Finding meat in your dinner

bobbi

:eek: What to do?I don't know if any food is safe any more i was having dinner in my college today i got the vegetarian special which came with potatoes and cabbage.There was a definite piece of beef in the cabbage.I didn't discover it till i nearly ate it.I didn't compain because to be honest i knew the guys serving the food wudn't care its a cheap place for students to eat they don't really value the quality of their food.

KdjaCL

bobbi wrote:

I didn't compain because to be honest i knew the guys serving the food wudn't care

I think they would be pissing themselves laughing at what they had done.

kdjac

PlayaFlow

God forbid you actually ate the piece off beef :eek: !! ....you would have died instantly!

you answered your own question though! > cheap place - doesnt value its food quality

embraer170

Who manages the place?

bobbi

i don't think its fair to slag me its a forum for vegetarians and vegans.I don't eat meat and i don't want it in my dinner!Its managed by a private owner

seamus

It's happened a couple of times to me. If it's a one-off incidental piece, I'll take it off the plate and eat away. If I've been given the wrong dish, I'll complain. Restaurants tend to freak and give you free dessert/wine and great service if they **** up like that.
My gf can feel physically ill if she thinks she's eaten any, so that kind of thing can mean big problems for a restaurant.

Tusky

PlayaFlow wrote:

God forbid you actually ate the piece off beef :eek: !! ....you would have died instantly!

Shut up please. The OP didnt over-react/freak, she didnt even complain. She was rational and was asking for advice, take your childish sarcasm elsewhere, twat.

direbadger

Tusky, your sig is both appalling and hillarious.

Yeah, that's happened to me before too. I didn't complain because I'm a wuss about bringing up grievances, even valid ones, in restaurants. The right thing to do of course is take it back and demand something new. But as you said, you probably wouldn't be taken seriously in a cheap, studenty place.

Happily though most places are very accomodating to veggies/vegans. I've even had waiters warn me about small amounts of shrimp being in a dish I was going to get. I didn't ask and would never have known had I eaten it. I was very impressed with that.

Tar.Aldarion

seamus wrote:

My gf can feel physically ill if she thinks she's eaten any, so that kind of thing can mean big problems for a restaurant.

I know a few people like that, it is very difficult for them. I don't mind if I eat something by accident but it's never happened, to my knowledge.
Personally don't eat in restaurants unless i 'have' too( weddings, birthday dinners etc), just because I don't like most the food in restaurants/ all the food so it's not really a problem
OP, I stay clear of college cuisine, urgh. All I will ever eat in college is chips but I very rarely do that because don't really want chips... It's better to bring your own food in or wander into a vegetarian place in town I think.

3greenrizla's

it's happened to me a few times - it sucks, but what can you do, if you complain though you normally get the grub for free.

hmmm - i could bring a bit of chicken with me the next time i go for dinner.

vibrant

bobbi, care to name and shame?

It's happened to me a couple of times - I usually cut up every morsel of food on the plate before I hand it back (so they can't serve it to somebody else). Usually staff are very apologetic and understanding. If they're not, I don't go back.

Peanut

Make sure you complain to the manager though (politely!), and not the serving staff.

Floyd Soul

I don't eat out unless I have to anymore. Call it paranoia but I'd be too concerned thered be something in my food.

bobbi

lol funny thing is it happened again when i went out for dinner with my family(This time much worse).We went to a thai restaurant in a very nice hotel in sandyford my uncle was given a meat dish and ate it till he realised he just ate a prawn.They had to two of the same thai dishes one with meat one without and accidently gave him the one with it they also gave my vegetarian dish to my dad.This was a very expensive and upmarket place i was so surprised coz the service was excellent.My uncle didn't kick up a fuss or anything but they weren't overly apologetic which i thought was bad.

Kix

I've just recently had two bad experiences in Pan Thai restaurant in Oranmore. The standard of cooking there is very good, I think, but I doubt I'll be going back.

The first time was somewhat forgivable, the chef put a chicken satay skewer on the side of my veg dish as a garnish. A quiet night, I think they were trying to be nice. I asked the waiter and she confirmed it was chicken. I had her take it away and ate the rest of the dish that hadn't been in close proximity to it. I was a bit grossed out but I accepted the genuine mistake.

I went back the other night and was a few mouthfuls into the dish when I discovered prawns. My g/f, who's a meat eater, had asked me what was in the dish and I was taking a look when I saw what I first thought to be a cashew nut. I had it in my mouth before I realised what it really was. I was very cross.

