Facing tough time being vegetarian

[Guest guest]

Hi Manisha,

 

          I'm soo sorry you had to deal with people like that! I understand your

frustration.

 

Hugs Debbie

[Guest guest]

That's pretty crappy to have chicken in your veggie bowl, but I wonder, did

you talk to the server about it? It could have been a simple mistake. I

worked at a restaurant and the veg items were a subcategory of something

else, like a spicy chicken wrap, substitute veg option. When a restaurant

gets busy sometimes either the order entry could go wrong or the cook might

not see the sub, and tofu and chicken can look real similar, especially if

someone besides your server delivered the meal.

 

If this had happened to me I would have called the server over and explained

the error and requested a new dish without the meat.

 

If I had been the server I would have asked the manager to discount the cost

of the meal (meaning the customer would get the new one for free and not

have to pay for the erroneous one either).

 

Now if you had talked to the server and nothing was done to rectify the

error and the manager did not do anything either then I can see getting all

upset about it - or of this is a regular occurrence at this restaurant. But

to get all upset and ask people to forward negative emails without this

knowledge is a bit of an overreaction I think.

 

Tameson

[Guest guest]

Hi Manisha......

First of all, in this day and age of restaurant meals that are usually pretty

expensive to start with anyway, I am sorry you had to have your meal spoiled.

That is a shame. I hope they apologized and brought you another meal correctly

prepared....and they should have compped it but now-a-days I don't see much of

that anymore. I don't know what size of restaurant you were eating in but,

just for a moment, let me say something in defense of restaurants that serve

both non-vegetarians and vegetarians. Years ago, I was the kitchen manager

and head chef in a restaurant that seated about 150 patrons in Athens,

Texas....small town of about 11,000 people. This restaurant was called The

Barkley House and was in a beautiful old Victorian home built around 1883 and

was the home place of Clint Murchison, of Dallas Cowboys fame in the 60's &

70s. We served lunch, a happy hour buffet, and dinner and had a bar and were

open on Sunday for a family style Sunday Brunch. I had just divorced, had 4

children, and the year + I was at The Barkley House was probably the hardest job

I have ever had in my entire life.....trying to juggle everything.

 

Our kitchen was not huge but was a pretty good one. I did almost all of the

daytime cooking, starting prep on the night before and getting there at 6:45 AM

(remembering I had 4 children, ages 5, 8, 13 and 15 1/2) and it was not easy.

 

We had a regular menu plus a lunch special and I had to cook enough to serve

approximately 50 people of just the special AND have it all ready by 11 PM.

Plus I was making a 22 qt. pot of homemade soup every morning, all of the

desserts were homemade by me, I made 18 dozen yeast rolls in the morning for

lunch and 18 dozen in the afternoon for the dinner service. Plus I made 4

gallons of different kinds of salad dressing, homemade, when needed and at least

one specialty curried chicken salad. When I think back on it, I can hardly

believe what I accomplished every day.

 

When someone wanted a special request meal, hopefully calling ahead of time, I

could pretty much do it.....if someone asked for something special added to or

to have something deleted from their meal and they were already in the

restaurant....SOMETIMES I could do it.....but, what most people don't understand

is that in most restaurant kitchens there is not enough room to have separate

pans for separate meals going at the same time. I had a big, 6 burner Vulcan

Stove with two ovens, two Salamanders, a regular broiler and a convection oven.

I was doing all I could to cook what I already had to cook, have it turn out

like it was supposed to turn out......BUT, if we had had special vegetarian meal

ON the schedule......it would have been prepared vegetarian...not with added

meat thrown in but that is because I know what vegetarian cooking

means.....but.....another " but " if a regular person, who is not vegetarian or

who does not eat vegetarian even part of the time, was doing the cooking......I

doubt very seriously if the meal would have turned out strictly vegetarian.

Non-vegetarians do not always understand how important not eating any animal

products or product derivatives is to vegetarians.

