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My worst experience with a vegetarian/vegan meal was a while ago at a small restaurant by UCSD. I ordered a vegetable stir fry and upon taking a bite (brace your stomachs everyone) and then attempting to swallow the food I felt a very strange feeling in that the food refused to go all the way down my throat , so I ate another mouthful of food to try and get the food down and it still felt lodged and then I realized what was going on and had to reach into my mouth and pull out a very long human hair from the back of my throat. Eeeewww
Bad experience made good by exceptional customer service. Claire is the main reason why, when one of my customers touches me emotionally, I give hugs. It's amazing what that moment of human contact between near-strangers can do for the soul.
Another time I chewed on the salad and noticed an odd bite. I took it out of my mouth and it turned out to be a tie-twistie. It didn't come from the bag that the salad was in - Claire's produce vendor doesn't use them for her orders. But they think it's possible that the same vendor uses them for different customers and this one somehow fell into the bag of lettuce (it was a light green twistie, almost the same color as the lettuce). They offered to give me the salad free but I had almost finished it so I told them not to worry, it was obviously not their mistake, you would've had to have picked through the 5-pound bag of lettuce just to find the thing, and if they'd just let their vendor know that it happened I think all three parties (the vendor, Claire's, and me) would be satisfied.
I was invited to a birthday party at an upscale italian restaurant in the town I live in...
Oh my word I had a very similar experience.
Shortly after I moved to America with my family (hubby + 3 kids) we had our first Thanksgiving. We knew no-one and were living in a pokey rental so decided to treat ourselves to a posh restaurant. I specifically asked when booking if there would be vegetarian options - they said yes so I booked.
Turned out their idea of a vegetarian option was just the vegetables minus the Turkey - no pasta, carbs, protein - nothing. My face must have said it all and the waitress eventually sorted us out with a pasta dish instead, which consisted of .. wait for it.. penne with a jar of pasta sauce poured over - you know like you could make yourself at home in about 10 minutes for about $1.25. Not even so much as a garnish. For this we paid their standard thanksgiving price of $50 per head. Never again. We might as well have stayed at home.
Shortly after I moved to America with my family (hubby + 3 kids) we had our first Thanksgiving. We knew no-one and were living in a pokey rental so decided to treat ourselves to a posh restaurant. I specifically asked when booking if there would be vegetarian options - they said yes so I booked.
Turned out their idea of a vegetarian option was just the vegetables minus the Turkey - no pasta, carbs, protein - nothing. My face must have said it all and the waitress eventually sorted us out with a pasta dish instead, which consisted of .. wait for it.. penne with a jar of pasta sauce poured over - you know like you could make yourself at home in about 10 minutes for about $1.25. Not even so much as a garnish. For this we paid their standard thanksgiving price of $50 per head. Never again. We might as well have stayed at home.
What killed me about this restaurant what that they had some nice vegetarian options on their menu, eggplant rollatini, butternut squash ravioli, pasta primavera etc. I have no idea why I got what I got, and the waitress told me we made something especially for you, I thought it was going to be something nice, not a very small plate of barely cooked vegetables. That restaurant really should be ashamed of themselves.
- I went to a vegan restaurant called "Green Cuisine" in Victoria, BC. My then-GF was boosting it up... if you were to look up "bland" in the dictionary, there would be a photo of the interior of their restaurant. News flash, you dumb hippies: SPICES ARE VEGAN. Ugh. No flavor to anything, and everything was off in texture... horrible, horrible food. A total throwback to the 80's, when vegetarian and healthy food was just starting to take off and no one had figured out how to make it taste good yet.
It's the sort of stuff that makes people hate vegetarian and vegan cooking.
- I went to a Christmas dinner at a country club this year, and though we'd specified a vegetarian meal, they brought me a side of roast. When I sent it back, they came back with mashed potatoes with no gravy, and about six pieces of steamed asparagus
I don't know. People describe themselves as vegetarians and order salmon croquettes, then you tell them you're a vegan and they think you're not allowed any oils? I just don't know. Even if that were true, is the staff too dumb to make a big salad for you?
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.
No, it's not!
Indian is my favorite food followed by Thai.
You had spinach and paneer (a milk/fresh cheese product). They call the dish palak paneer, it's fresh spinach with paneer.
You need to try a good Indian restaurant.
I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.
It's the sort of stuff that makes people hate vegetarian and vegan cooking.
I couldn't agree with you more. I've gone to several functions that involve vegetarian potlucks and the crap you see these people serve is enough to turn anyone off from vegetarianism.
We are more sophisticated in our repertoire today. There's no excuse for bland vegetarian food, especially at a restaurant. No fake meat required, even!
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