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Original poster

To expect pubs to serve a decent vegetarian meal?

350 replies

Allshallbewell2021 · 15/12/2023 01:21

Three pub meals over the past three months have been dire or inedible. One risotto (rice not cooked) one bean/taco meal (clearly from a tin really grim), one Xmas dinner butternut squash thing (clearly from the freezer, slimy and disgusting).
And not cheap either.
Tonight I had chips, peas and battered halloumi (too much straight cheese for anyone) but quite nice.

Is a good vegetarian pub option not economically viable?

OP posts:
catscalledbeanz · 15/12/2023 01:33

Sadly I think vegetarians are done dirty by vegans and allergy. They shouldn't be. It's genuinely not hard to accommodate the three. BUT restaurants club them together and fail all three. Mark of a bad restaurant if you ask me (who will inevitably order a steak so rare a good vet could get it going again) I love meat, eat meat and yet before I go anywhere I check that the vegetarian menu is great . Meat is easy to offer great, it's meat. You've got to be good to offer veg great .

sashh · 15/12/2023 01:53

I think most pubs sell frozen food OP.

I know this will sound counterintuitive but have you tried a carvery?

My local one has two different veggi pies and obviously there is a range of veg to choose from.

Usually there is cauliflower cheese as one of the veggies

Mirrormeback · 15/12/2023 02:56

You choose the Pub / restaurant that serves the food you want

It's a bit urm entitled to expect the pub / restaurant you choose to go to to serve the food you want

You're the one choosing so just go somewhere else

They can cook and serve whatever they want it's their establishment

Mcemmabell · 15/12/2023 03:35

I'm a vegetarian and I agree. There was more choice too before veganism became more popular. Now you can't even find a decent macaroni cheese anywhere. I'm not fussy either. If there's one option, I'll eat it. I just want it to taste nice.

I'm sure you know this already, but Chinese, Indian and Italian are usually better bets than pub food.

I'm getting flashbacks to a wedding I went to 2.5 years ago now. The vegetarian option was also the vegan and gluten free option. I was 36 weeks pregnant, starving, and I got about a cup of plain boiled rice, some boiled bit of courgette and pepper, and a small tureen of sweet chill sauce. DH and I stopped for a takeaway pizza on the way home.

WandaWonder · 15/12/2023 03:55

Mirrormeback · 15/12/2023 02:56

You choose the Pub / restaurant that serves the food you want

It's a bit urm entitled to expect the pub / restaurant you choose to go to to serve the food you want

You're the one choosing so just go somewhere else

They can cook and serve whatever they want it's their establishment

All this

CatMadam · 15/12/2023 04:07

I had no trouble eating out as a vegetarian- now I’m vegan it’s another story! I think a lot of pubs take in frozen ready meals now, from Brakes or similar companies, and food quality when dining out in pubs in general has gone downhill.

Ilovegoldies · 15/12/2023 04:09

You don't always choose the pub though do you? Sometimes friends or family choose. Was that so difficult to consider? I agree. Vegetarian food has really suffered since the increase in vegan ism. Its shite.

SparklingSparkle · 15/12/2023 04:09

Mirrormeback · 15/12/2023 02:56

You choose the Pub / restaurant that serves the food you want

It's a bit urm entitled to expect the pub / restaurant you choose to go to to serve the food you want

You're the one choosing so just go somewhere else

They can cook and serve whatever they want it's their establishment

I love the idea that you're 'entitled' if you want to pay for a decent meal. Get you you big entitled princess wanting to spend money in a pub (a lot of which are struggling) on something edible. You'll pay £1000 to lick the underside of the table and be happy about it!!!

I've experienced this - I love butternut squash but pubs manage to destroy it. That or cauliflower steak for £14!!!! It's a slice of cauliflower and worth 78p at a push. Vegan pretend meat is also grim. I love Indian restaurants for good vegetarian food. Last time I went to a pub I just had sweet potato fries!

BeadedBubbles · 15/12/2023 04:09

You choose the Pub / restaurant that serves the food you want

But the whole point is that it's very difficult to find places that serve decent vegetarian food. It's not like op is deliberately choosing to go to places that serve crap food and ignoring decent alternatives!

CaraMiaMonCher · 15/12/2023 04:34

DP is vegan, I’m veggie.

