As I have only recently decided to dive into the world of vegetarianism it's never occurred to me how difficult eating out may be. I was given a quick glimpse into that this past Wednesday though. I left the restaurant feeling like a bit of a failure... until I justified it. Then I was okay. Mostly.
Normally my daughter and I have a 'Mommy & Daughter date' every Thursday night. We head to a chain restaurant that is just over a mile from the house and have dinner. We've been there so frequently the hosts recognize us now. Anyway, this past week we had to change the day of our date night because I was scheduled to work a special function. We shuffled it up a day to make the next night more bearable for her. Unfortunately for me, this meant I was supposed to eat vegetarian.
I didn't think it would be that hard, maybe get a veggie burger, a salad, or worst case a pasta dish. There was surely one dish, right? Unfortunately not. There was no mention of veggie burgers, plus every burger came with bacon too. Every salad had chicken. Every pasta dish came with shrimp or chicken. Even the 550 calories and under menu had meat on every dish. The only two vegetarian options came on the appetizer menu, fried green beads and bar pretzels. Great.
I considered getting my usual dish, a salad, without the chicken. But I know (approximately) what a salad costs to make and without the chicken they would be making a really good profit margin off my dish. Everyone knows that the protein is the most expensive part of the dish. I just didn't feel right paying full price when about half the cost was missing. So... I gave up. I got my usual salad as is, with dressing on the side. My daughter happily was allowed to have her usual mini burgers and fries.
As for my justification? I ate vegetarian Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday already. And I could do it again easily on Thursday, I would just pack my dinner for work. So surely those 'extra' days would make up for my failure on Wednesday right?
No comments:
Post a Comment