Ferret Herder, That is unfortunate. That is the result of last minute scrambling that Phase42 mentioned in his post. I hope you took the time to complain, because that is poor customer service. The cook likely didn’t care about what he/she was making, and the server was too clueless to realize that plate was not servable.
Thanks. You’re right. I would be surprised. I’ve never seen people fail to let the organizers know in advance and expect to get fed. I will throw in a caveat though that when the organizers are silent on the issue, this can lead to bad situations. Generally, the event invitation will say, let us know if you’re a vegetarian when you RSVP. If you don’t do this, you are SOL , IMO.
The cheese sandwich wouldn’t work for me. I’m a vegan. No cheese and no mayonnaise and once the mayonnaise hits the bread, the bread’s no good for me either.
But I’ve gotten extra helpings of veggies before. And sometimes other people on the table will give me their veggies if they don’t want them.
Making a "special’ vegan meal is no easy task with limited ingredients. At some restaurants, the best they can do for me is lettuce on a plate.
Catered events are really difficult, especially when you’re dealing with lots of different dietary restrictions. I’ve done the planning for much, much smaller events than you’re talking about, Phase42, and it was still a complete pain in the ass, so you have my complete sympathy.
I recently switched to a vegan diet myself and food options are always at the forefront of my mind when it comes to eating away from home, but there are people who pull this switcheroo at the last moment. My personal theory is that they aren’t really vegetarians/vegans, but don’t grasp how the food is really being prepared and have gotten it into their heads that if they just complain they’ll get more meal options.
I just don’t think most people really understand what it’s like cooking for large catered events, or even what’s on hand in your average restaurant. Every ingredient has to be accounted for in some way. There usually isn’t a whole lot lying around to be whipped up into some surprise, unplanned dish.
This happens ALL the time and really upsets me. I’ll be sitting at the table when the wait staff asks who has a vegetarian meal. And invariably someone on the table says, well, I ordered the chicken but that looks so good, I think I’ll have that. Sometimes I’m lucky and someone with a clue will explain to them that would leave less for people who really need them. But sometimes not.
If you’d like to Pit the meat-eaters who steal vegetarian meals at conventions, please do. But since I’ve sat right in front of them when they did this, I don’t think they’d get it.
So I’ll ask for more advice and then give some as well.
What do I say to the people that do the above behavior while still remaining polite? Please remember that this is my meal that’s disappearing in front of me.
And here’s my advice to you. If you have any authority over wait staff, please tell them to take a few extra seconds and ask if the person getting a vegetarian meal ordered it in advance before they serve it to them.
And Ovo-Lacto meals. And no wheat-gluten meals. And Low carb. And no shellfish. And Kosher- Conservative and Observant. And Muslim. Nut allergies. And now you have dozens of meals that may never be eaten, so everyone without a special preference has to pay double. :rolleyes: Why not just just reserve in advance?
**
Rubystreak** “*Stir fry with rice or noodles. Burrito with beans, not meat. Vegetable curry. Pizza. A nice big salad, with bread. I mean, this isn’t so hard, is it?” *
Oh, no, not hard at all. :rolleyes: All you have to make sure is the Beans are vegetarian. Some will want cheese on their bean burritos and others won’t. Some insist upon rennetless cheese. Same with the pizza- vegan cheese is nasty to most but others can’t eat any animal products, others can eat cheese but only rennetless cheese. Some breads are OK, others aren’t (some breads use a bit of milk or other animal products, like honey). Eggs are in many salad dressings and thus are verboten to many. There are scads of different types and sorts of vegetarians. It isn’t simple at all.
How about, “Excuse me, but that’s my order.”
If this happens as you say it does, that someone actually admits they ordered chicken but would now prefer your meal, and the server gives it to them, that server’s behavior should immediately be taken up with management.
While I’ve never done this before, my guess would be that their response would be, they probably have extras. You’ll get your meal.
Generally, the wait staff just serves those with their hand up. And the person has their hand up. The person admitted to ordering the chicken before the wait staff got to the table. I could call the person out in front of them, but I also have to sit with them at the same table for the rest of the convention. And if there really were extra vegetarian meals available, they may not be happy with me.
I’m interested in what Phase42 says about this because the wait staff playing interference helps me out quite a bit here.