We went out for a family meal a few weeks ago and the vegan starter was Nachos with Chilli, the vegan main was Chilli with rice and some Tortilla chips on the side. I was both excited and curious to learn how they’d fashioned Chilli into a dessert option too…

cerisepanther73 · 15/12/2023 05:33

@Mirrormeback
I disagree with your comments sentiments

I think you are as meat 🍖 loving individual is the entiled one,
thinking cause your lifestyle dietary choice should dominate what resturants and pubs should cater too in that high on haughty horse type of arrogant manner,
that your post reeks of so much,

it's not entitled as a vegan and a vegetarian to assume especially nowadays in which these lifestyle choices based on ethical values ect have become so popular and mainstream
not like many moons years ago when these lifestyle choices back in the 70s and 80s were seen as quite radical lifestyle weirdo choices,

Pubs and restaurants need to step up to game be more switched on and reflective of the times we are currently living in,
local produce, environmentally issues ect,

It also makes economically sense too, as its become quite popular lifestyle choice nowadays too,
like allmost fashionable ,

Resturants and pubs need to cater for both more too reflective of society,
not just treat vegetarians and Vegans like its some kind a high end niche fetishism of cuisine genre,
it's just unacceptable these days,
and also resturants and pubs need to step up the game on,
providing non alchol and low alchol ranges of beverages drinks for people who want to enjoy themselves and not three sheets to wind pissed throwing up their own puke in gutters of streets on a night out too..

cerisepanther73 · 15/12/2023 05:45

@Allshallbewell2021 @Mirrormeback

I just 🤔 just think resturants and pubs have become experts of Lazy Complacent cooking in that it's just easier more convient to carry on doing the same thing as what's expected ,
instead of being experimenting and adventeous with being creative with dishes,

they think it's economically safer to just churn out same kinds of clones types dishes menus within godness knows how long radious of Miles up and down in UK here

GreyCarpet · 15/12/2023 05:50

It definitely depends on what sort of pub you go to.

Most pub food isn't cooked from scratch and is reheated and so a bit naff.

But some of the pubs by me are decent and the food, including the vegetarian options, is ok. In some of them, I choose the cegetarian option because I prefer it.

The best vegetarian food I ever ate was at a small fish restaurant in Italy that I visited with some Italian friends at the time (10 years ago). I was vegetarian for 20 years and they'd phoned in advance to tell them and apparently the chef had been quite excited by the challenge - they didn't offer any vegetarian options. He came out afterwards to check it had been OK. It was actually amazing!

Grapefruitsquash · 15/12/2023 05:50

I hate there's very few veggie choices now in favour of vegan. Why can't there be both? I asked for normal (not vegan) cheese on a veggie burger recently. The waitress said they couldn't do that because then it wouldn't be vegan. I explained I'm vegetarian not vegan and want proper cheese. But no, not allowed as it's a vegan dish. Ridiculous.

WandaWonder · 15/12/2023 05:50

cerisepanther73 · 15/12/2023 05:33

@Mirrormeback
I disagree with your comments sentiments

I think you are as meat 🍖 loving individual is the entiled one,
thinking cause your lifestyle dietary choice should dominate what resturants and pubs should cater too in that high on haughty horse type of arrogant manner,
that your post reeks of so much,

it's not entitled as a vegan and a vegetarian to assume especially nowadays in which these lifestyle choices based on ethical values ect have become so popular and mainstream
not like many moons years ago when these lifestyle choices back in the 70s and 80s were seen as quite radical lifestyle weirdo choices,

Pubs and restaurants need to step up to game be more switched on and reflective of the times we are currently living in,
local produce, environmentally issues ect,

It also makes economically sense too, as its become quite popular lifestyle choice nowadays too,
like allmost fashionable ,

Resturants and pubs need to cater for both more too reflective of society,
not just treat vegetarians and Vegans like its some kind a high end niche fetishism of cuisine genre,
it's just unacceptable these days,
and also resturants and pubs need to step up the game on,
providing non alchol and low alchol ranges of beverages drinks for people who want to enjoy themselves and not three sheets to wind pissed throwing up their own puke in gutters of streets on a night out too..

I would presume pubs know what works for them with what they serve and at what price point, my if vegetarians wants to protest they can stop going to the pubs that serve what they call bad food then I presume the business would lose trade and make a change, if there were enough protestors to make a differnce to them

No I have not sat down and done the figures but I have heard some business say it costs more to produce vegan / vegetarian food if this is actually true then publcans are not running a charity they would charge more, how many would be willing to pay more?