It was the fault of a very poor waitress who had been rude, had not taken our order correctly, had failed to hand it into the kitchen until we followed up with her, leaving us for 20mins without drinks and starters and who spent a lot of the time we were there talking to two friends of her's who had come in for a chat.

I complained to the manager, paid for the food we'd eaten and left. Another table served by the same waitress also had a lot of trouble with their order and had only received their two starters, one 15mins after the other. They also left when they saw that we were having problem (not that I made a public fuss but they could see I sent my main course back).

As I say, pity really because the food is good but I can't see myself going back again now. I asked the manageress to talk to her staff about being more sensitive to her customers' needs. I don't think I've ever said this before but I hope that waitress gets her marching papers after two walk-outs on her tables in succession.

heggie

myself and the gf grabbed a take away from ming(in) garden in gorey one time, and there was meat in both of our 'vegetarian' dishes

Shabadu

PlayaFlow wrote:

God forbid you actually ate the piece off beef :eek: !! ....you would have died instantly!

you answered your own question though! > cheap place - doesnt value its food quality

Playaflow- not an acceptable thing to say in the VEGAN/VEGETARIAN forum. Bewarned.

JimmySmith

My sister quit her job in a plush reseraunt in Dublin 2 about 3 weeks ago because the chef was laughing away to himself as he put meat in the vegetarian dishes. She says its just an evil thing he does and most of the staff think its funny.
Hate vegetables myself though. Too many years of 'Eat your greens or no dinner' i think

Shabadu

JimmySmith wrote:

My sister quit her job in a plush reseraunt in Dublin 2 about 3 weeks ago because the chef was laughing away to himself as he put meat in the vegetarian dishes. She says its just an evil thing he does and most of the staff think its funny.
Hate vegetables myself though. Too many years of 'Eat your greens or no dinner' i think

Name and shame, please.

Peanut

JimmySmith wrote:

My sister quit her job in a plush reseraunt in Dublin 2 about 3 weeks ago because the chef was laughing away to himself as he put meat in the vegetarian dishes. She says its just an evil thing he does and most of the staff think its funny.
Hate vegetables myself though. Too many years of 'Eat your greens or no dinner' i think

:eek: :mad:
Any chance you'd tell us what style restaurant it was?

and..yes.. non-meat dishes in Ireland have a bad name due to veg. etc. mostly having been thought of as an accompaniment. People still tend to automatically think carrots & mashed potato, this would be ignoring the vast array of other ethnically influenced vegetarian food - pasta dishes, noodles, curries, stir-fry, vegetable bakes, pizza, bruscetta, tortillas/burritos etc., wraps, dhal, falafel, tabouleh, tofu, mock meat dishes, tempura to name just a few.

flyz

Word of warning, most 'vegetable' soups are made with Chicken / Beef stock.
Just because the soup of the day is 'Potato & Leek' doesn't necessarily mean that the soup is veggie.
I've had a friend of mine ask random waiters to check with the chef. They themselves are surprised when the response is that it's made with a meat stock.

FX Meister

bobbi wrote:

lol funny thing is it happened again when i went out for dinner with my family(This time much worse).We went to a thai restaurant in a very nice hotel in sandyford my uncle was given a meat dish and ate it till he realised he just ate a prawn.They had to two of the same thai dishes one with meat one without and accidently gave him the one with it they also gave my vegetarian dish to my dad.This was a very expensive and upmarket place i was so surprised coz the service was excellent.My uncle didn't kick up a fuss or anything but they weren't overly apologetic which i thought was bad.

What? Your dad ordered the meat one and got prawns? Or your dad got both of the dishes? Surely you didn't order the prawn one if you're a veggie.

Doctor Benway

FX Meister wrote:

What? Your dad ordered the meat one and got prawns? Or your dad got both of the dishes? Surely you didn't order the prawn one if you're a veggie.