So that when the customer places the special order in advance, but it gets lost in the wash, the catering kitchen can quickly, easily and inexpensively solve the problem, rather than lose that customer’s company’s future business, as happened with more than one caterer in my case.
In which case, seriously, I would say something to the server along the lines of “If you have any extra vegetarian meals, could you see that the gentleman who changed his mind about the chicken gets one?” I would assume you also raised your hand when the server asked who ordered vegetarian (since you actually did.) In that case, I would think most servers would do a quick head count and think, “Hm, I seem to have one more vegetarian than I have meals allotted for. Something is amiss.”
But as I pointed out- they can’t “quickly, easily and inexpensively solve the problem” without having a dozen varieties of meals and several of each.
One of the really terrific things about working in a vegan catering outfit in which the boss was my SO, was that when we went out to dinner, she would arrange for a kitchen tour of where ever it was we were eating. Inevitably it led to some very enjoyable meals, usually with the chef if it was later in the evening. Most chefs were interested in learning more about preparing vegan food at something beyond the twigs and shrubs level.
The downside was when I moved to northwesten Ontario, where many of the restaurants have signs outside advertising “Worms Food Gas”, people eat their own road kill, and vegetarianism is a form of communism. I am now back to eating meat.
No, it doesn’t take a dozen varieties. It only takes a few. It’s just a matter of finding entrees that each satisfy as many special conditions as necessary (e.g. an entree that is vegan and non-gluten and low carb at the same time etc.), with one condition being that the entree can be frozen.
Bear in mind that the more happy tummies there are after a meal, the better the odds of being re-hired. When people who have made special requests end up watching others eat while they go hungry, it is not good for return business.
I guess I was thinking of what we call smorgasboard or buffet style food. Here this is very standard for conferences and work type functions. There is no problem therefore having many types of salad dishes and vegetable dishes that anyone will be interested in, as well as meat and diary dishes.
Even the milk for coffee and tea has a varity of skim, full cream, soy etc.
Early last year (right before I came to work in this place) they catered a convention of Orthodox Jews. One of the cooks was telling me all about it. He said it was difficult, but fascinating and educational at the same time. First the kitchen had to be completely inspected by rabbis. A rabbi sterilized all the countertops with a blowtorch; rabbis inspected all of the prepackaged food, observed while every box was opened, observed how the food was prepared, etc. The convention center purchased brand new sheet pans to cook the food on. The staff was not allowed to work on the Sabbath, so all of Saturday evening’s food was prepared before sundown on Friday and kept in warmers until sundown on Saturday.
He said the convention attendees were extremely pleased with how everything was handled.
I’m just the dishwasher (was a cook for 23 years, though) so I don’t have any authority over them until they start bringing back the dirty dishes. But they don’t listen to me anyway.
Anyway, what usually happens is that everybody who pre-ordered vegetarian/vegan is given a card to place next to their setting, and those people are given the appropriate plates. Then the servers come running back to the kitchen to get the cooks to make more for the “unannounced” vegetarians.
I was cooking in a restaurant when a lady came in one day and ordered a cold turkey sandwich. I made the turkey sandwich, and the server delivered it. Then she brought it right back. It seems the lady was allergic to mayonnaise. “Well why didn’t she say so?” I asked. The server replied, “She said she didn’t realize it came with mayonnaise.” 
I don’t think I’ve ever worked or eaten in a restaurant where the cold deli sandwiches didn’t automatically come with mayonnaise. No biggie, though. I slapped together a new sandwich sans mayo, and ate the first one myself 
We do that when the group wants a buffet. Something for everybody!
This reminds me of a conversation a friend I had a couple weeks ago.
My friend – let’s call her Sweet Thang, just 'cuz – is getting married this summer, and we were talking about what she was going to serve at the reception dinner. Now, Sweet Thang and her sister are both vegans, as well as a few other people who were attending. (It should probably be noted that my friend is not a vegan for ethical reasons.) I asked what seemed to me to be a reasonable question: Would she be serving a vegan or vegetarian entree? She responded thusly:
“Oh, no! I’m not being a vegan. I’m eating meat on my wedding day!”
Of course, I put on my best sexy voice and said, “Sooooo, you’re eating . . . meat . . . on your wedding day?” Eyebrow wriggle, elbow nudging.
