Would this be rude?

[Christmas20]

I am going to a family takeaway night tonight with my partner’s family. It’s my first one with them.

They want to order Chinese, which is fine for me because I do eat Chinese food, but I have a couple of issues.

Firstly, I am vegetarian and the place they want to order from doesn’t have a great deal of options for me to choose from. Secondly - and of course I would never voice this to them or make a scene out of it - I have quite bad emetophobia and because of that, I am quite fussy about where I eat from and checking food hygiene ratings etc. The place they want to eat from has a 3 rating and quite a lot of bad reviews about the food being off. I would be panicking the whole time whilst eating and for the next couple of days that the food was going to make me unwell because of this. I am in therapy for this issue but it’s not a quick magical fix.

Would it be rude for me to order my own food (and pay for my own food of course!) from a different place up the road that firstly, has a lot more vegetarian options and secondly, a 5 hygiene rating and excellent 5 star reviews.

I would obviously use the reasoning of there being more options for me to choose from because of being a vegetarian.

This wouldn't bother me at all, if you turned up and said "I'll order from somewhere else because there are nicer veggie options" I'd think yeah fair enough, but most people are easily offended with massive sticks up their arses, so 🙄

Eat before you go and pick at it if you want to avoid a fuss, but if this is a long-term partner whose family you like and plan to know for a long time, best to rip the plaster off and be honest about your preferences and they can take you as you are imo.

Not rude at all, unless they're precious. I'd be offended if you didn't ask!

That sound fine to me. You should order the food that meets your needs

Actually yes if you’re going to do it this is the way to handle it.

You need to do what’s best for you. As a host it wouldn’t bother me at all if you needed to order separately due to health/wellbeing reasons. I’d be more upset if you felt you couldn’t, ate what everyone was having and made yourself ill. You can’t go about life making yourself ill for fear of people judging you.

Ita the first time, id want to make a good impression. Just order a plainish noodle dish and get on with it.

You could say you’ve eaten from there before and it made you ill. I’d have no issue with a guest telling me that and would be very happy to order from elsewhere.

This is such a good response.

It's about the shared experience

This is the important thing OP

I couldn’t eat it either OP.
Can you not just decline the invitation?

I dont see why you cant do this. People need to be accepting. Youre not giving them any more work. Hope it goes well.

This would be a complete non issue in my family, we do this regularly. Everyone just orders from wherever they like. If you feel like perhaps there might be an issue, just say you really like the vegetarian options from the other place and I’m sure they won’t mind at all. At the end of the day you’re all eating together, who cares where each meal has come from?

You’re fine, I’m an emetophobic and one of the ways I deal with this is not eating in anything other than a 5 food hygiene rating.
If the place is clean, it’s not hard to get 5 stars, 3 stars, it must be really shit and dirty.
Just explain, and don’t worry about what they think.

I think the only issue is you said the takeaway you order from is more expensive, it might seem you are high maintenance and if you say everyone should go ahead and order from the usual but you want different.
Unfortunately “different” can be perceived as “better” or they have low standards.

I wouldn’t think like this but after a similar situation with my own family that’s how my sister saw things.

Just out of curiosity, what dishes do your preferred takeaway offer that the other ones don’t?
I thought most menus were identical and it’s rare I’ve seen a lot of variations when I’ve eaten in restaurants or from takeaways round the country. Occasionally I’ve typed in the name of a local one and forgotten to put the area when looking for a menu online and taken a while to notice because the menu was identical. Occasionally I’ve noticed a few different seafood dishes but not sure what vegetarian dishes could be different?

Usually I’ve found at the Chinese it’s lots of different sauces (satay, black bean, kung po etc) then they add meat, prawns or vegetables.
I’d have thought it was one of the few places vegetarians have mostly equal options, I was veggie for years and loved it when it was the choice for a communal takeaway as I didn’t look fussy.
My niece has arfid and manages to have rice, noodles, chips and prawn crackers, they are safe foods for her because she says they are the same everywhere!

A lot of places with a 3 or 4 hygiene rating are down to paperwork and not because they are actually dirty.
It’s things like fridge temperature records had a missing entry or staff training or cleaning records being incomplete, I think they should be able to specify that on the displayed rating. I wouldn’t want to eat from somewhere with under a three though.

What? No she isn’t at all?? She’s being perfectly polite in her responses.

Some people are so uptight, honestly when they start discussing ordering id just say "actually I'm going to do an order from X as I just fancy insert dish can I add anything to the order for anyone else?"

You have a good reason and a perfectly reasonable plan. Not rude at all as long as your DP lets them know the plan in advance.

And all the people saying about having to share dishes or that 'all Chinese restaurants have lots of vegetarian options' clearly don't have any dietary requirements of their own. It's absolutely fine to order and eat your own things rather than everyone digging in, if you can't share theirs in return. And a lot of Chinese vegetable dishes aren't actually vegetarian - so the real choice on the menu is generally a lot smaller than the apparent range of options.

If the familiy is a difficult, small-minded, easily offended one, best you find out sooner rather than later.

Spending time together, eating together etc absolutely but why must it be from the same takeaway?

Because that's what's been organised, if there had been pre warning or other arrangements then thats fine but there has been no discussions about the Ops issues it reads like she is going to rock up and just want to order something else from some place different. On the first visit it will just set a "tone" imo

If I were you I'd order what you want from the take away you want to order from. A bonus from doing this is that you'll find out if his family are pleasant and accepting or toxic and judgemental

If you are collecting the food, you could probably order and collect from both take aways, without anyone knowing.

Are you a baby who needs to eat or you'll die? No? Then just keep quiet and have a spoonful of rice and say mm delicious if asked.

If emetophobia is the problem and it's genuinely a health hazard then you're still going to be there thereing your partner as he spews the night away so maybe time to think about whether you're capable of being in a relationship just now.

I haven't read all the posts to see if anyone has had the idea but I saw your update that the food was being collected and the takeaway is on the same road. Could you and your boyfriend go and collect it and get stuff from the other restaurant and just pop it together without making a fuss? As since I originally replied you've expanded on how bad your food issues are and I actually think it's going to be worse for you sitting there feeling anxious and phobic as you are going to come across ruder than someone getting their own food. One of the reasons I don't do it with my wife's family is in from a more middle class background and there's no way to avoid it coming across as snobby.

All the more reason for OP to order from her preferred takeaway to see if these people are normal and rational or have a stick up their arse about arbitrary expectations regarding having a takeaway together.

Thats not always how people eat a Chinese though. I’ve never shared a Chinese with anyone in such way, we’ve always ordered what we all fancy and then eat what we’ve ordered

I think it's more that op is revealing herself as a neurotic who won't be able to get over herself for two seconds.