I think what happened is that his/her dad and uncle both ordered the same dish, but the uncle ordered the vegetarian version of it. Unfortunately the dad was given the vegetarian one, while the uncle got the non-vegetarian, and only realised when he ate a prawn.

cee_jay

My best friend is veggie, and we often eat in our local bar/restaurant - where there is only one vegetarian option - vegetarian dish of the day.
We know a lot of the staff in this place as well as the chef, and our cousin is the general manager
If she eats meat she feels physically sick so thought ok I'll have the veggie option whatever it is as I have no other option (as is normally the case).
So her meal comes out, some sort of stir fry, takes a bite and realises there is fish in it (cue her spitting her food out into her napkin!)
We asked the waitress to take it back saying there was meat in it, chef came out to say there wasn't, there's fish!
She said fish is meat and veggies are don't eat fish!
He said that he was a chef and fish isn't meat and vegetarians eat it, and she was weird!
Let's just say a bit of an argument ensued, to which they are still arguing over to this day (this happened 2 years ago!) - but he no longer puts fish in his veggie dishes thank god!

Its happened to her a few times, and everytime she sends the meal back, and asks for a meat free starter with baked potato or the like because she knows for definite there's no way they can put meat in that!

Peanut

cAr0l wrote:

...So her meal comes out, some sort of stir fry, takes a bite and realises there is fish in it (cue her spitting her food out into her napkin!)
We asked the waitress to take it back saying there was meat in it, chef came out to say there wasn't, there's fish!
She said fish is meat and veggies are don't eat fish!
He said that he was a chef and fish isn't meat and vegetarians eat it, and she was weird!
...

This is why people shouldn't say they are vegetarian if they eat fish.
I don't know why some people get snotty about this, it's not like it's some special club that they are being pushed out of or something, it's just a simple fact of the matter - if you eat fish, you are not vegetarian, no big deal.

Technically meat is from any animal, but of course people introduce their own colloquialisms - let's not get like the States where common perception can be vegetarian=eating vegetables in addition to meat :rolleyes:

seamus

Peanut wrote:

This is why people shouldn't say they are vegetarian if they eat fish.

I don't think it's that, I think it's more that there's a perception (particularly outside of Ireland and the UK) that a vegetarian is anyone who just doesn't eat meat.

I can remember one evening in Spain, going around frustrated to 6 or 7 restaurants, looking at the menu, find nothing without meat (and I mean *nothing*), asking if they did anything vegetarian, only to be met with one of two responses: "We do fish", or "Uh...well...I guess we could do up some omlettes or something" :rolleyes:.

Peanut

seamus wrote:

I don't think it's that, I think it's more that there's a perception (particularly outside of Ireland and the UK) that a vegetarian is anyone who just doesn't eat meat.

Sure, but it's perpetuated by 'vegetarians' who also eat fish.

seamus wrote:

I can remember one evening in Spain, going around frustrated to 6 or 7 restaurants, looking at the menu, find nothing without meat (and I mean *nothing*), asking if they did anything vegetarian, only to be met with one of two responses: "We do fish", or "Uh...well...I guess we could do up some omlettes or something" :rolleyes:.

lol yeah Spanish food isn't the most veggie.
If you go to Barcelona though, check out Maoz Falafel!!!

Kix

Peanut wrote:

This is why people shouldn't say they are vegetarian if they eat fish. I don't know why some people get snotty about this, it's not like it's some special club that they are being pushed out of or something, it's just a simple fact of the matter - if you eat fish, you are not vegetarian, no big deal.

I couldn't agree more, but perhaps part of it is that pescatarian is such an ugly word. "Fish-atarian" would probably get a lot more acceptance because it is much more easily understood.

The Veg Soc in the UK ran a series of ads which tried to dispel the notion of vegetarians eating fish by making playing on the idea of fish being a vegetable. I never did see these ads anywhere except on their webside thought, so I doubt it was a very successful campaign.

It may also be a simple protection mechanism for pescatarians/pollo-pescatarian to avoid being served (I accidentally wrote "severed", Freudian slip?) "mammal-meat", for want of a better term. Easier to say they're vegetarian and then explain further. What they don't appreciate, or care about, is the difficulty it causes for people who are genuinely vegetarian.

koolkat

people thinkin that even though you're a vegetarian you eat chicken or fish is one of my pet hates. like when you go to dinner somewhere and they know you're a veggie so they cook you fish oh how it does annoy me

Tar.Aldarion

It rather annoys me too, also I prefer our old name 'pythagoreans' over 'vegetarians'. Bring it back I say! wonder what we were called before that.

vibrant

Tar.Aldarion wrote:

also I prefer our old name 'pythagoreans' over 'vegetarians'. Bring it back I say!

Ooh, I like the sound of that! It sounds like something I could put on my CV!

rsynnott

koolkat wrote:

people thinkin that even though you're a vegetarian you eat chicken or fish is one of my pet hates. like when you go to dinner somewhere and they know you're a veggie so they cook you fish oh how it does annoy me

Chicken? CHICKEN?!

