i was confused about what to put in my mouth
it's our company Christmas party next Monday, and the restaurant requested that everyone select what they wanted to eat from a special Christmas menu so they could order the right amount of food. as always, i had to do the check of the menu for dairy to see what i could eat as every choice was ambiguous as to what it may or may not contain and there were no allergy guidelines. i'm used to it - i often have to ask waiters to consult the chef about allergy stuff, but a couple of things annoyed me this time.
it wasn't just for me - there's someone else attending who's vegetarian and allergic to mushrooms, so they were trying to see if they could come up with a menu that accommodated both requirements for the two of us to save them having to cook separate dishes. our MD's PA was emailing the restaurant back and forth about the menu and just forwarding me their responses, but it really struck me how much apologising was going on from our side. i don't mean to sound impolite here, but we're not fussy eaters, it's not our fault, i don't believe that people with special dietary needs have anything to apologise for. we can either eat something or we can't. i would always be very grateful to someone who took the time to go and ask the chef whether he put cream in the mashed potatoes, but i wouldn't be apologising for inconveniencing him.
this runs on to the second thing that got to me - the representative from the restaurant was not taking it seriously at all. the menu they finally came up with was a starter of soup and a main of vegetable tart, and they hadn't bothered to check whether the soup contained cream or whether the pastry in the tart was made with butter. seriously, if i'd taken them at their word and accepted that the new proposed menu was indeed dairy-free and i'd had a reaction to it on the night, they would have been in serious trouble. (well they could have been, i'm not the suing type but they don't know that.)
rant over. anyway, today is awesome because Threadless have started their holiday sale.
it wasn't just for me - there's someone else attending who's vegetarian and allergic to mushrooms, so they were trying to see if they could come up with a menu that accommodated both requirements for the two of us to save them having to cook separate dishes. our MD's PA was emailing the restaurant back and forth about the menu and just forwarding me their responses, but it really struck me how much apologising was going on from our side. i don't mean to sound impolite here, but we're not fussy eaters, it's not our fault, i don't believe that people with special dietary needs have anything to apologise for. we can either eat something or we can't. i would always be very grateful to someone who took the time to go and ask the chef whether he put cream in the mashed potatoes, but i wouldn't be apologising for inconveniencing him.
this runs on to the second thing that got to me - the representative from the restaurant was not taking it seriously at all. the menu they finally came up with was a starter of soup and a main of vegetable tart, and they hadn't bothered to check whether the soup contained cream or whether the pastry in the tart was made with butter. seriously, if i'd taken them at their word and accepted that the new proposed menu was indeed dairy-free and i'd had a reaction to it on the night, they would have been in serious trouble. (well they could have been, i'm not the suing type but they don't know that.)
rant over. anyway, today is awesome because Threadless have started their holiday sale.