Eating out as a vegetarian. Aaaaggggghhhhhh!

[Neolara]

Once again I've come back from a meal out and my food has been terrible while everyone else has had great food. Every. Bloody. Time.

This time, we were at a nice pub. There actually weren't any vegetarian options. The only option was vegan. Could I swop the coconut feta for normal feta? No, unfortunately you can't which (according to the waitress) is a shame because they get asked that a lot...

When it arrives, my dish is a plate of lettuce with about 10 small diced pieces of aubergine (maybe a third of an aubergine?) and a scattering of coconut feta. It tastes ok, but it's really just a starter, bulked out with a lot of lettuce. The lettuce is covered in a very dressing that is so sweet, I didn't even manage to eat all the lettuce. It costs £15. Everyone else (meat eaters), talks about how full the are and how good the food is. I've come home after spending £50 on two drinks, a starter and a rubbish main meal, and made myself a piece of toast because I'm still hungry.

If it was a one off, I wouldn't mind that much. But it's every time. The rise of veganism has been an absolute disaster for vegetarian.food in restaurants. Eating out is very rarely a pleasure any more.
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You've either misunderstood or not actually read the thread.

Ooh. Sounds good. I drove past yesterday.

YABU
“The rise of veganism has been an absolute disaster for vegetarian.food in restaurants.” There has never been a huge choice, less so if you’re eating in places that are meat orientated- the veggie offering is there as a token gesture.

“as a fellow non vegetarian I do NOT want some stinky faux meat in/on/near my meal please. I want the real stuff.” What’s stopping you? Possibly brain cells by the looks of it.

Sorry I know they're they devil on MN but I bloody love a fake meat burger now and again. The cheese I can live without but I think they're yummy.

I agree with you.

Italian restaurants can be OK but they have a tendency to sneak Parmesan into everything. Pub curries are usually pretty dire and I'm not much taken with our local Indian restaurants. I can make better curry at home.

It's a sad day when you long for a Burger King veggie burger like the ones they used to serve 20 years ago...

We now rarely eat out as the food is so poor.

As a meat eater I totally agree with you. I think it must be absolutely miserable to have so little choice and restaurants should do better. I also think there should sufficient veggie/vegan/gf rather than one dish having to do for all.

I also think there should sufficient veggie/vegan/gf rather than one dish having to do for all

Yes, far too many places try to cover all bases with one dish, the worst example I saw was a conference lunch where one of the options was a caesar salad. But it was deconstructed, so you could pick and choose the bits you could eat.

So if you were unlucky enough to be vegan and gluten free, your lunch was some lettuce.

Meat eaters CAN eat vegan food too, so why don’t restaurants just do vegan food? 🤷‍♀️🙄

We ate out tonight, I had no choice in the restaurant due to travel plans. There wasn’t a vegetarian option - only vegan, all with violife ‘cheeze’. There were around 30 dishes for meat eaters. So you’re saying vegetarians who enjoy dairy should make do with eating vegan while meat eaters get a massive variety of dishes?

As a flexatarian who hates fake meat I don't recognise what you're describing at all. Maybe it's just not a London thing. Or maybe it's because a lifetime of wrangling very fussy eaters means that I tend to favour street-food style venues where everyone in the party can pick from their preferred cuisine.

Also, why has no one mentioned halloumi? It's completely ubiquitous as a meat substitute IME. Fortunately for me it's the only cheese I eat.

I did a quick straw poll round our little local street food market the last time this subject came up. The veggie options were variously based on aubergine, tofu, lentils, chickpeas, humus, mushrooms, cauliflower, falafel, paneer, halloumi, cheese toasties and one solitary offering of "Chick'n". All of them delicious and filling as far as I could see.

As a flexatarian who hates fake meat I don't recognise what you're describing at all. Maybe it's just not a London thing

yeah, so as someone who eats meat you probably haven’t had many issues

and someone who lives in a massive multi cultural city probably won’t have had many issues

As a flexatarian who hates fake meat...

"Flexitarian" isn't actually a specific diet - it just means an omnivore, a meat eater, who occasionally has a meal that doesn't include meat. Not a vegetarian.

I do eat meat and fish sometimes, but I always check out what the vegan options are first, and they're never the wall to wall ultra-processed fake meat and fake cheese options that people on MN so often complain about - it's always vegetables, pulses, nuts and tofu.

As I said - maybe it's just different in London.

Yeah

as i said…it’s completely different in a huge multicultural city

Honestly you’ve no clue

obviously it’s different in a city 🤦🏻‍♂️

this

It's a woolly term I grant you, but this case it's relevant because means that I pay more attention to the vegan/vegetarian options on menus than most omnivores, because it will always be my first pick.

My father, for example, would be able to tell you precisely nothing about vegetarian meal options because I strongly suspect that he's never eaten a vegetarian meal in his life (the family hatred of cheese Is hereditary).

Well obviously it's going to be different in London to say a large village with a pub

There's no maybe about it

It's actually really difficult because so many restaurants now cater almost exclusively for vegans rather than vegetarians. Eating out and have nice vegetarian food has become nigh on impossible for me because I don't like mushrooms, curries or aubergines. I'll admit I am quite fussy, but I never had this issue before the rise of fake meat and cheese. Prezzo, I'm looking at you. I don't see why restaurants can't adapt vegan food for vegetarians rather than having 95 per cent of their dishes for meat eaters and the rest for vegans and vegetarians combined.

I literally don’t recognise what you’re describing at all. I go to restaurants and most of them are 80% meat / fish, 20% vegetarian and 5% vegan.

I can’t think of anywhere I’ve been recently where there are very limited veggie options in favour of vegan. Unless you’re thinking of McDonalds and the like.

Just checked one of the local restaurants to me

26 meat/fish

1 vegetarian

1 vegan

I am an omnivore and am genuinely indifferent to whether I eat meat or not. More and more, though, I find myself restricted to the meat section of restaurant menus because of the ubiquity of ultra-processed substitute ‘meats’ and ‘cheese’ in the only dishes available to vegetarians.

I now make sure that I contact a venue before booking to make sure that they offer vegetarian food and it's not vegan lumped on the same menu. I can't abide ultra processed food in any shape or form, and as I'm also diabetic, I have to watch carb intake to boot.

And DH wonders why I don't enjoy eating out

My local restaurant had 13 meat dishes, 1 veggie dish and 1 vegan dish

So technically there is 6% vegan options and 12% veggie options but its still only 1 option for vegans and 1 for vegetarians when you take the percentages out of it

Their vegan burger is really nice and not to fake meatish but the last time I went there they were out of both of their vegan and vegetarian options and the only alternative they could offer was a portion of chips. I haven't bothered since

We went to a local pub and dh ordered a chicken burger which came with onion rings

his burger turned up with no onion rings…after a bit of a discussion with the manager turns out the waiter thought dh had ordered the ‘chickon’ burger….not the ‘chicken’ burger 😳

The thing I don't really understand is do meat eaters only eat meat based mains when they go out these days? Surely you don't eat meat for every meal? I'd presume a lot would also sometimes choose a meatless dish. I know the veggie offerings at buffets often get hoovered up very quickly. So surely it would make sense to offer more choice for everyone?