What's the oddest Vegan dish you've ever been served?

[HangingOver]

While I'm used to having dishes with certain ingredients removed and paying more for alternatives, yesterday took the biccie.

Restaurant was offering half price pizzas on a Monday night... they had one vegan option on their 'alternative' menu. On closer inspection it's just a vegetarian one without any cheese, but no biggy, I was hoping they might throw some nooch or sauce on it. They didn't... and as there was almost no tomato sauce on it either, all the bits of vegetables just fell straight off and it was really dry.

But that's not even what bothered me really... the main point was the vegan option was NOT HALF PRICE. I got to pay double what everyone else did for the privilege of having less stuff on my pizza 🙃

What's your most bizarre experience?

I think more of us need to be refusing to pay/eat particularly shitty meals. Why should we pay for a bowl of plain vegetables, or a dry roll? It's 2023. With the amount of great vegan and vegetarian options we have now, there is no excuse for this shit.

@DinosaurOfFire Cauliflower steaks are such a con! Great way of making it look like you’re providing a vegan gourmet meal, easy to make, but it’s just a bit of vegetable. Not filling and hardly any calories.

I’m vegetarian. On a long haul flight they were serving a tea, which included a sandwich, and a scone with jam and cream. Having booked vegetarian meals, I got served the vegetarian alternative, which was some lettuce, tomato and 2 dry Ryvitas.

Having breakfast in a cafe, I asked if there was a vegetarian alternative to the cooked breakfast (veggie sausage etc). She said no but after consulting in the kitchen she said yes they could provide something vegetarian. We were starving so said yes please. The replacement for the sausage, black pudding and bacon was a scoop of diced mixed vegetables.

Pub lunch - family ordered Sunday roasts, menu said there was a vegetarian option so I ordered that. It was potatoes, Yorkshire pudding and vegetables - literally the same as everyone else had but with a space where the meat should be. Same price.

Sunset beach club for a wedding reception in may
iceberg lettuce with slices of tufu for starter. No dressing or flavours added
no dessert option

And I resent paying top price for a bloody Moving Mountains burger. I have some in my freezer. No effort has gone into making that.

Half a boiled egg. SO much wrong with that.

My daughter became a vegan years ago when it wasn't as popular as it is now and it was often a struggle when we were eating g out as to what she could eat off the menu.

One restaurant gave her a bowl of spaghetti. Just plain spaghetti, straight from the water. Nothing else.

I've been vegetarian since the 70's and have had some corkers!
I don't remember not getting an omelette for about 8 years 🤔.

I remember going to a Chinese banquet in an upmarket restaurant for a business do. They made all the vegetarians and vegans sit together on a special table. So we couldn't even sit with the people we knew.

As each of the 8 courses came out, ours were basically a lettuce leaf rolled up with some rice in, or grated carrot. One of the courses was an open lettuce leaf with the spoon of rice served on the top, for variation! By about the 6th course, we were all laughing hysterically, a mixture of alcohol and empty stomachs.

It has improved so much now, or so I thought until some of these pp's.

Oh god, the cauliflower stake!
a thick slice of whole cauliflower, “seared” (blackened at the edges, but otherwise raw). Hard, crunchy, unappetising and as it’s almost calorie free, entirely unsatisfying too. This was a v.posh restaurant for a works do. I complained so much afterwards the firm changed their xmas lunch destination for subsequent years 😁

At breakfast a plate was served to me, cooked tomato halves as eyes, raw sliced cucumber as a smile and a strawberry half as a nose. The proprietor attempted to pass the 'vegan cooked breakfast' off, hoping the smiley face would seal the deal. Odd, bizarre and hysterical. It was rural UK in the early 90's.

Not the oddest and I have told this story before. The fact that even in a vegetarian restaurant you don't always get much of a choice!

Fed up with meat eaters taking so long over choosing from a huge menu when I know my one choice is omelette or veg lasagne or mushroom risotto. Don't get me wrong I like them all but when you know it is down to that choice (and the meat eaters assume you are of low intelligence and cannot choose for yourself so helpfully go down the menu of all the meat dishes!!!).

Anyway, got to this veggie restaurant which boasted of seasonal dishes. Yep, every dish bar ONE had bloody Jerusalem artichoke in it. Loathe it! Thankfully I did like aubergine as that was the only alternative!! So pissed off!

