To expect pubs to serve a decent vegetarian meal?

[Allshallbewell2021]

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?

Absolutely this!

Cheese Colette and chips. Oh my, i miss my local greasy spoon treat.

Omelette (spell correct is weird)

My next username, thank you 😁

My sense reading this thread is that it's not a solid bet for a mainstream pub to offer a fair vegetarian, vegan, gluten free, allergy conscious menu.

It also seems clear that an enlightened chef/cook can at least try to meet some expectations.

But I don't think businesses can be honest and say "we cannot offer this as it is economically impossible" as they would be called out for discrimination.

What we have now is what they can afford to offer in order to try to meet expectations.

However all these responses prove that it's not good enough IMO.

You obviously don't live in Brighton OP

Sorry not read the whole thread

I don't think Brighton represents a national norm in this respect.

Just got given a menu where the veggie burger has vegan cheese and salad instead of chips (honestly this should be classed as a hate crime). The only other veggie option contains vegan cheese and gluten free bread. Wtf. I want real food!

I just had lunch in a local small hotel. 12.50 euros got me a bowl of spiced parsnip soup,a toasted cheese sandwich, warm brownie with ice cream and an Americano. I could have had a fancy open sandwich which included pear poached in red wine or a sri lankan curry. Chef is from sri lanka.
I could have had vegan cheese. Brownie was gluten free.
It is possible...

Chef is from sri lanka.

That says it all!

I'm not vegetarian but have visited India and Sri Lanka - we ate wonderful tasty food everywhere, much of it vegan and vegetarian. Cuisines that don't rely on/can't afford slabs of meat and fish have far superior vegetarian offerings.

I agree...Im not in the UK and have no colonial links but know two local hotels with Sri Lankan staff and interesting menus. Both list local suppliers too...including potato merchants.

Yes I am in Ireland!

My sister used to find this when she didn't eat meat. Really pissed her off

I’ve been veggie for the past 20 years and the offerings now are significantly better than they were back then. From the 2000’s to the mid 2010s when going out it was always, always a crap vegetarian pub lasagne - didn’t go out for food lots so became a competent cook which is an upside I suppose!

In my city there are restaurants which only do vegetarian/vegan food, but I’m lucky to live somewhere with a great food scene. To be honest, veggie or not there are loads of places in the UK you’d struggle to get a decent meal.

One thing that does rankle is vegetarian price gouging - I went to a Christmas meal one year where the cauliflower steak vegan option cost as much as the turkey dinner. Absolute piss take!

I like Sri Lankan food too.

There's a place in Bristol which we go to when I'm craving an egg hopper. No string hoppers yet on the menu but I live in hope.

IDK why pubs and restaurants can't make nice vegetarian and vegan meals as well as the meat or fish based meals. I'm no chef or vegetarian and I regularly make scrumptious plant based meals mostly based around pasta or rice, potatoes, tomatoes, onions, garlic, vegetables and seasoning. Not a hint of soya or fake meat.

Lack of demand usually. A pub will offer a small number of best selling dishes because they are limited on space and time. Much of the prep is done in advance.

If they can sell 20 steak & ale pies, but only 2 of a veggie or vegan option, then it makes commercial sense to keep veggie options to a minimum.

We ran a pub and usually had one hot and one cold veggie option, changed twice a week. Our ratio of meat/fish to veggie meals sold was 12:1.

Well we went out to eat recently. The only veggie option was - and I’m not kidding 3/4 of a small cabbage (so a cabbage cut into 1/4s), roasted with breadcrumbs and nuts (and a white sauce). £18. 18 bloody £.

As well as eating out, there are fewer vegetarian ready meals in the supermarkets for people like me who are terrible cooks! There used to be lasagne, cannelloni, cauliflower cheese (perhaps all the cauliflower is being used for "steaks"), now there's just macaroni cheese (often nice) or pasta bake (usually not).

I don't know if there are fewer, and maybe it's because my cooking has improved, but I certainly remember them being much nicer.
Cauliflower cheese is really not hard to find in supermarkets. A good one, maybe not so much.

Utter garbage. Restaurants and pubs cater to the majority, it’s straight forward. I think something like 5% of the UK is vegetarian, I’d say the average pub 15-30 mains (depending on type of pub obviously as Wetherspoons has a lot more than your gastro pubs) so you’d expect 1 or 2 vegetarians options, I’d say that’s pretty standard.

16% of people in the uk are meat free and many more are low meat

I'm not veggie - I only eat meat occasionally however so it does put me off eating out that you are disadvantaged if you don't go for the meat

Especially as I like to know the provenance of my meat

OH is veggie, I'll eat most things, so OH gets to pick where we eat most times.

It is still quite easy to find somewhere with 3 or 4 veggie options (or more if you look at Chinese/Indian/Thai cuisine) but the odd place has only 1 or 2 uninspiring choices.

And, of course, you don't need to be vegetarian to have a vegetarian meal

The problem is it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. I was looking at going to a village pub I’d heard good things about. Not a single vegetarian item on their menu. Not one. So I won’t go. So that pub is probably sat there saying there is no call for vegetarian food.

The OP is describing badly prepared food as well as lack of choice. If a pub/restaurant can cook meat dishes properly there is no reason why they can't at least properly prepare the food on their own menu.

Most pub food is pre packaged or frozen, including the meat dishes. Little if any actual cooking goes on.

Yes, important to avoid that.

I think one or two veggie dishes are sensible because although I am not a vegetarian, I often fancy veggie food. And changing every few days maximised what we sold. But it was still less than 10% of our food sales and when working in limited space, that means very few dishes.