Vegetarian - eating out?

My favourite vegetarian dish is one I first tasted at one of the old spaghetti house restaurants in London in the 1970s/80s - Spaghetti aglio, olio e peperacino - or spaghetti tossed in a sauce made by infusing olive oil with garlic, chilli and parsley.

Almost all chefs are meat eaters, they have to taste the food to get the seasoning right, therefore they have little or no interest in non-meat eaters. Risotto? It's going out for a meal, having nothing on the menu I can eat and being offered an omelette.

I have been a vegetarian now transitioning vegan (cheese??‍♀️) for 30 years and happily raised three daughters vegetarian too. The offerings in restaurants everywhere are 100% better than they were 25 years ago and here on the south coast I have no problems finding an excellent selection of vegetarian and vegan meals in our cafes and restaurants I get to choose from Thai, Bangladeshi, Japanese, Indian,Spanish,Greek,Moroccan, Italian,French,Mexican etc? I do wonder though if it's not so easy in non city or tourist places

I'm glad I'm not the only one not too keen on goats cheese. It does vary and sometimes is OK but it tends to be very dry and makes me thirsty. I don't like blue cheese either.

I used to think that goat's cheese was made in a more humane way than cows milk cheese, but no longer.
Pleased that there are others who do not like goat's cheese.
I am also pleased that there are lots of vegetarians who move fom York to Durham.
Now we need more vegetarian festivals up here, although there are vegan festivals in Newcastle, Morpeth and Sunderland.
Anyone in Viva!, or vegsoc want to start one in Durham?

I can't stand the taste or smell of goat's cheese, but I have found if you tell them that they sometimes offer to use another cheese. I did this recently and got a caramelised red onion and Camembert tart.

Another favorite, if we are to the park, is Graze in Bowness-on-Windermere.

Norah Yes! I'm an Edith Piaf fan - delicious

I had to chuckle when Debbie McGee's veggie option on Master Chef last night was mushroom rrisoto.

Does anyone eat at Mamie's in Covent Garden? Lovely veg.

At least we agree with each other, Jalima.

Snap
it just took me longer to type!

HMarie

My friend says she is vegetarian but in fact she is a pescetarian as she will eat fish.

Pescatarians, HMarie.

I do like steamed beetroot and it goes in all my salads.

'Being tarred with their fishy brush' love it! ?

As a vegetarian of 25 years' standing, my pet hate (apart from goat's cheese, blue cheese, beetroot, etc) is that so many fish-eaters have jumped on my bandwagon. I wish someone would invent a word they could use, or rather WOULD use, as I resent being tarred by their fishy brush. And it's really annoying to go into a restaurant and ask what veggie dishes there are, only to be shown the fish section of the menu.

Quick recommendation though. I recently bought M&S's new beetroot and lemon filled pasta (you only taste the lemon, not the beetroot!) and am now addicted to it. Heavenly fresh taste.

The same tired mushroom risotto, goats cheese tarts and pasta are served up in Australia too. Super salads are gaining popularity which is good.

One of the worst and I have had a few awful meals was a pasta dish. The only vegetarian meal was predictably risotto as a main dish and pasta as a entree. I asked could I have the pasta as a main dish, yes he said we can bulk it out. It was terrible, bulked out with green uncooked beans, hardly any pasta, so half cold.

We had an Indian meal the other night, the type of food that makes you go mmmmmm. Home cooked though, DD made butter chicken and rice, I made Tarkadal and a potato and cauliflower dish, DS made naan and DIL made samosas but used puff pasty and a recipe that was very spicy and I could have eaten them all week, they were so delicious. Except for the meat that I never eat it was far nicer than most restaurants, we really can cook delicious food and I love it when my family get together and do their best dishes for a family meal.

Yes, it was just before we moved from York that they moved. I have been here seven years.
It's somewhere to go for a special treat, not an everyday meal. Unless you are millionaires, of course. Take someone you want to impress.

durhamjen I don't live in central London - we're not millionaires! However, I worked in Chancery Lane about 10 years ago so I assume Vanilla Black was opened after that time. I'll look out for it when I'm next in the area.

My grandson often eats me out of tofu. Delicious.
Sounds like you really gave vegetarianism a chance, Coco.

It's just a shape, Jalima. I never eat bacon, but sausages are just a shape, as are burgers. The only reason sausages are that shape is because they were stuffed inside the animals intestines. That did require imagination!

Why do vegetarians eat vegetarian 'sausages', 'bacon' and stuff that looks like mince? I have eaten the stuff that looks like mince in a chilli but why copy meat with look-a-like products? Surely more imagination is needed?

I tried veggie for a few months. Nut roast on Xmas day and missed my turkey, but the thing that really sent me racing back to meat was tofu in a Thai restaurant. Yuk!

I doubt whether anyone else read it that way, durhamjen.