To be upset by PILS choice of celebration meal.

[Shardlake63]

My PILs have just celebrated a significant wedding anniversary.
As part of that celebration, they hosted dinner in a private room at a local (to them) restaurant for their extended family - about 20 of us in total.
I am definitely not a picky eater. I eat pretty much everything, except salmon (which I am allergic to - it brings me out in a very itchy rash) and lamb (which I have always hated, and even the smell makes me want to throw up). My PILs are fully aware of this.
We travelled the best part of 200 miles to attend this dinner, not to mention the cost of an overnight stay in a local hotel as relatives with spare rooms were already full with their own sons/daughters and families staying overnight.
The meal was a set dinner - no choice or alternative was offered.
First course was smoked salmon, which I could not eat due to my allergy. Fair enough, I thought I would just fill up on the main course. However, the main course turned out to be a roast lamb dinner.
Apart from the smell of it knocking me sick, I couldn't even just eat the veg as it came to the table already smothered in a lamb based gravy.😥
I ended up just eating the dessert - a slice of lemon cheesecake - which was lovely, but hardly a satisfying substitution for what should have been a 3 course dinner.
AIBU to be upset at the lack of thought and consideration here? I was quite happy to forego the starter, but most restaurants do at least offer a vegetarian alternative for the main, which I would have been more than happy with. I also eat beef, chicken, pork, turkey, duck etc. and other fish (including shellfish) - I am not a fussy eater by any stretch of the imagination, so it would not have been difficult for my in-laws to ask the restaurant to provide me with an alternative to the lamb.
As it was, I had barely any dinner and by the time the meal was finished it was too late for me to eat anywhere else.
Am I being unreasonable to think they could at least have ordered me a vegetarian alternative in the full knowledge that I wouldn't be able to eat/didn't like their choice of set meal?

She could still have asked for a portion without meat or gravy.

You’re definitely not being unreasonable. That was pretty poor planning by your PIL. Yes it was their celebration but to forget a guest and leave them without food is rubbish hosting. Mind the restaurant doesn’t sound that great either. Suggesting a guest eat separately from their party because they can’t be arsed to carry a plate of food up a flight of stairs? It’s not that they couldn’t accommodate you. They chose not to accommodate you.

In fact there are a very good few who get the same reaction as me - with unfortunate taste buds, turkey tastes dirty, like mucky water. My 1st chap had the same configuration. It is all turkey - not just the dark meat (although that is inedibly worse). It is not innocuous. I could once taste it through a Chilli recipe - it was utterly revolting. But my host was so pleased with herself that it had to be tackled. Anyway, answer this - if she merely didn't like it, why did she metaphorically push the plate away? Who does that, just because they don't much like it, at a celebration dinner? You wouldn't gobble up the lot, but you would have a go, unpleasant or no. So if she couldn't do that, she has to own her fussiness. No good pretending otherwise, especially as it is hardly the crime of the century. Own it and find ways to deal with it that don't involve thinking your PILS have gone out of their way to upset you. My own father constantly forgets I don't eat dairy - he once said "but you're OK with butter, aren't you?" - like the old wafer thin ham questions to vegetarians.

Sound like they are a bit thoughtless or are the kind who think that you should eat what is put in front of you when it comes to dislikes. At least know you to check with them if it is a set menu if they are hosting something else and to eat in advance.

I think the restaurant was poor not to take an order and bring one plate upstairs to a guest.

This is a set meal in a restaurant, it's not a catered buffet. Roast lamb is a bog standard dinner, it wouldn't even occur to me that a grown up couldn't possibly stomach it for one meal. And yeah, perhaps they chose what they wanted at their meal over what OP might prefer. Which is fine, because it isn't about OP, her preferences didn't need to be the priority. Grown ups can cope with a single meal not being their favourite.

Fair enough if you’re allergic to the salmon but you just don’t like the lamb. If that had been my six year old child, I would say ‘come on, try your best’. Not eating lamb puts you in the picky eater category in my book. They assumed ‘no vegetarians, so let’s go with roast lamb and vegetables, can’t go wrong.’

@Moveoverdarlin

then they thought wrong. Loads of people don’t like lamb, it’s rank. They absolutely went wrong.

YANBU. I understand your PIL had 20 other guests to think about but unless your salmon allergy and extreme dislike of lamb has maybe only come up once before? (so could have been easy to forget) or they didn’t sort the booking themselves and another family member did it instead, then it’s unreasonable. Like you said, there was bound to be a vegetarian/vegan alternative if the restaurant had been given some notice.

I think if some people really enjoy a particular food they just can’t understand why others don’t and just think they are being awkward -and to be fair some people are just being awkward! I’ve got a couple of relatives that dislike so many different foods that it makes catering for them a nightmare - but if it’s only a couple of foods you don’t eat, then it sounds like that isn’t the case for you (or indeed for anyone that can’t eat a particular food group like meat/fish/dairy or has allergies). Your PIL were just being thoughtless.

Grown ups do. If someone has paid for a meal for me to celebrate a milestone anniversary - I eat it. It’s just good manners. Saying its rank is like a 4 year old saying ‘No Mummy, lamb is rank!!’

@Moveoverdarlin

i am a grown up. I think lamb is rank. The taste and I also now won’t eat it for ethical reasons. Parents in law should have just gone to a normal restaurant where everyone can order what they want.

Nope, she can own her selectivity. "Fussiness" is a pejorative term.

They absolutely went wrong? Not if the other 19 people gobbled it up they didn’t. All that’s happened is DIL is annoyed and it sounds like they weren’t that bothered with her preferences in the first place.

Lucky old you, Not everyone can eat everything.

Many moons ago my work place was planning a Christmas dinner. It was at a large restaurant that I forget the chain but something like a Harvester or Hungry Horse.
The Christmas Dinner was a set menu (but choice of meat or vegetarian).
Personally I hate a traditional Christmas Dinner and the vegetarian alternative was just "meh". Some boring pastry thing.
I went in to the restaurant to ask if I could order my meal separately off the regular menu (nice stuff like scampi and chips 😋) but was told no as we were a group.
I pointed out if technically if I came in on my own as a single customer sat at a table 2 feet away from the group at the same time they were there I could order the non Christmas food so why couldn't I just sit with them?
Still told no.
I didn't go to that meal because I wasn't paying out for a crap meal.

Oh yes, all those abnormal restaurants serving lamb. LOL.

Why would you want to pay for food that isn't going to be eaten?

thats not what she said though is it. She said a normal restaurant where you can order what you want. LOL.

Yup but surely uf you invite people out to celebrate, you want them all to enjoy it?

YANBU

Yes it’s their choice but if organising a meal for lots of family I’d make sure there were options or a set meal everyone likes. Basic etiquette.

They were mean. But could you not eat the rest of the meal and ask for more roasties etc?

Why wouldn't they enjoy it? Not really liking lamb isn't a reason to write off an entire evening. Do you only see your friends and family if they provide your favourite foods?

@Moveoverdarlin

there are very few restaurants that only have one thing on the menu and that one thing being lamb.

Last year I arranged a big event where I had to get caterers in for about 35 people. I asked everyone for their dietary requirements in advance to help plan the menu. Allergies, veggies and vegans aside, the three foods most people said they didn't eat were salmon, shellfish and lamb.

No she could not. What part of ALL PLATED do you not understand? They cooked 20 portions, they plated 20 portions, they put gravy on 20 portions.

Surely someone said something at the table when you didn't even take a bite of your meal?