Hasty restaurant menu on BBC2

[Buddha Belly]

Hi,
We have just watched the Restaurant on BBC2 which is a reality show about couples trying to win a restaurant. To spice things up the producers sent veggies and vegans into one to see how they would cope with such awkward people.

Anyway... the main meal offered was sauteed cabbage. In effect boiled cabbage flash fried. The test subjects felt a bit disapointed and one nipped out to buy peanuts to stem the hunger. To top it off the desert was poached pear. Delightfully this was avaliable to only four of the five due to lack of pears.
This probably opening the floodgates of many many many many previous threads but................

Did anyone have an opinion?
or
Has anyone had worse?

[Mr Flibble]

I've had fried spinach as a main course with no dessert before ;)

I wonder whether the wine used in the poached pair was vegan? I somehow doubt it, but no one seemed to ask.

[harpy]

I once had a plateful of peas and green beans for dinner in some type of godawful steakhouse restaurant where I was marooned for the night.

I also saw a play where the hostess served a vegetarian guest a whole cabbage on a plate, but that probably doesn't count as it's fiction...

The show sounds quite amusing, or was it only that bit?

[Gorilla]

... the main meal offered was sauteed cabbage. In effect boiled cabbage flash fried. The test subjects felt a bit disapointed......

no kidding! i haven't seen the programme but the idea is for the amateurs to be judged on their performance isn't it? i hope they were set straight that you can't treat veg*ns like that! :hmm:

...although i guess many of us have been unfortunate enough to have been treated like that at some point! :rolleyes:

[Mr Flibble]

They were.

It bodes well for vegan food at Le Manoir aux Quat' Saisons. I had the chance to go for free last year, but for reasons unknown people voted to go to a scummy restaurant in London instead, where the food was terrible.

[Gorilla]

^ is that the restaurant owned by the chef judging the programme? i presume it's very posh ;)

[Mr Flibble]

It is, around £100 per head.

[flying plum]

there is a restaurant in london called J Sheekey. it is actually a fish restaurant, but has a vegetarian and vegan menu. it is this restaurant (owned by the same people who own the Ivy, who have a similar menu) which has led me to believe that people seem to think that vegans don't eat anything.

i say this, because the vegan and veggie menus are on the same sheet, but the vegan menus marked. the veggie options were nice and substantial things, like pasta and risotto.

what did i have? i had a pile of endive, in a mustard dressing, and for my main, a tomato and fennel salad. not a ounce of protein, nor a squiggle of carbohydrate anywhere. what the hell is up with these people? can they not look at the veggie options they have and think that this is simply not enough for vegans?!?!? I have now been there twice (it's my father's favourite restaurant) and the second time i did actually point this out to the maitre d', who looked embarassed and apologised. however, they don't seem to have done anything about it on the menu:

http://www.j-sheekey.co.uk/index.asp?area=22

the first time i went there, it was for my graduation dinner with my family, on my dad's recommendation. i was very, very disappointed... there are some options on there that look like they could be veganised, but when they specifically note which options are vegan, i'm always wary of asking...

amanda

[harpy]

That's pathetic - poor amanda! And at those prices as well. Why can't they make their risotto and stuff vegan, the daft beggars?

Perhaps they think all vegans are size-zero models who don't want to eat anything :rolleyes:

[flying plum]

i know! flippin' useless. i had a similar experience at the Oxo Tower Brasserie, but fed up with stupid bits of rabbit food in fancy sounding dressings, i collared a waiter and asked exactly what it was on the tofu-in-miso-dressing-with-aubergines-and-bok-choi that made it veggie and not vegan. apparently it was something in the dressing, so i asked very sweetly if they could possibly just do it without that bit. amazingly, they could.

and so, i ask, why can they not put 'vegan option' on the menu? it strikes me that this would be possible for things like the risotto (ah, but i was a new vegan then...i have learnt), as i assume somewhere like J Sheekey they would be cooked fresh. but i think non-veggie restaurants don't think like that...it's either vegan, or not. and yes, of course we vegans are all size six models. didn't you know?

in future, i will insist everyone goes to Mildred's, where i can have a nice bowl of crumble and custard. on the plus side, i have found two places in zagreb where (for a small fortune) i can eat very tasty chocolate torte. shame it costs about 2 quid for the priviledge!!! for that price here i could get a whole pizza...

amanda

[Sluggie]

and yes, of course we vegans are all size six models. didn't you know?

We certainly would be if we ate only in omni restaurants. :satisfied:

[BumbleBee]

We certainly would be if we ate only in omni restaurants. :satisfied:

Haha, this is so true! Many people I've met (or even members of my family!) always ask me what I eat, they usually think I only eat "Rabbit food".

Back on the subject though, I actually got quite annoyed at what he served the people that went into his restaurant. He's a chef! Isn't he meant to be creative!?

[Buddha Belly]

Yesterday i made sauteed cabbage, it was bloody lovely. Not as a main meal, but stil it was good

[sugarmouse]

I had an experience of this kind with my mother, who is kinda dumb in terms of does not use her brains, athogh she does have them.

Basically me, my grandmother and my mum were at her house adn she was cooking roast veggies with meat and potatoes. Obviously, I wasn't having the meat. I went to check on the veggies and thought that there was not very much there for three of us given that I would be eating more than my mum and grandmother, as I wasnt' having any meat. So I chopped up some more veggies and put them in the oven on another tray.
Anyways, my mum dished up dinner, and her and my grantmoher had a dinner plate each, I, was presented with my veggies on a side plate, and there were hardly any there. I said to my mother what happend to the extra veggies I put in for cookign?
to which she said 'I took the other veggies out, because I had already done some.
I was perplexed. I understand I hadnt planned to eat there and thus I didnt expect her to go to ttouble of finding me an alternative to the meat, but, what confused me is why she didnt understand I would need the same amount of food as her and my gran. Why, she thought it was normal, for me to eat of a tiny plate and my gran and her to have a normal sized meal?

Th eating disordered me thought for a second she was hinting I shouldn't be eating much food! But deep down I knew it wasnt that.
I have expressed my confusion since, as to why she thought it was ok to feed me less, as I am an adult, same as her and my grandmother.
The reply
'Well you are a vegetarian'
:confused::dizzy:?
So yes. I don't eat much at all, because I choose to not participate in cruelty, I have to be on a permenant diet...
Rant over, as you were.:rolleyes:

[Marrers]

Ridiculous sugarmouse!

Some of the restaurants owned by Caprice Holdings (the group that owns J. Sheeky) look to have more substantial vegan options. I think it is interesting to see vegans mentioned on the menu at all, although the content is a little disappointing things are moving in the right direction at least.

[bradders]

Gordon Ramsay tried to get loads of restaurants to make their tomato soups with cheese :8 (that's me being sick)