Restaurant Mishaps
Posted by strangebrew on Apr 25, 2007 · Member since Apr 2007 · 28 posts
The other day I was ina restaurant and I ordered steamed broccoli with my salade and I asked for no butter on it to make it vegan and when it came and I tok a bite I could tell there was butter on it. What makes it worse is I told the server it had butter on it and completely denied it. I talked to the manager and she said there was nothing she could do about it. I could pay extra and order a new side of broccoli. I will never dine there again!
Anyone else have any more vegan restaurant nightmares???
I've found that after being vegan for over a year now, I HAVE TRULY developed some type of intolerence to milk & other dairy.
Same here!
A friend made me vegan carrot cake! So sweet! But frosted it with real cream cheese frosting! She told me all about how she made the cake and subbed apple sauce and I was so thrilled and tried a BIG piece and BAM I was cramping up like mad. Then we realized the frosting was a last minute add that she didn't think about!! ACK!
This also happened to me (my own fault this time) when I went on vacation to Switzerland and convinced myself to try the Swiss fondue cuz you know i WAS in Switzerland and it'd be "so sad if i didn't".... I was dying!!! It hurt worse than labor pains.
I think in these cases you are really allergic to dairy (as most people probably are!) and have slowly kind of inoculated yourself as an omni.... after the age of 2 we lose like 90% of the lactose (lactase? don't remember) for breaking down milk proteins
When in Japan, for years my veg friends and I ate these yummy tofu burger things at our fav restorant... then we found out they had a small amount of minced chicken through the tofu! Why???? eeeekkkk!
I do the whole 'I'm allergic to dairy and eggs and if you give them to me my lungs will close up and I'll die but first I'll make sure my friends and family sue you" card when I'm out. It works like a charm! I know it's mean, but usually I'm not harsh at all about it. I have a friend who really is lactose intolerant, so I've picked up a few things from him. Regularly, I just say "And make sure there is no dairy - allergies," and they get the idea.
If it's eggs, I'll say that I'm on Lent (this works great in religious areas - no offense to anyone who takes lying about Lent as mean).
Once I even said that my pet chicken of 7 years had just died and that I was in official mourning by eating no chicken or eggs. The server even looked genuinely sad about the chicken!
Kinda hard to pull off the "Lent" routine after Easter isn't it? As for being mean, I think it's mean of them to make you lie to get them to respect your choices. What ever happened to the customer is always right? I think that McDonalds assembly line food is what happened. Even at "nice" restaurants they have the expectation that you should take whatever they shove at you!
I don't eat out very often, usually only when I'm out of town. I discovered something nice last time we were in San Antonio, Jason's Deli, which my DH adores, has five or six vegetarian options on the menu and at least two of them are vegan. Of course that's out of a very large menu but it was nice that the order taker could point out immediately what would be accepted on a vegetarian diet. She even used the word "vegan". I was pleasantly surprised.
Wow! I've only had one incident where I was brought steamed veggies that had been toped with butter or margarine. i thought they tasted a little buttery but because I don't normally eat salt I just figured they'd salted them because my severe lactose intolerance was made clear and they promised to make my veggies separate from everyone else's. I'm so intolerant that i was doubled over 20 min. later.
Sure I run into servers & restaurants that don't quite understand veganism but I make a point of educating myself as to what I might have to sift out or explain at any particular restaurant. I politely and clearly explain that I'm vegan, & what it means, as well as severely lactose intolerant, they always offer go to the kitchen to clarify anything they're unsure of. I've never had to lie, exaggerate or be rude, so I'm either I'm lucky or the renowned politeness and conscientiousness of Canadians continues to work its magic - working both ways between staff and myself. I usually end up getting fabulous service and tip accordingly. I also get asked a lot of questions, due to personal curiosity, that I'm always happy to answer. I have had times when I've had to have my bill adjusted because I've been charged for a regular, fully omnivorous version of something but that's about it.
Family & friends, my MIL in particular, are another story though. I've only had one person, that I'm aware of, intentionally try to pull a fast one on me (his wife blabbed that he used chx broth instead of veggie - which by the way she had bought specifically so I could eat the dish with everyone else). Everyone else makes an effort but are clearly uncomfortable with the possibility of screwing up so I generally bring something myself that I can share (and hopefully sway the biased). My MIL however does try to respect my choice to some degree but makes no effort to accommodate me and makes it clear that she feels my choice is foolish.
When you're out saying you have allergies works, but what to do with family that knows you don't have allergies and don't agree with your veganism?! Maybe we could recently contract dairy allergies lol! It's really annoying being judged by them, but you know what, most of them are severely overweight so they really should go vegan..... They're just always trying to push stuff on us (every time) even know they know we're vegan... grrr
yikes,
well, my advice would be to let your family know that thre not treating you with the repect that you deserve, and if they want you to be around for meals anymore they need to offer you the same respect you offer them
When you go out have a good sense of what your going to get beforehand (look at the restaurants' menu online) and also have backups and ways just to make it vegan.
When it's time to order ask the waiter or waitress what's in it if they don't know tell them to go ask the chef. If it has butter say no butter or no added egg, don't add cheese, bacon bits whatever it is and then have them repeat your order.
yabbitgirl I can't believe the one about the glass. That has to be the worst story ever. Can you imagine you go out to eat and there's glass in your food? omg
I always feel odd telling the server that I can't eat milk or cheese and I deel they're going to think I'm weird. I did that one time and I felt in the waiter's mind he thought I was crazy. I had ordered pasta with just olive oi and garlic and I brought my own vegan parmesan cheese, which I also felt odd about bringing into a restaurant. Then I realized that they make the pasta on the premises and that homemade pasta contains eggs! I was pretty upset, but I thought that if I ordered it, I should'nt let it go to waste. I should have been more specific or shouldn't have ordered the pasta!
...I had ordered pasta with just olive oi and garlic and I brought my own vegan parmesan cheese, which I also felt odd about bringing into a restaurant.
I have absolutely no problem taking EB and/or my own salad dressing to a restaurant; however, I do try to be discrete about it so I don't embarrass others at the table (who might be a bit weirded out themselves). :P
I was at a local diner that has great veggie omelets and as I am biting into it I see a peace of ham on my fork...upon further inspection I find a few more and a questionable piece of chorizo. Needless to say I didin't pay for my meal.
YUCK!!!
I went out for dinner yesterday with some coworkers and there was only 1 non-side dish thing on the entire menu that I could veggie-ize without inventing something and asking if the cook would make it! But I figured, hey fajitas are good so it's not a huge deal. There were a couple chewier bits in the fajita which I figured were just bits of mushrooms since there were lots of those, but on my last bite I def found a little piece of chicken so now I'm not sure. :P In any case, I'm not going back there!
What's wrong with these people serving meat to vegetarians? It boggles the mind >:(
...I had ordered pasta with just olive oi and garlic and I brought my own vegan parmesan cheese, which I also felt odd about bringing into a restaurant.
I have absolutely no problem taking EB and/or my own salad dressing to a restaurant; however, I do try to be discrete about it so I don't embarrass others at the table (who might be a bit weirded out themselves). :P
I tried to be discrete about it too! I just hoped that they didn't think that the bottle I had my parmesan "cheese" in was their bottle! I was so scared that they might think I'm stealing cheese bottles from their restaurant or something!!!
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