Veggie served meat - what if anything would you do? do?

[TortellinimorelikeTorteLIEni]

Went out for a meal tonight. A nice chain. Ordered aubergine tortellini. When it came and I ate the first couple of mouthfuls I thought it tasted odd. Had a bit more and thought it tasted and looked like beef. Asked a couple of the people with me and they agreed. I called the waiter over and asked if I could have been given meat by mistake. He said there was no meat version of the tortellini but he'd check with the kitchen. Came back and said it was definitely aubergine.

I checked the menu and there was no meat version on it so I told myself I must be mistaken. Took another bite but nope, definitely tasted like beef.

I Google and see that on New year's there was indeed a beef version of the tortellini on their menu. I am now 100% sure that's what they have given me. I check with a third member of my table, they also agree it's meat. The portion was small - literally like 6 big tortellini so by now it's almost all gone.

When the waiter comes to clear the table I mention it again, I tell him I'm now sure it was meat and ask him to inform the kitchen.

He comes back after some time saying they have now checked thoroughly and it is definitely aubergine. They have checked the meat tortellini from New Year's and it looks completely different.

I don't want to get into a big back and forth at this point as most of the meal has gone and the rest of the table have had nice food and are enjoying themselves.

However. I am wondering whether to email their manager or head office to ask them to check their tortellini and labelling? I'm not after money off but I am concerned about them dishing up meat to veggies and the potential for someone with allergies to eat something they shouldn't.

Is there any point now? Or should I leave it at this point?

I think you should pursue this. It could be very serious.

Did you cut one open & see what the filling looked like? If it was beef the texture would have been completely different to aubergine.
Did you ask any of the staff to try it?
Unfortunately if not, it's just your word against the restaurant.

I'd email the manager. It's quite worrying given allergens etc. They'll probably still claim it was aubergine though, but perhaps theyll take more care in future.

id like to know how ‘tortellini’ would ever look completely different as visually it should be the same - tortellini is a circle of pasta, filled and pinched. So they can’t argue it ‘looked’ different?

for whatever reason you chose not to eat meat - dietary, ethical, cultural or anything else, it’s not okay to serve it to you incorrectly. What they can do about it retrospectively I don’t know, but I would indeed pursue the matter.

How can anyone mistake aubergine for beef????

I'm sorry you had this experience, and I'd be really upset. I'm not sure what can or can't be done now? However this progresses, just remember that if it was meat, it wasn't your fault and I hope you are ok.

I did. The meat version on their NYE menu was slow cooked beef and red wine. The filling looked like fairly generic dark coloured mush. When I pulled some out and spread it around a bit I could see meaty fibres...

To the later poster about what it looked like, I think they were referring to the filling rather than looking at two intact tortellini.

I don't think they were deliberately lying. My guess is that they have mislabeled them so they pulled out the batch labelled beef but it was actually aubergine so it did of course look different to mine.

I'm quite a chilled out veggie in the sense it doesn't make me feel sick or upset to accidentally eat meat but I can imagine it would upset others.

Ideally you could have taken some home. And called the local council who inspect these places. Scores on The Doors etc. Esp given that they dismissed it when you knew it was lies and the NYE menu confirmed it.

The filling was very loose and mushy and didn't have a strong flavour. The sauce was very strongly flavoured so the first couple of bites that was all I could taste initially, then I had the after taste of beef.

Oh I'm fine thanks. I suppose I want them to check again..they're a chain so I imagine this food could be long life or frozen so if they have a mislabeled batch then someone else is going to be served up the wrong food. Unpleasant for more ethical veggies than me and potentially dangerous for people with allergies.

I've been a veggie for 40 years and this kind of thing happened to me several times.

Aubergine can be quite fibrous so it's possible it really was the aubergine version. Hopefully it was.

I tried telling myself that at first but I am 100% sure it was beef. Absolutely no doubt in my mind.

The time to do something about it was then. You cant prove it now.

As a life-long veggie, I don't order tortellini from restaurants anymore for this exact reason. Must be something about tortellini that it's so prone to getting mixed up. I totally believe it was beef but nowt you can do about it now.

Hoping you brought one home with you, so that you can pass it onto Trading Standards AND Environmental Health. Even if you didn't bring a sample home, you can still report to Trading Standards & Environmental Health, and make sure you tell them how many meat eaters tried a sample of your dish and confirmed it was beef. Give as much detail as you can.

They were just covering themselves telling you that the NY dish looked different etc., because they didn't know how to get out of their fuck up.

Could you leave a review? They have the option to reassure you in their response but also it will alert other diners when ordering this dish.

You can email your concerns. They’ll probably send you a generic response assuring you that all their uncooked products are clearly labelled but they’ll be sure to revisit procedures around food handling in staff training. You might get a discount voucher for another visit as a gesture for not liking your meal. It depends how pulsed you are about all of that, really. They won’t admit liability for cross contamination unless you have proof.

To be fair Aubergine is considered the beef of the veg patch

I would take it further, especially for the reason you have mentioned (allergies).

My daughter has a beef allergy so this would have made her very ill.

This happened a place I worked - it was a Hindu lady and she was convinced she'd been served meat. It was portobello mushroom - it even got sent to a lab for analysis. It can be very hard to tell with some dishes/flavours.

If you haven't kept any of the food I don't think you will achieve anything by contacting the restaurant - they will just say "as we confirmed on the evening of your visit, it was definitely aubergine".

You can leave a review saying you believe you were served meat (they will probably reply as above) but if you are certain it was meat you should have kept some for testing.

You should be able to know what you are eating and if it did have beef in it, not be lied to. It suggests they might be similarly slapdash with allergies which could cause serious illnesses or death so I would definitely raise it with them.

I queried a dish on New Year's Eve as I thought it had meat in it. It turned out to be banana blossom. I was once given a pizza with tuna on it, though.

Thanks all. They sent me an email asking how my meal was today, just a standard one. So I told them. I don't expect any response but at least I've done all I can to flag the issue.

It was beef. Not mushroom. Not banana blossom. Definitely not aubergine.