@RubaiyatOfAnyone

God yes Cauliflower. It is everywhere now. It has taken over from sweet potato and butternut squash as being very annoying!

I used to like cauliflower but one day I tried Cauli buffalo wings. Disgusting. The spices did not cover the rank taste of cauliflower which tastes like you left it in a cupboard for a week. I now loathe it (except in a very cheesey sauce!)

@SaleOfTwoTitties
I remember going to a Chinese banquet in an upmarket restaurant for a business do. They made all the vegetarians and vegans sit together on a special table. So we couldn't even sit with the people we knew.

We had this in China. We were escorted to another room. My Aunt, a meat eater was left behind and look horrified as if I was going off to be shot! Made it easier for them I suppose.

Also there we had a hotpot in Xian. I was given huge cabbage leaves to dip in the pot which of course I did not bother as meat eaters were dipping their meat in there and who knows what was in the stock itself. So basically cabbage leave with Sichaun peppers under each leaf.

My dd is vegetarian, most memorable meal was our french friend (so no lost in translation issues) having an argument with the chef because the chef insisted the fish dishes were vegetarian! The annoying thing was my friend called the restaurant in advance to make sure they could cater for a vegetarian and they had a vegetarian starter (a tartlet) and fries which the maitre d' checked, all vegetarian - the chef refused to serve it as a main because it was a starter (go figure) she had the coasts cheese salad for starter, also vegetarian. France is the only country I've experienced such rigidity and refusal

In Romania in the late 1980s, my sister ate many dinners of boiled potatoes and chips.

Years ago in China I explained I didn't eAt meat so was served a soup - so far so good but they were 'suspicious bits' of meat in it
When I pointed this out I was told it's not meat it's the fat!

This brings back memories (I'm a strict vegetarian) of ordering the only veggie pizza on the menu in a Paris restaurant, for it to come with bacon bits on top. We were close enough to see that rather than making a fresh one, the waiter had taken it behind the bar to scrape off the offending bits . Reader, we didn't pay.

Even worse was the work buffet with a similar scenario (bacon on sandwiches labelled egg and tomato). I took as bite before I realised. My complaint to the catering manager led to me being berated by my boss for "making a fuss"

Thing is can none of these places at least manage a veg curry or a mushroom risotto or a no meat chilli ?

I'm not vegan but there are some really easy options to do

I was once given chips as a starter in a rather fancy restaurant. Everyone else had fancy tarts or pieces of fish or meat, beautifully presented.

I had chips.

It was super tasty, don't get me wrong, but so, so odd.

Stuffed roast aubergine. Well undercooked, so still crunchy.

went to a bbq one sun eve in the 90’s. Miles from anywhere. Bread rolls were the only veggie option. Not even any salad.

managed to find a pub 10 mins walk away. They didn’t do food in the eve, but felt so sorry for me they cooked some frozen veggie samosas.

about a month ago we went to Lost and Found. Was really looking forward to it. The only veggie option was roast butternut squash and quinoa salad. Sounds lovely, had before on other places and always been great. Was basically a bowl of overcooked warm quinoa with cooked squash cubes. A bowl of brown much. So unappetising.

I asked for a dairy free option on a Turkish airlines flight. Got a dry bread roll with a dry slice of aubergine in it.

İt wasn't very nice.

@Saschka ryvita served as a gluten free option 😱. I'm used to meals out being a disappointment now. I don't eat meat and I'm coeliac. If only places could get that Venn diagram of no meat and no gluten right. My last buffet consisted of schar pretzels and fruit after the vegetarian gluten free sandwiches turned out to have chicken in them. The actual vegetarian option was on ordinary bread. The caterers had literally done vegetarian and gluten free on being told that one person requires this. And don't get me started on the "gluten free option available" which turns out to mean we will just remove half your meal and then charge you extra because of the effort we had to go to to serve you. The worst was probably a bowl of olives for dinner as there was nothing else suitable. I haven't been on a plane since diagnosis but if info I will be taking a pack up based on the horror stories I've heard.

May have been listed as wheat-free not gluten free! It was a long time ago. Definitely meant to be ticking that box though.

Four slices of cucumber, each with 3 grains of vegan caviar (i.e. seaweed) served on a long board. I did order it, but the description on the menu in no way read like I was going to receive slices of watery nothingness 😂