Samos

Tar.Aldarion wrote:

It rather annoys me too, also I prefer our old name 'pythagoreans' over 'vegetarians'. Bring it back I say! wonder what we were called before that.

Pythagoras is one of the reasons I chose this name, but I once read that he and his followers would not eat mushrooms or beans for their texture somewhat resembled that of flesh!

On the topic of finding meat in my meal, I think that the damage would already be done, and refusing to eat it and allowing it to go to waste would not undo that fact and bring the being back to life. On a related issue, I feel that when I die I would prefer others to eat, or otherwise make use of, my body, rather than dropping me in a hole to rot!

TheBigLebowski

Samos wrote:

On the topic of finding meat in my meal, I think that the damage would already be done, and refusing to eat it and allowing it to go to waste would not undo that fact and bring the being back to life.

Eh, you could say that about any meat option in a restaurant. In fact it pisses me off when meat-eaters say "ah sure the animals dead already"...

rsynnott

Samos wrote:

On a related issue, I feel that when I die I would prefer others to eat, or otherwise make use of, my body, rather than dropping me in a hole to rot!

Careful! CJD!

You can donate your organs, though; that way, all the useful bits get re-used.

Samos

TheBigLebowski wrote:

Eh, you could say that about any meat option in a restaurant. In fact it pisses me off when meat-eaters say "ah sure the animals dead already"...

Good point. Because we live in a market system, where supply and demand matter, abstaining from unethical produce does make a difference, for if fewer people are buying a good it will be less profitable to the business and eventually if margins are low enough that business will stop selling the item. Some people say that one person refusing to eat meat hardly makes a difference, but the effect is cumulative. We can only control the actions of businesses by our own boycotts because they listen only to the call of profits not what is right.

There are circumstances, say eating at a relative's home, where the meat may not have been bought especially, and so the above logic would not apply. However, it may be worth objecting, if only to stick to the principle and perhaps to convince those particular relatives. But I've found personally that it's very difficult to sway family members, and prefer not to rock the boat with them too much...

Tar.Aldarion

samos wrote:

On the topic of finding meat in my meal, I think that the damage would already be done, and refusing to eat it and allowing it to go to waste would not undo that fact and bring the being back to life.

mmmm food, Pm sent

Good point. Because we live in a market system, where supply and demand matter, abstaining from unethical produce does make a difference, for if fewer people are buying a good it will be less profitable to the business and eventually if margins are low enough that business will stop selling the item. Some people say that one person refusing to eat meat hardly makes a difference, but the effect is cumulative. We can only control the actions of businesses by our own boycotts because they listen only to the call of profits not what is right.

There are circumstances, say eating at a relative's home, where the meat may not have been bought especially, and so the above logic would not apply. However, it may be worth objecting, if only to stick to the principle and perhaps to convince those particular relatives. But I've found personally that it's very difficult to sway family members, and prefer not to rock the boat with them too much...

I agree.

ronbyrne2005

chips can be cooked in animal fat TAR,be afraid be very afraid! do you lot avoid gelatine in all medicines foods sweets etc????????????

Tar.Aldarion

Yes I now they can be and avoid it. I avoid that other stuff to the best of my ability too.

Peanut

It's pretty hard to avoid a lot of stuff but then I'm interested in food so I look at the ingredients anyway... wish they'd get rid of the term 'flavourings' though.. could mean anything!!

rsynnott

Peanut wrote:

It's pretty hard to avoid a lot of stuff but then I'm interested in food so I look at the ingredients anyway... wish they'd get rid of the term 'flavourings' though.. could mean anything!!

The European Union, in its infinite wisdom and beneficence, is talking about doing just that.

comet

9 out of 10 times if there's cabbage and bacon on a menu they've been boiled together, I've often ordered cabbage to find it riddled with pieces of bacon. As if options aren't limited enough without taking cabbage out of things.
As has been said vegetable soup or what might sound like vegetarian soup is rarely vegetarian and is nearly always made from meat stock.
At times I get dissilusioned at the lack of choice and the limitations that are put on the options that should be vegetarian

Peanut

rsynnott wrote:

The European Union, in its infinite wisdom and beneficence, is talking about doing just that.

Awesome.
I for one will support their addition of extra red tape and bureaucracy in this regard