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Old 04-01-2013, 09:31 AM
 
271 posts, read 597,846 times
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I was invited to a birthday party at an upscale italian restaurant in the town I live in. Everyone raves about this place. It's italian, so should be plenty of vegetarian options there right?

It was thrown by my sister-in-law, who swears I am a vegan. I am a vegetarian, I will eat dairy. She thinks that vegetarians eat chicken and fish, even though I have explained to her that this is not the case, but this is what she thinks. So she requested a vegan meal for me.

Anyway, the choices of meals were steak in a type of reduction with a baked potato, a stuffed chicken breast and salmon with mashed potatoes. At the dinner you were asked what your choice was, when the server came to me, I asked about the vegan meal, I also mentioned I was a vegetarian and any type of pasta with marinara sauce, garlic and oil, eggplant dish would be great. She said something was prepared specially for me.

It was a sit down meal and the server brought everyone their entrees, large portions. The steak had a garnish of two baby carrots, the chicken had a garnish of two small asparagus spears and the salmon had a garnish of broccoli rabe. I didn't get anything yet, I reminded the server again. Finally, I was brought a plate with two baby carrots, two small asparagus spears, and a small bunch of broccoli rabe, everyone elses garnishes. They really weren't cooked, just very lightly steamed. It was enough to feed a baby bird.

I didn't pay for it so really couldn't say anything at the time, but the next day I called the restaurant and spoke to the owner. He said "We prepared this especially for you, because we know you vegans can't eat any pasta or oils or seasoning". This is the owner of an upscale restaurant, come on I don't expect you to know everything, but geez pasta is vegan. My sister in law paid $45.00 for my meal too.
He did say to come back in and he would prepare me a great meal on the house, but I never did.

Sorry for venting, but boy this did upset me.

Anyone else have any type of similar experience when dining out or at a function?
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Old 04-01-2013, 09:59 AM
 
11,548 posts, read 52,903,008 times
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Yes, an almost deadly one ....

My wife is a celiac, and at many restaurants the vegetarian menu is the only way she can avoid a lot of foods with process saucing or pre-meal prep that has ingredients that she cannot tolerate.

So we were at an Italian restaurant for a wedding dinner and the server acknowledged that we were the couple with the vegetarian request. They prepared a plate of pasta varieties for my wife and made some sauces for it, all gluten-free. Only they boiled the pasta in the same pots of water that they used for the regular pasta ....

Additionally, they had pre-made all the bowls of salad, which had croutons on them. My wife pointed to the croutons and said she could not eat them, requesting that the kitchen make a new, fresh salad. The server took her salad and returned with what appeared to be a fresh salad. But it was her original salad, and the staff had simply picked out the obvious croutons and tossed it so it looked like a new salad. Unfortunately, there's enough tiny bits of those croutons remaining on the salad, not readily visible to the eye, to deliver more gluten than my wife can tolerate without having a reaction.

So we made it almost to the end of the meal before the effects became apparent. My wife was close to being in shock from the gluten overload ...

We let the owner know before we left that they'd messed up pretty badly when it came to gluten-free food prep, and the owner was apologetic ... but in that insincere way of being more concerned about a possible lawsuit or health department visit. They didn't even offer any compensation, complimentary return visit, etc ... and our hosts still had to pay for the meals.
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Old 04-01-2013, 01:18 PM
 
3,763 posts, read 8,713,997 times
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About 25 years ago in Santa Fe, I went to a vegan restaurant & order seitan. It was soooooo horrible!
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Old 04-01-2013, 02:57 PM
 
Location: Pacific NW
6,413 posts, read 12,085,628 times
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It was a hotel restaurant on a group tour ... and they served me a whole head of cauliflower, steamed, with cheese sauce poured over it.
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Old 04-01-2013, 03:01 PM
 
Location: Prospect, KY
5,284 posts, read 19,985,040 times
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Conversely, there are some amazing vegan/vegetarian restaurants in nearly every city we have visited....the best: Fresh Mint in Scottsdale, Arizona....by far the best vegan food we have had.