 

I guess my main point is that if I were a stick vegetarian, and wanted to make

sure that nothing vegetarian was added to or cooked with my vegetarian meal, I

would go to a restaurant where they did not serve meat, chicken or fish, and

even then I don't know that I would totally trust that there was nothing

non-vegetarian in the food. As popular as vegetarianism has become in the last

20 years, it is still, probably, the minority way of eating in the United

States......so you just have to be extremely careful of where you eat, if you

are eating out. Personally, I would rather eat at home. Oh, and for

everyone......if you are going out to eat at a public restaurant......always ask

to go see the kitchen (try not to ask to do this at a peak serving time) and if

they will not let you inspect their kitchen, their refrigerators, their

walk-ins, cooking area and prep room.......turn around and walk out....you do

not WANT to eat there.

 

As a funny side, I used to get all kinds of special requests thrown at me,

some on the spur of the moment. One time, Holly Jones, one of the owners,

informed me that we were supposed to be doing the food for a wedding

shower.....3 hours before it was supposed to happen on a Saturday afternoon

before the lunch and dinner rushes. Talk about thinking fast.....I had some

got to the grocery store and buy pound cakes baked in loaves, strawberry

preserves, mixed nuts, and extra confectioners sugar.......I quickly made pour

fondant tined it a deep rose color,

made some white buttercream icing and green buttercream..... and had my oldest

son bring my cake decorating equipment from home and started to give orders

right and left on getting appetizer type foods made. I made petite fours by

cutting the pound cake loaves into cubes (thank God it was really good pound

cake)....I had a helper work with me and we first cut the cubes in half and

spread the jam on one side, putting them back together as we went. Then I

poured the hot fondant over each petite four....thank goodness they harden

fairly quickly.....then I piped bells on some, roses and leaves on some, bows on

some, and lilies of the valley on some, all out of buttercream. Luckily the

reception was only for 35 people and another most important aspect......the

bride was a friend of Holly's and left everything up to Holly so was not

expecting anything in particular......AND, it was a second wedding for both the

bride and the groom.

 

Since we had the Happy Hour buffet in the afternoons, putting together the

food was pretty easy....we kept brie wrapped in filo dough in the freezer so

they only had to be baked off, arranged and served with apple slices and

crackers, frozen escargot plus toasted garlic baguettes slices to go with them

in the freezer, cocktail meatballs in barbecue sauce, slices of French

bread....crackers, cheese cubes, pretzels and nuts....whatever else we had I

don't even remember but it all turned out perfectly and just in time. Luckily

I was able to use pedestal cake stands in graduated sizes to display the petite

fours on, grabbed serving trays and such that the restaurant had there, grabbed

a antique punch bowl, and added Blue Bell strawberry sherbet with some champagne

from the bar and fresh strawberries........and amazingly enough.....the

reception was a hit with all. And, I was never so glad of anything in my life!

 

Like I said.....I hope they made it right for you the second time. They

should have done it right the first time....but we all human and sometimes when

it is hectic.....things happen.............. and I hope I showed you how hectic

the life of a person who works at a restaurant can be.

 

I asked Holly once to have signs made to hang in every diningroom that

said.... " Good food waits for no man.....Man waits for good food! And she did!

I met my husband at The Barkley House.....and here I am 26 1/2 years later with

our three daughters (added to the 6 children we had between us when we got

married) all grown up......and me still cooking and enjoying every minute of it.

 

Nancy C.

East Texas

[Guest guest]

Just to add a couple of points to what everyone else has said:

 

That's for all intents and purposes a fast food place, and the kids

there no doubt make minimum wage or slightly above. They do things on

automatic, and don't have a lot of motivation to take pride or care

in their work. There's plenty of places here in Silicon Valley where

you can get a good Veg meal, even if they aren't strictly vegetarian:

Hobee's, Good Earth, certainly Fresh Choice.

 

And there's plenty of lesser know vegetarian restaurants in the area.

Do a Google search on: vegetarian San Jose. You'll be surprised at

what comes up!

 

At 10:38 AM 7/27/2009, Manisha wrote:

Hello Group

I am sorry to send this post in this group. But I don't know where

else to go and who else will understand what I am going through

emotionally and mentally right now. Just because of the food I

ordered Yesterday night. I ordered and was having Tofu & Sauteed veg

bowl at World Wrapp, AMC Mercado, Santa Clara, CA, USA. And they

added chicken in it. I am VEGETARIAN FROM BIRTH Man! ????