Eating Out

Unfortunately in my home town there are no vegetarian cafes or restaurants. We have tried several omnivorous caterers here and have found the following problems:

Cheese! Most veggie options offered in your non-veggie eatery seem to entail cheese smothered vegetables in the guise of a vegetarian lasagne, crumble or pasta. All well and good until you come to ask if the cheese is suitable for vegetarians, whereby we are usually met with a blank stare, maybe an “I expect so” or a non-committal shrug. There seems to be a general lack of knowledge regarding rennet and its origin (calves stomachs).

Contamination. Three times now, and in three different establishments I have found meat on, or in, my vegetarian dinner. The first time it was something ham looking stuck to the bottom of my toasted panini – obviously the toasting device wasn’t cleaned between dishes. The second time something chicken-like had found its way into my panini – I don’t know how and neither did the cook! The third time my vegetarian lasagne was a meat one cooked in error. Obvious after one taste, whereupon I sent it back and felt utterly sick for the rest of the day, a not so lovely birthday treat!

Lack of vegan options. If you don’t want the salad you’re rather hard done by as a vegan. Even soya milk is hard to come by. Thank you to the Boston Tea Party, the only eatery in town with soya milk. How I love the soya coffees they do there!

Knowing that your veggie food is being cooked right there with the meaty stuff! When you’ve been a vegetarian for a while this really does become repulsive. It might be splashed with meat juices (I have seen this happen at the serving-up point., so who knows what happens in the kitchens! When we had what could have been a tasty veggie option from a carvery, slices of meat dripping with gravy and goodness knows what were being carelessly served across the vegetables. We actually had to collect our veggie option from the man carving meat, he passed it to us with his meaty hands – it just kind of puts you off!).

My advice every time – if you’ve got the choice go to a dedicated vegetarian café/restaurant. I will always remember the first time I went to one, the joy of being able to pick anything on the menu, the wide choice of dishes available, the not having to ask the waitress questions about the ingredients and then trust that what she told me was true. The knowledge that your meal is prepared in a completely meat-free kitchen, where no contamination is possible. Heaven! And no dishes to wash either!