The Vegan's Notebook
Dining Out
Being a veg-head doesn't mean doing becoming a shut-in when your friends go out to their favorite restaurants. It does mean talking with well-meaning folks who run restaurants and who often aren't vegetarians themselves.
Some tips that I've learned over the years:
- Be willing to state food preferences as dietary restrictions. That may seem like an odd phrasing, but it gets the message across clearly in the language most accurate to restaurant staff.
- Call ahead and ask about options for your flavor of vegetarian.
- Talk to the mait're de when you arrive (for a menu), and the wait staff, and ask about options again if you're unsure.
- Ask if someone on the wait staff is a veg. Talk to that person, and not to score a date.
- Chefs are sometimes willing to create an entree on the spur of the moment, especially if nothing is suitable on the menu.
- Remember to tip well.
- Learn which dishes are commonly vegetarian (and not) without being labelled as such.
- Find and support good local restaurants that cater to vegetarians.
- There's usually one deep frier. Ask if it's used for chicken before ordering fries.
- Trust your taste buds. If you suddenly think it's there... there's no ethical obligation to continue eating. Or to ever return.
- Keep an open mind about trying new dishes.
- Most sandwich shops will leave off the cheese and dressing (which contains cheese, eggs, or bacon much of the time).
- Pizza without the cheese.
- Soy lattes.
- Veggie burgers (know your varieties) or portabello sandwiches instead of the kind that moos.
- The non-meat tomato sauce for any other pasta sauce.
- Cheese can often be omitted from anything.
- Side dishes can usuually be subbed, sometimes in off-menu ways.
Check out dining guides, and search for reviews of restaurants online: