Planning a trip to London and was looking at some restaurants near where I'll be staying. I'm vegan, my trip partner isn't, needed to look at some options that'll cater for both of us.
Found a Turkish restaurant that I thought looked fab-Turkish and Greek food is usually a safe bet. Nothing on the menu labelled vegan, but still this isn't always the case and I figured I couldn't go far wrong with stuffed vine leaves containing onion, herbs and rice, a hummus and bread starter, Imam Bayildi, Okra Stew, vegetable Stew-all of the last three are mains and all served with rice and none had any dairy or egg element to them.
I did however email them to ask to book a table, and I mentioned that I was vegan and had chosen them for this reason.
I had a very polite email back with a list of vegan options on it however of those three mains, I would have to have them with salad instead of rice as 'our rice contains dairy' and I couldn't have the bread with the hummus starter either-they didn't specify why, just said 'Hummus starter' (with carrot and cucumber instead of rice). The vine leaves weren't on the list either, I assume because of the rice/dairy issue.
One issue with this is WHY? Breads don't need to contain milk (unless sourdough/soda bread which this is not!) and WHY is there dairy in rice?Rice is literally a natural grain? How would dairy end up in it?
My other issue is, salad is NOT a substitute for rice. Rice is a carb. It adds sustenance to a meal, salad does not do that. Vegans aren't rabbits...
This is why I end up eating in chains a lot of the time, even though ethically I'd love to support local businesses more.
Not great for people with allergies or intolerances either-they could be forgiven for not checking if rice has dairy in it.
Went back to the drawing board and found an Italian restaurant that caters fully for vegans so that's that I guess. 