I truly have the sense of humor of a fourteen-year-old boy.
By the way, there are going to be more vegan options than salad on the buffet at said wedding.
One of my cousins is vegetarian (no meat, no fish, yes milk, yes eggs) except when it’s absolutely not available. He hasn’t gone to any family functions for years, except for his brother’s wedding. At the wedding, where every single dish included either fish or meat, our aunt asked the groom “I’m wondering, has Yourbrother actually eaten anything?”
“Eeeh… no…”
“Isn’t. That. Interesting.”
We reckon he’s still bleeding from that wound, but dangit, it was deserved; if someone should have considered “unusual menus” it’s a person who was living with one! For her son’s wedding, a few years later, they sent the menu with the invitations and asked people to say which option they wanted. Makes everybody’s life a lot easier.
…kia ora!
Just to get my qualifications in order: I’ve been in hospitality since 1994, and in the Functions and Catering business since 1996. I’ve owned my own catering company, managed the front-of-house side for the State Dinner for HRH the Queen in 2000, am currently a Functions Co-ordinator with an Iconic Wellington Functions Venue, and I am also a very Banquet Bear… 
Large event catering is essentially a battle of logistics. The question the kitchen asks daily is “How do I get this meal in front of the guest in as close to peak condition as possible?” One of our venues is about ten minutes walk from our Main Kitchen. Food is pre-cooked, blastchilled, refrigerated, regenerated by combi ovens, transfered into alto-shams or thermal jackets, transported, finished, then served. (We have a fairly high tech kitchen: most other venues are more traditional.) And the meals aren’t served out a service kitchen, they are plated up on several trestle tables in an elevator lobby!
As you can imagine: when you are ten minutes away from the nearest oven, whipping up a simple pasta dish is not the easiest or most practical of things to do. So how does our venue prepare for any vegetarian surprises?
Our first step is the “co-ordination” stage. It is our job to guide our clients: point them towards menu choices that “work” and push to get dietary requirement information as accurate as possible. If the client chooses to go with a no-choice main course: selecting a seafood main is typically a recipe for the situation discribed up thread where non-vegetarians all of a sudden become “vegetarian.” More people prefer meat to seafood, a substantial minority don’t like to eat seafood: guiding clients towards sensible menu choices helps reduce “spontaneous vegetarianism.”
For every dinner our kitchen prepares 10% vegetarian meals, inclusive of any special dietary orders. The cost of any wastage is factored into our menu price. (We are classed as a premier venue, and this is reflected in our pricing.) Our vegetarian meals are also gluten free. So if we get hit by spontaneous vegetarianism, our venue is pretty well covered. But it is important to bear in mind that we can achieve this simply because of our price point and our brand positioning: other venues simply can’t afford to go to the same lengths as we do to make things seem seamless.
Just in case anyone is interested: in New Zealand vegetarianism is quite common, but veganism is relatively rare. We average at least one gluten-free person per 150 meals, and a dairy free about every 400 meals. The requirement for Orthodox Kosher meals over here is extremely rare: (normally overseas delegations) although I did work one Orthodox function that, as alluded to by Phase42 upthread, was fascinating to watch.
Please don’t bother. As someone who doesn’t eat gluten, and isn’t a huge fan of salads (which I eat tons of), my solace in life is that I still eat cheese and meat and mayo and eggs - a gluten free vegan meal is a salad or steamed veggies. Like lots of vegetarians I’ve met (and I know lots of vegetarians), I’d rather just not get anything at all than a plate of steamed veggies or a salad passed off as a meal. My vegetarian friends happen to like bread. Its hard to feed all of us in a room - and we’ve been feeding all of us together for years - the vegetarians and the gluten free and the lactose intolerant,
Either take the orders in advance and come up with several menu options - they can be flexible options - or don’t bother and just offer an entree salad - cheese and croutons and maybe turkey and egg on the side.
Why don’t people read posts before they reply? He’s not bent out of shape about “what to serve”. This isn’t a dinner party in someone’s house, it’s a professionally catered event. Why are people so incredibly self-centered and rude that they would fail to notify anyone in advance (remember, his complaint is not that orders are being lost, but that they are never being placed by the people who want veg*n food) and then demand that their special need be accommodated anyway?