Having A Beef With Vegetarians

Photo by peterastn

I did something today which I've never done before.

I walked out of a restaurant.

Let me set the scene for you: a new restaurant opened today in the girlfriend's home town in Perthshire. It was rumoured to be "fine dining" and indeed an award-winning chef has been hired as a consultant through the first few weeks. As a foodie, the gf was eager to try it out.

The "grand opening" party was at the weekend, but today was the first day that the restaurant was actually serving food. We rocked up about 12:30 to discover that we were one of their first customers.

In fact, we were our waitress's very first customers. She had a handheld computer which she was a tad unsure of and joked with us about it. It made for a relaxed atmosphere in a nicely refurbished room.

And then we saw the menu.

I should point out that the girlfriend is a vegetarian. It's not an ethical issue with her, she just doesn't like the taste of meat (stop sniggering in the back!). She will, however, eat fish.

Despite flirtations with vegetarianism in the past, I'm avowedly carnivore. However, if we're dining out then there are times when the vegetarian option on the menu appeals to me a lot more than the meaty items. Particularly if I'm eating Italian.

So we scanned the menu of this brand-new "fine dining" establishment. 3 of the 5 main dish items on the "Lunch Menu" were meatballs, beefburger and fish & chips. Huh. Is that the sound of alarm bells ringing?

But where was the vegetarian option? There was none on the specials board, so surely there was something on the menu?

And there it is, well hidden: Penne Pasta with Chargrilled Chicken, peppers and a tomato-based sauce.

Underneath, in brackets: (We can remove the chicken for a vegetarian option).

So basically, this pretentious wannabe-upmarket eaterie was offering to hoik the chicken off the plate if you didn't want to eat meat.

Ok, I'm slightly doing it a disservice. There was another vegetarian dish in the list of starters: melon balls.

As the gf said, this is 2009. There are plenty of vegetarians around. There will be even more if Lord Stern has his way. The concept of "Meat-Free Mondays" seems to be catching on as people realise just how much farmed animals contribute to greenhouse gas emissions.

And yet here is a restaurant-with-pretensions treating vegetarians as an afterthought, people to be barely tolerated. So we walked out.

The whole episode reminds me of a story in John Simpson's book A Mad World, My Masters. In it, he tells of a BBC cameraman who has been put up in a Bed & Breakfast in Northern Ireland which was renowned for it's huge breakfasts.

Come the morning, the waitress arrived to take the BBC man's order. "Fried eggs, fried bread, fried bacon, fried beans, fried black pudding and fried mushrooms" he asked, "but please, no sausages." She appeared back at his table with a plate heaped with food, and in the middle of the plate sat two fried sausages.

"Scuse me," he said, "I asked for fried eggs, fried bread, fried bacon, fried beans, fried black pudding and fried mushrooms, but no sausages."

She took the plate back into the kitchen, only to emerge a few seconds later carrying the still fully-laden plate. Putting it down in front of the BBC man, the waitress said:

"Chef says sausages are compulsory!"