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?

Veganism has been the death of decent veggie food.

I am sick of only being offered the choice of fake meat vegan burgers. We rarely eat out nowadays as I am tired of paying a lot of money for poor quality fake food.

Why have meat dishes then? Why not make the entire menu plant based and gluten free? Everyone can eat it then.

I agree with the OP, there's usually only one 'option' which is now a badly thought- out vegan dish, often with no protein. I'll happily eat vegan if it's good, tasty and not overprocessed shit.

But you don’t. If your vegan food is fake meat or contains fake cheese, there is nothing for me.

I don’t mind eating vegan food at all. If it’s a decent option. But you can stick the Moving Mountains burger up your arse.

If I’m looking for a meal out I will always look at the menu in advance. If there is no decent vegetarian food on the menu I simply don’t go.

There is a spa near me that I go to occasionally which has a vegan focused restaurant. Most of the menu is really good vegan or vegetarian food with two meat dishes. On the reviews there are lots of meat eaters complaining that they don’t like only having one choice…..

Well cooked imaginative vegan food is great. But all to often the options are fake meat topped with fake cheese.

Depends? If it's a chain then no. Independent pub serving home made food then yes

I don’t mind eating vegan food at all. If it’s a decent option.

I also agree with this. The problem is that good vegan food is way beyond the capability/imagination of most non-vegan restaurants. I've been vegan on and off for a few years and my house is full of vegan cookbooks. Even in those cookbooks you're often just given a veggie dish with the dairy removed (like risotto without the butter or parmesan or tex-mex without the cheese or sour cream). It's easy for a mediocre chef to make something taste nice by sticking butter/cheese/cream in it, it's much harder to make vegan taste really good.

An ethical vegetarian is an oxymoron.

I’m a totally unethical vegetarian - I’m vegetarian because I don’t like the taste or texture of meat. I have been since I was 12 and I'm now 45.

I also don’t like eating heavily processed fake food. And I love eating dairy. I do often eat vegan at home - my staple meals are lentil and chickpea curries which I make from scratch - and I love a good beanburger. Since veganism exploded (I’m a bit meh about it and suspect it’s a fad, and many more people are performatively vegan when they eat out than actually stick to it full time) there are far fewer options available to me in eating out.

I hope this meets previous posters’ requirements for consistency?

As is often pointed out on these threads, ALL agriculture results in the deaths of animals, from insects to deer.

Friends of mine farm, arable only, and in a normal year about 1,000 pigeons are shot over the crop. Otherwise they would eat it, and make a significant dent in the harvest. Similarly with deer and rabbits - if you've ever seen a young crop after the rabbits have been at it, you would understand.

You can argue that eating grass-fed beef results in fewer animals dying, as the soil isn't ploughed so multitudes of earthworms aren't chopped up, and far fewer (often no) chemicals are used on pasture so far fewer insects die.

I know vegans say that it's the deliberate deaths that they are trying to avoid, but it's worth considering the fall-out from growing crops.

I think some chains think, "pub food" and then afterwards try to make the same food veggie or vegan.

So if they offer cheese on toast they substitute vegan cheese on toast where they could make sure the cheese was rennet free and offer something like avocado or baked beans instead.

I am always so disappointed to find my vegetarian favourites being replaced with vegan alternatives. I like real cheese, eggs and honey. I don't want to have to pay extra for real cheese when a dish used to be served with real cheese!

I’m vegetarian.

recently I ate in a supposedly wonderful,
top rated restaurant in Edinburgh. I couldn’t opt to eat somewhere else as I was part of a large party who were raving about it.

starter was vegan - mushrooms on toast - so it was lacking the depth of flavour from the mushrooms being cooked in oil rather than butter, but it was okay.

main options - vegan mushroom risotto (made with coconut cream substitute) or mushroom and lentil cottage pie.

bloody good job I like mushrooms but a lot
of people don’t. I emailed twice in advance and also messaged on social media and asked are there vegetarian specials on the day, or something other than vegan options, they didn’t even reply.

it’s just lacking in thought and box ticking.

