Being told what to order from takeaway..

[Beanz2022]

friend invited me round for drinks and food, she said we could get indian takeaway..(context, her and her husband are veggies) she text me one hour before and said would it be OK if you didn't order a meat dish as we don't allow meat in the house.. so I ended up having a vegetable curry which, I really hated.. she had whatever she wanted and thoroughly enjoyed it.. why invite me round if you know I eat meat and won't allow me to order what I want.

@VanityDiesHard I suggested there were lots of other things she could have ordered.

It was up to her to still go to the friend's house and it was her choice to order that specific dish.

I disagree that it's not the friend's business what she ordered as the friend keeps a meat free house as is her right. Again, the OP could have said she will only eat meat curries and eaten before she got there or cancelled the evening.

Yeah pretty cheeky and controlling. Also being a bad host imo, as she should be accommodating to her visitors needs.

If she's a good friend in other ways though, I'd accept it as a quirk, and just not go round for dinner again.

I'd find it very hard to be friends with anyone like this. She sounds absolutely bonkers and histrionic to the extreme - as a pp said. I would be reining in this friendship massively. I would certainly not be going to anybody's house who had invited me - and suggested a takeaway, and then forced me to not have meat by saying 'I will not have meat in my house!' Absolute fruitloop!. I couldn't be friends with them.

I don't have an issue respecting a friend's wishes in their own home for minor stuff like this. I eat meat, but having to order a vegetarian option for one single meal wouldn't bother me.

It's one takeaway, and a pretty long way from being a big deal, imo.

on the one hand your friend is perfectly within her rights to not have meat in her house, especially if she is veggie for religious reasons. however it is extremely rude to invite guests and expect them to pay for their own food?!!!

the takeaway you ordered from sounds atrocious. no authentic Indian curry involves brocoli, carrots and onions.... also there are plenty of great vegetarian options in most Indian places. a large proportion of the population of the Indian subcontinent are vegetarian so no, its not 'normal' to only prefer the meat options.

I would try the daal dishes, saag paneer, matar paneer, dahi balle, any chaat dishes. south indian restaurants especially have a lot of veggie options - idlis, masala dosa etc. etc. so many options. all delicious.

Her friend didn't give her enough warning, though. I agree that if the friend had given fair warning it would have been better: I would just have declined the invitation as I don't like being told what I can and cannot eat on my own dime. I don't care whose house I'm at. It is one thing if the host is fulling hosting; ie, either cooking or paying. It is another if they are not. I don't think 'my house, my rules' extend that far.

Ah op I am gutted for you! I would be so disappointed not to have my favourite lamb curry!

YANBU, you go round to a friends house for an enjoyable evening and should be able to choose what YOU want to eat from the menu. No one should be governing this.

I don't think it's usual to not be able to enjoy a vegetable curry. Most meat curries also have veg in them and you don't get a meat chunk in every mouthful.

You could also have opted not to have anything or just had starters.

I really couldn't get worked up about it.

Your friend is ridiculous you should have ordered what you wanted. I've not ate meat for 15 years I would never dream of telling somebody they couldn't order a meat dish. A better idea would have been for your friend to make a veggie dish herself rather than dictating what you can order.

Both. With some massive ghee beans.

I love saag paneer although my Indian friend reckons they just open a tin when you order that. Its about two quid a tin at the ASM in Ashton.

Especially when you're paying for your own meal!

Totally different and not an accurate analogy. Smoke smells and makes people cough, so fair enough if people don't want it around them. Even drink is reasonable to not want, although it is getting on to shakier ground and I don't think it is good hosting to be too rigid. But meat? If you want to control what your guests eat to that extent, then you have to actually treat them as guests: ie pay for their meal or cook it yourself.

Exactly.

The lack of warning would have annoyed me, as would the fact that I'd be paying for something that should be a treat but wouldn't feel like a treat because my favourite curry isn't a veggie one.

I wouldn't do that again. She can prepare food for me to eat or we can eat out of her home... or she can allow me to eat what I want in her home. I wouldn't pay for something I didn't want just to please her, though.

It sounds like the only reason you didn't like the curry was out of principle. If there was a few prawns in the exact same thing, you'd have said it was great 😂 Indian takeaways usually have loads of vegetable dishes. I mean, any sauce you'd have had with chicken or prawns etc, would have been available as a veggie version so I'm sure it wasn't that unbearable.

I do think it's a little weird that your friends specified what you could / couldn't eat in their house but I know this is fairly common with a lot of vegetarian families. You did have the opportunity to decline or insist that you desperately wanted a meat dish but if it was me, I'd silently suck it up.

I hope you enjoy your next one though OP!

If you're paying for a takeaway and it's a rare treat for you, it seems a shame not to get something you will enjoy. So YANBU in that sense. I enjoy most vegetarian food but would struggle with vegetarian curry too.

But YABU not to speak up at the time. Yes, you were caught on the hop when she phoned, but I would have just picked something (vegetarian) up on the way and said when I got to her house, "Actually, I really don't like veggie curry. You order what you want but I'll sit this one out".

I don't think there is anything wrong with someone not wanting meat in their house, if otherwise you value the friendship just learn from it and don't go round with a plan for dinner again.

Can't believe people are saying YABU. I must live on a different planet. If YOU are buying YOURSELF a takeaway YOU should be able to order what YOU like! No two way's about it.
It would be different if your friend was cooking you a meal or something, of course. That being said, when she informed me I'd "have to" order something without meat, I'd have politely turned down her invitation to come over - no way would I have gone.

YANBU.
You pay. You choose what to eat.
If she'd cooked then you'd have no choice but as she hasn't. She can't ban you from eating meating.
I'm Hindu andcan't eat beef. Won't cook it but if others buy it they can eat it. so the PP that spoke about pork and alcohol at a Muslims person' house same thing.

We’re a strictly meat free household, so no one eats meat in this house, guest or resident. If I was meeting friends and they wanted meat, we would just organise to go out or to one of their houses instead.

I agree. I wouldn't necessarily expect it to be ok to eat meat in a vegetarian house just because the host isn't cooking it.

What's with all the responses criticising OP for not liking vegetable curry because 'it's lovely'? Newsflash: different people like and dislike different things. They are not wrong just because they don't happen to like the things you like. Good grief.

Yes, this. I wouldn't be eating in her house again. YANBU.

Well the OP didn't 'want meat'.
She didn't want to waste her money on food she disliked.
Going out/elsewhere is fine. Cooking and serving veggie food is fine.
What's NOT fine is making someone pay for their own food and dictating what they can eat.