Quote:
Originally Posted by Erin Pavlina  As for never being able to eat out ... hahahaha, I would be very unhappy if that were true! We eat out all the time, including mainstream restaurants like Cheesecake Factory, California Pizza Kitchen, PF Changs, not to mention all the vegetarian and vegan restaurants popping up all over the country. |
I'm curious, Erin (and any body else who would like to answer my question)...
What exactly do you order at restaurants such as Cheesecake Factory, California Pizza Kitchen, PF Changs, or <insert name of fairly mainstream restaurant here>?
(Whether or not the restaurants are particular high class and/or fairly deer in price. And feel free to mention things such as desserts, etc.)
I ask because I find it ridiculously difficult to "go out" and find vegan friendly foods that aren't overly bland, highly processed/refined, or inferior to what I could make at home myself (and I’m no chef, so that’s saying something). No restaurants I know of offer any vegan substitutes (apart from maybe tofu, soymilk, or simple things like noodles that aren’t made from eggs), and come to think of it, half of them probably wouldn’t even know what “vegan” means (which doesn’t surprise or worry me, it just doesn’t give me much hope in terms of being able to buy an interesting, satisfying, flavourful meal). I'll admit that I've had some success as restaurants/outlets that serve Asian dishes (since they can usually substitute tofu for any meat, and noodles that don't contain egg for noodles that -- you guessed it -- contain egg), but that's been pretty much the extent of my success.
I'd personally LOVE to order/buy a vegan-friendly pizza from somewhere (I used to love a well made pizza before I was vegan... not the nasty things they pass off as "pizza" from fast food pizza places such as Pizza Hut, though), but with what I'd be stuck with doing (probably tomato paste on a base with some sort of vegetable topping -- no vegan cheese, since it wouldn't be available), I’d be better off making it myself. Although I’d opt
not to do that since I’m yet to find a vegan cheese that doesn’t look/smell/taste completely repulsive or contain
casein.
I’ve made a cheese sauce using nutritional yeast/savoury yeast flakes, but that was a far cry from resembling the taste and texture of actual cheese (not that I expect a cheese substitute to completely resemble cheese, but after sampling what they can do with vegan hotdog frankfurts, and after reading your article on
VegFamily,
Vegan Grilled Cheese and Other Small Miracles, I think they can do a little better then what I have tried so far).
My location may not be helping me (I live in Australia and I don’t live close to a major city that would be more accommodating to things like vegetarianism/veganism because of the higher population), and granted, I’m still quite a newbie vegan and I probably don’t know all of the things I could be substituting various ingredient for when ordering a meal (although I do have your book,
Vegan Family Favourites, so I am aware of a few ideas when it comes to substitutions... and sorry, I linked to Amazon for your book instead of your actual ordering website because Amazon sure does has you beat on price -- maybe not on service, though
), but there must be SOME hope out there for me when it comes to eating out.
So yeah, I’d definitely like to hear from you (and anyone else interested in replying) on this one so when I go out to eat I'm not left with saying:
“Ah, yes, I’ll have the... lets see here... <insert sarcastic tone> oh, so many choices... <insert disappointed, yet unsurprised tone> *sigh*... I’ll have the salad, please.”