Why do you assume that vegans all want ultra processed fake meat? Many of us are sick to the back teeth of it too.

Harsh, but not completely inaccurate. Refraining from meat is at least better than nothing (though from an eco perspective, cheese is far worse than chicken), but claiming to be taking the most ethical option whilst still consuming dairy and any eggs that aren't backyard ones (look at how most "free range" hens are actually treated) is an anachronistic nonsense.

Oh, honestly. We've heard all these arguments before, often hundreds of times. They all completely ignore the fact that animals require far more crops to be fed to them than we do if we eat the crops directly. Grass fed beef farming also takes up so much land that we simply wouldn't have room on the planet were we all to eat it.

I don’t blame the actual vegans. I blame the chefs who don’t know how to cook without meat and can’t be bothered to make something good. They just order in a moving mountains burger and call it a day.

Actually well cooked properly thought out vegan food can be lovely. It was interesting on Masterchef the Professionals when they asked them to cook a vegan dish that they seemed to use a lot of fake cheese. It’s simply not in the skill set of a lot of chefs to cook without meat or animal products.

We have a lovely cafe near us where the chef is very skilled. In the past he has worked in Michelin stared restaurants and the like. However he found it too stressful so just runs this small cafe. He does amazing vegan and vegetarian food. His thinking is that being vegan or vegetarian is a lifestyle choice made by people with a bit of money. Therefore if you get a reputation as somewhere that caters for them then they will come and bring their friends.

You are asking the wrong person. It isn't the PP making this assumption its all the pub/restaurants making that assumption on behalf of vegan/veggie customers.

They know perfectly well that we are still a minority and will have to suck it up and pay over the odds for poor quality, afterthought food because we are part of a group.

Takes me back to when I was offered a "salad sandwich" because I wouldn't eat their Vegetarian option of Fish & Chips. Small village pub about 20 years ago. I think they thought i was a different species. Hope they've improved since 😂

Yes, it's frustrating that a lot of chefs appear as though they're new to cooking when it comes to catering for vegans (and even vegetarians). Worldwide there are so many incredible accidently vegan dishes with vegetables and tofu or beans as their main ingredients, and I'm sure meat eaters would be far more likely to be tempted by these than fake meats as they'd simply be another option, not "the meat replacement option".

I think fake meats have suddenly exploded in popularity because to the meat eaters' minds it makes sense: "Vegetarians and vegans must surely be missing meat, let's give them something that resembles that. The best dishes are meat dishes- let's make those but with a substitute".

Some ‘fake meats’ are so similar in texture and looks that they really make you feel queasy (if you actually are veggie or vegan). I had one ‘burger’ and it was so odd I had a moment of panic and asked the staff to double check that it wasn’t meat (it looked like squished together mince and tasted weird).

I am pleased to see that quorn are selling more of the veggie items again - their vegan ‘ham’ and ‘chicken’ replacements for the veggie versions are slimy, nasty tasting and weird textured. I liked the slices in a sandwich - I did write to them to ask them why they were replacing perfectly good veggie things with awful vegan replacements. I couldn’t get them for ages but see that stores are stocking them again.

When I was first veggie (40 years ago now) veggies and vegans mostly made food from scratch and you had little choice! I worked my way through some cookery books my big sister bought me and tried out loads of different styles and ingredients. Ready made foods (mostly German I seem to remember) were a rare ‘treat’ from the local health food shop.

I’m sure this way was far more eco friendly than the weird and wonderful processed foods that are all over the place now. Much healthier and tastier too. Considering how easy it is to get a wide range of fruit and veg in the shops these days.

And why do they always say ‘plant based’ and not vegan? Does that mean they can slip in some bacon rind and avoid calling it vegan/veggie?

I think the ‘plant based’ thing is because some people are so upset by the concept of vegans. Or possibly because vegan implies a whole lifestyle and they possible can’t say that the bone china plates are vegan.

True. Some people just look for a fight. 🙄

Or maybe manufacturers done want to pay (?) the vegan society to get the items registered as ‘proper vegan’ and use the V logo? And of course switch ingredients for ‘less V friendly’ .