Some people may have examples of great pubs they go that serve all sorts so they would exisit

GreyhpundGirl · 15/12/2023 06:04

Allshallbewell2021 · 15/12/2023 01:21

Three pub meals over the past three months have been dire or inedible. One risotto (rice not cooked) one bean/taco meal (clearly from a tin really grim), one Xmas dinner butternut squash thing (clearly from the freezer, slimy and disgusting).
And not cheap either.
Tonight I had chips, peas and battered halloumi (too much straight cheese for anyone) but quite nice.

Is a good vegetarian pub option not economically viable?

I think you need to go to better pubs! I've been veggie for nearly 40 years and what I get now in the places I eat in is 10 million times better than when I was a kid. Frozen vegetable lasagne was pretty much the only option in the 80s and 90s. I like that I have choices now, even chain pubs have decent offerings that are tasty too.

HoneyButterPopcorn · 15/12/2023 06:09

catscalledbeanz · 15/12/2023 01:33

Sadly I think vegetarians are done dirty by vegans and allergy. They shouldn't be. It's genuinely not hard to accommodate the three. BUT restaurants club them together and fail all three. Mark of a bad restaurant if you ask me (who will inevitably order a steak so rare a good vet could get it going again) I love meat, eat meat and yet before I go anywhere I check that the vegetarian menu is great . Meat is easy to offer great, it's meat. You've got to be good to offer veg great .

I agree. I’ve been veggie since mid 80s and it’s getting worse for veggies to eat out.

Fewer choices - often just one option of a weird afterthought that seems to try to cover veggie/vegan/halal/etc.

seenisambol · 15/12/2023 06:33

I've been vegetarian since the early 90s and totally agree that veggie food has gotten worse over the last 5 years. There was a time when veggie burgers were made of real, whole ingredients (like beans or mushrooms!) with proper cheese on. Now you just get a mouthful of defrosted, ultra-processed crap. And while we're here- why is it that every pizza restaurant makes the vegetarian pizza a white pizza? Is it that much to ask to get a pizza with some tomato sauce on it?!

KimberleyClark · 15/12/2023 06:45

YANBU. I’m not a strict vegetarian but generally prefer a vegetarian option when eating out. And yes too many places like pubs/hotels try to kill two or three birds with one stone. Vegan food can be wonderful but only if the chef has a real passion for it. All too often it is shit. And yes Italian/Indian/Chinese do it better. I also don’t mind a carvery, I prefer the trimmings - roasties,stuffing, cauliflower cheese,Yorkshire pudding - to the meat.

jemenfous37 · 15/12/2023 06:50

Most of the pub chains have 'chefs' who merely boil in the bag.
Aside from that, I blame, as others do, veganism. Vegetarians do not necessarily want non-fucking-dairy cheese, we want cheese (without rennet, obvs). We don't want made up names that sounds like meat (facon for example), nor do we want stuff that is shaped like a bit of meat or fish, nor shit that's filled with chemicals to smell like meat and fish.
Processing such crap is not eco friendly at all -even less so than cow farts.

I long for the days when being a vegetarian meant nut loaf, southern indian food, lentils and pulses. Now we get no choice but to pay £18 for a slice of burnt cauliflower cooked in non-butter butter

Perhapsanorhertimewouldbebetter · 15/12/2023 06:54

A lot of pub food really is just reheated, and so doesn't taste that great tbh. I'd suggest going to an actual restaurant/bistro/posher cafe if you want proper well made food (vegetarian or not).

TheOnlyLivingBoyInNewCross · 15/12/2023 06:55

Veganism has made veggie food awful when eating out. Everywhere cuts out the veggie option and just offers a one size fits all vegan dish. I miss proper veggie dishes that weren’t afraid to use eggs, milk and cheese!

Zebedee55 · 15/12/2023 06:59

Many pubs and restaurants say the vegan and vegetarian food is getting less popular, so I guess they cater to the majority.

ACynicalDad · 15/12/2023 07:02

I feel worse for those with allergies than vegetarians and vegans.

Twitch45 · 15/12/2023 07:03

As a vegetarian, my heart sinks when someone suggests a pub meal. I'd always much rather go to a cafe/burrito bar/Indian restaurant. The last pub meal I had was garlic mushrooms on toast - should be fairly straightforward- but I don't think the chef has washed the mushrooms as the meal had an odd sandy/gritty texture. My SIL said hers was the same. Yuck.