The worst: We went to a local Mexican restaurant...good reputation, lots of business. We used to eat there before we became vegan. The first time we visited (after adopting a plant-based diet), I told the waiter that I wanted a plate of grilled vegetables (which I know they make for the fajitas, etc.), a sliced avocado and some refried beans with no cheese.....he brought me a large dinner plate with some refriend beans on it - nothing else. We have never been back.
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Old 04-02-2013, 12:17 AM
 
18,837 posts, read 37,198,257 times
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I had some really bad Indian food. Not sure if it was the cook, or the food. Or is all Indian food just plain bad? We had some green slime, I think it was some kind of puree, with lumps of cottage cheese in it. Spinach maybe? It was nasty. The rest of the meal was under some brown and yellow sauce, it was spicy, but not good. Maybe it was eggplant. Not sure.

I have never had Indian food before, so was this representative of Indian cuisine? Not sire. But we are not going there again.
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Old 04-02-2013, 04:21 AM
 
Location: Prospect, KY
5,284 posts, read 19,985,040 times
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Jasper Indian food can taste amazing so I think you had a bad experience. I eat Indian food once a year when we visit family in another state...there is this fab Indian restaurant there that serves delicious food...they are always packed with people. But the food often contains a lot of fat. I have vvisited a local Indian grocery and noticed that their meals in microwave pounches are high in fat almost without exception but the spices and flavor combos are really good.
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Old 04-02-2013, 08:58 AM
 
Location: The Hall of Justice
25,901 posts, read 42,536,124 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jasper12 View Post
I had some really bad Indian food. Not sure if it was the cook, or the food. Or is all Indian food just plain bad? We had some green slime, I think it was some kind of puree, with lumps of cottage cheese in it. Spinach maybe? It was nasty. The rest of the meal was under some brown and yellow sauce, it was spicy, but not good. Maybe it was eggplant. Not sure.

I have never had Indian food before, so was this representative of Indian cuisine? Not sire. But we are not going there again.
We had Indian food just a few days ago. It sounds like you're talking about palak paneer. We had eggplant too, and yes, pretty much all the sauces are yellow and brown. But very delicious.

You might not like the texture or spices, or maybe the batch you got was not made well.
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Old 04-02-2013, 09:26 AM
 
271 posts, read 597,846 times
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Yes you had palak paneer. I could eat Indian food everyday of the week. I love it.
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Old 04-02-2013, 10:26 AM
 
Location: In a house
13,250 posts, read 42,622,995 times
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I enjoy a particular salad at Claire's, in Downtown. It's a vegetarian take-out and sit-down place, it's one of the most popular lunch spots for vegans, vegetarians, and omnivores in the city. Their carrot cake with cream cheese frosting is to die for - everything is made from scratch, and they specialize in locovore dishes.

I ordered my salad - crisp romain and wild baby greens, tomato, onion, cukes, roast sunflower seeds, home-made croutons (made from the bread they make every morning from scratch, yeah!), tahini dressing, and feta cheese. For a change, I ordered it to go. I usually eat it there.

I took it back to work, sat down, dumped the dressing onto the salad, was all set to dig in - took my first bite and discovered it wasn't feta cheese. It was tofu chunks. I hate tofu, in all of its forms.

This was the same day that we found a kitten in the parking lot, and it was badly injured, and I had gone to pick up lunch during the trip to the vet, where the vet had to euthanize the kitten. So I was in a really sour mood to begin with.

Claire's is downtown, and I worked the next town over, and parking is really hard to find AND you have to pay for it when you can find a spot. I was so distraught over the "too much drama" day I was having, what with the kitten, and the vet's office, and parking downtown, and the ride home crying over the kitten, and looking forward to that ONE moment of peace and perfection of the salad only to have it shattered by the evil tofu, that I just couldn't enjoy the salad even with the tofu out. A feta salad isn't a feta salad without feta cheese, and I didn't want a salad. I wanted a feta salad and my brain was stuck on that.

So I threw the whole thing away and finished my already horrible workday without having eaten.

The next time I went to Claire's I told Claire (she's the owner and she actually is THERE during the day, cooking and overseeing her crew) about my mishap and she not only made my salad herself, she gave me an extra mini-loaf of bread that had just come out from the oven (you get one with each salad), extra tahini, one of her famous slices of carrot cake, and didn't charge me for it.

She also gave me a hug, and said she was sorry I had a lousy day that day a couple weeks back. That hug was worth the return visit and I've been a loyal customer (and fan) of Claire's ever since.
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