latter.

Seriosult why does everyone think pasta is made of eggs as standard? 😐 you keep pasta in the cupboard and it lasts for ages…why would something like that have eggs in?

I'm struggling to believe this even happened because who on earth puts a fried egg on top of pasta?!

I am not a vegan but if they put an egg on top of my pasta and tomato sauce i would send it back as that is my food combo from hell. They shouldn't put out food that is very different to that stated on the menu.

I hate it when they don't list all the ingredients on the menu.

Plus, how hard is it to put a V or VE on a menu? Surely that would save them a lot of questions. 🤷🏼‍♀️

I am vegan and I always check if something is vegan. I have had a vegan wrap come out with sour cream on the side and was told I should have told them if I were vegan even though the meal was labeled as vegan!

So ideally the vegan should have checked but who the hell puts an egg on tomato pasta!

Fucking hell. I thought I was being quite clear, but obviously not.

A previous poster claimed that they didn’t understand why the vegan didn’t just take the egg off their food and eat the rest of it. I tried to explain that a vegan would be likely to feel that the whole meal had been ‘contaminated’ (for want of a better word) by the egg in exactly the same way that a meat eater would feel if someone had just spooned out pigeon shit, or picked out a fingernail or a hair. It would turn their stomach in the same way that yours would be turned in the examples I used.

I’m not comparing eggs to inedible items ffs. I was trying to get someone to understand how sick a vegan would feel at the thought of any animal products touching their food. It wouldn’t have been understandable if I’d said bacon or strawberries because bacon or strawberries aren’t going to make your average meat eater feel that a meal is inedible, or make them understand that feeling of disgust that a vegan might feel.

When I was vegetarian then I'd always double check the ingredients if there was no 'v' symbol, and would suggest that anyone who has dietary requirements or allergies also does that. I would also not expect there to be an egg on top of an apparently vegetable dish, and the restaurant should definitely have made this clear!
In summary, the restaurant is probably in the wrong, but double checking would help avoid this issue too.

yes you could have mnetioned it but there wa sno need for themanager to be so rude and carry on about it as you aplogised

The pub is being very unreasonable for putting a fried egg on a pasta dish without any warning. WTF who does that?!

Yes, I am completely right in thinking your comparison of a fried egg to pigeon shit is ludicrous.

No I am not on a wind up, nor do I think I am remotely daft. I am still unconvinced that the dish could have been rendered so completely inedible to a vegan by slight contact with a fried egg. An egg that could be easily removed.

One poster came close to a credible explanation by suggesting the fat from the egg might drip down on to the food. I concede that point. But I had already said that I was assuming the egg was intact with an unbroken yolk and not oozing everywhere.

They are supposed to ask when you order. Manager at fault in my view as it is unreasonable to add ingredients not listed and its a reasonable assumption that all ingredients listed, but also they should have checked for food allergies etc as at that point it would be worthwhile saying I am a vegan. HOWEVER lesson to friend don't assume if it doesn't say ask

I thought the onus was on the restaurant to ask now, not the other way around. She should have been asked.

The pub but the vegan will be the reason people stop bothering to serve food and make their money elsewhere. The vegan should have asked if it was vegan friendly too.....if I see a member of wines and cocktails and want an alcohol free one I ALWAYS double check. Same for pig gello..... always ALWAY double check that the sweets are vegetarian. It's a mine field and one people will stop navigating.

No just ask "is this vegan friendly?" It's four words then pubs AND vegans can live happily ever after

I refer you to my post at 14:05. If you read that and still don’t understand the point I was making then I suggest we draw a line under it and both move on. The day is too nice to be getting frustrated with internet randoms over eggs.