Oh to be a vegetarian (not)
Before starting my own SEO & Internet Marketing company, I had been in the hospitality industry for over 20 years. During this time worked in many 3, 4 & 5 star establishments, many had multiple AA rostettes as a recoginition for the standard and quality of their cuisine and dining experience.
In many cases, certainly in the late 80′s and early 90′s, the menus mainly served meat, poultry and fish dishes with a bland and uninspiring vegetarian option, should anyone require it. It is widely known (although not accepted) that many chefs considered preparing and serving vegetarian dishes a ‘personal slight’ on their carefully prepared and thought out carnivorous-based menus.
Thankfully times have changed and vegetarians are no longer catered for as if a pariah of the cullinary world, so all is well ….
Well no actually all is not well.
Each to His Own
I am married to a beautiful, whitty and life-loving lady, we share many things in common and the enjoyment of good food is just one. My wife is more than partial to anything of the sea – enjoying nothing more than cracking open a few langoustines, plucking a few mussels or laying open a lobster or two.
I however am a meat eater through and through and do not eat anything that swims (or ever has swum during its maritime life). This makes it difficult when choosing a restaurant, ‘gastro-pub’ or dining venue, my wife would choose a seafood restaurant every time.
Most seafood restaurants cater for ‘non-seafood’ eaters though so the experience for me should be equally as good regardless of my lack of taste for seafood right? WRONG!
I seem to be visiting an increasing number of seafood restaurants that offer a slim range of meat-eating alternatives, with the ones offered being bland, unimaginative and generally just there to ‘make up the numbers’.
Not ‘Anchored’ in Reality
We recently visited The Crown & Anchor Inn in Findhorn for Sunday lunch. This pub ‘shouts’ of specialising in fresh local seafood; scallops, mussels, crab etc., but has something for everyone -
The bland (tiny) pate starter, bolstered by salad and without the red onion marmalade that was billed, was a steal at £4.95 – a steal from our pockets! The ‘usual suspects’ main courses were all there sticky chicken (whatever the hell that is!), steak and a chilli con carne.
I plumped for the chilli (at not far off a tenner!) and oh what a mistake – bland, bland, bland! no seasoning, no flavour and no thought as to how to properly put together a classic dish, however the seafood theme was maintained as my poor ground beef was ‘swimming’ in oil!
A quietly placed yet inevitable complaint met with a spirited defense of said dish and the comparison that ‘a whole container’ had been sold with no complaints, no complaints, how very British – this strange equation meant that there was nothing wrong with my meal!
I left feeling let down, ripped off and having had a dining experience that must have been very much like those vegetarians in the late 80′s & early 90′s.
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