“What You Mean, You Don’t Eat No Meat?”

My wife and I have decided to eat more “conscientiously”. We’re eating less meat, and when we do, it’s free-range, farm-assured, line-caught, or similar. It’s a little thing that we think makes a small difference but an important one.

We’re with some friends, and we order from a new takeaway restaurant. We both pick a vegetarian option. Our friends choose something different. I pay and wait.

Half an hour later, I get a message from the restaurant. It doesn’t make any sense so I call them.

Me: “Hi. There’s a problem with my order? The order number is [number].”

Employee: “Yes, yes, we have run out of [meal]. We can do something else?”

I check with my wife quickly.

Me: “Please can we get two [other vegetarian meals]?”

Employee: “No, sold out.”

Me: “Okay, what about [third meal]?”

Employee: “No, sold out. I can do chicken. Chicken is good. Very tasty.”

Me: “What? No. No chicken. Don’t you have any other vegetarian option?”

Employee: “I can do chicken and rice, but no chicken?”

Me: “So… rice. No, that’s not going to work.”

Employee: “It has broccoli in it, too.”

Friend: “What’s wrong?”

Me: “They have no vegetarian meals. Like, at all.”

Friend: “What? I know the owner. Let me try.”

He takes the phone and is able to talk to them properly. Apparently, they haven’t “sold out”. They have a different chef on tonight who doesn’t want to cook vegetarian meals.

Friend: “Sorry, they’re not normally like this. I canceled the order. Shall we look somewhere else?”

We managed to find only one place that did the food we wanted. It had few to no ratings and we had never tried it before. But to be fair, the food was amazing. We ordered from there again the following week.

Our friend managed to speak with the owner of the first restaurant and complain. The new chef was some sort of substitute. They ended up getting rid of him as he clearly wasn’t right for the restaurant.