Vegeterian and Vegan

[sohail]

I have noticed there are quite a few people who either call and ask, or ask when they come in the restaurant:

"do you have vegetarian options?"

i started putting feelers out, and got a lot or responses regarding vegetarian and vegan food. Quite a few people were actually emotional about the fact that most restaurants do not offer a REAL vegetarian or Vegan meal.

The most complaints i heard was that 90% of restaurants in lancaster offer Pasta Primavera as their vegetarian dish.

It is always the same, either pasta, or a grilled portabella mushroom and some grilled asparagus. The choices are always the same.

I know we are lucky in our restaurant, since our chefs are more than willing to go out of their way and do a good creative vegetarian/vegan meal for the guest. But i think we are pretty much the exception to the rule.

When i open my restaurant (hopefully by October)I was thinking if it is too extreme for me to make a solid 30% of my menu vegetarian and vegan. I thought 20% vegetarian and 10% vegan, and not to forget about desserts, have vegan desserts available also.

Is it just me who feels this way, or do you think that the vegetarian and vegan markets generally suffer from lack of options? At least i think this is the case in Lancaster, where meat and potatoes are good old dutch stand by staple.

[moselle]

Vegetarian options are the norm here in the land of health food and hippies.
I can't think of one resto here that doesn't offer nice veggie options. All the up scale restos have a different dinner specials and there is always a veggie special too.
This is an example of one place in town menu with veggie optionshere .

[Fincher]

I do handmade samosas with mango chutney and cilantro salad. Its vegan so covers both preferances.

vegetarians seem to love it, but occasionally we have people ask whatelse do we offer? the other day a lady came in and asked if we could just make some grilled tofu. When I got word I said sure, and ran out the back door to the health food store and bought some tofu and ran back. When she heard that I was going to buy it she said never mind and ordered the samosa!

I thought about tacking on the price of the tofu and sending it out with the samosa, but I didn't

[cheztom]

Lotsa veggies here as well, so the local places are pretty in tune to offering a good variety. Its the chains that seem to drop the ball on this issue. Here at the college we have a large vegetarian contingent as well as what I call "cross-over eaters" i.e. students who'll eat veggie at least once or twice a week. We have all kinds of stuff in the larder for those folks.

[mark1]

Lots of veggy options also here in L.A. but LOL-you'd expect that wouldn't you!

[lebelage]

I think one of the problems restaurants face in doing excellent vegan and/or vegetarian food is swing in demand.
Because of their lighter, less adorned nature doing mise en place for great composed dishes specifically for vegans/veges can be problematic.
Say you're doing a braised rice bean stuffed grilled travissio roll with a shitake honey vinaigrette, arugula consomme and shaved radishes... one night you get 10 veges, next night you get 2, next night you get 6... 3 of which don't like travissio, one of which doesn't want beans.
The austere nature of non-cheese sauce vege cooking makes the quality of the mise very important.. it can't sit, has to be fresh everyday. This is why smaller upscale restaurants generally don't have several vege options but will be happy to accomodate when called ahead.
If the vege/vegan crowd is one you really want to cultivate then several options are a good idea- just make sure to put your PR in the right place and make sure your location can support it. Otherwise, especially for a start up you may run the risk of having to choose daily to throw out mise or serve veg slightly past its prime- not a happy choice when you're in the red at all.

[marybudchip]

We even have more demand here in Vegas for v/v meals. I am just a student and the chefs at LCB here have been very open to me changing some "classical cuisine" dishes into vegan, once I learn it the traditional way, of course. I am looking forward to shadowing at a v/v restaurant for a week or two to get even more ideas!!! I am in agreement that we need to have more choices for v/v customers, however, I have come to just accept the choices given and be happy with it.

[siuyuk]

what's a vegan?

buddists here are frustrating if you are unaware of it,on certain holidays for them,
they can't eat anything with garlic,spicy,onions,certain herbs, cream, cheese, seafood etc. anything strong! lol.
took me by surprise the first time i was asked to cook for my sis in law. i freaked after preping a private party and my wife tells before service, "oh ya,any of these things in the dishes?"
WTF? NOW you tell me!? (they were already seated) doh!
we had a private dining club and from then on i made sure to ask about religious besides dietary restictions when people made reservations. oy!

[sohail]

Well, it sounds challenging more so than i thought! I guess the best thing that i can do is choose my vegetables wisely and make sure they are applicable to multi use.

I favor indian food, quite a few vegeterain recipes i saw, i wonder if vegeterains are more open to foreign style foods like indian or morrocon, or asian ?

My menu is going to be a Tapas based menu, and i am going to put a variety of cuisines in there, not just spanish. So I'm thinking it might be easier to incorporate vegean/vegeterain food into a multi cultured small portioned cuisines, than into a 4 star restaurant.

What i do not want to do is to offer the old standby ordinary vegeterain items like baba ghanonush and hummus only.
I need to do food for them that will stand out, be very satisfactory, and be innovative enough to outdo the vegeterian dishes other restaurants around this meat and potato county serve.

[Blueicus]

Many parts of South Asia (among other parts of the world) have an extremely rich (I mean varied) history of vegetarian and vegan cuisine extended from Hindu and Buddhist beliefs. Although the really hard core Buddhists (as siu yuk state) have extradordinarily limiting diets at time (like the excemtion of even garlic and onions and strong foods), South Asia is a good area to get started on inspirations for vegetarian and vegan foods.

[BlueChef]

I can't speak for all vegetarians, but I do think that different ethnic cuisne makes a dining experience. I am a vegetarian and have been for about 10 years. I am also a chef in a regular foodservice establishment (I always taste things and create even if it is meat based, I have to you know). One thing that you might consider is taking the ordinary standbys and giving them your own feel, try making the hummus with a different bean season it in a way that isn't typical and serve it with something that isn't the norm. This will help to create a unique experience for your diner and could draw them back. If you are going for vegan be sure to do your homework. Sometimes things that you wouldn't think are not vegan (maple syrup is processed with beef tallow to keep it from foaming over and there are other things like that) I think that giving the v/v something that isn't typical can really broaden your customer base.

[cheztom]

maple syrup is processed with beef tallow to keep it from foaming over

OMG I did not know that - wow.

[SweeTooth]

Sohail - are you thinking of opening in Lancaster city, or along the 'tourist strip' on Rt 30? I think that would make a big difference as to your client base.

[Tj_Mehta]

No, having a vegetarian options won't hinder your business but it will rather enhance it. I am actually vegetarian and I quite get upset if I don't have a vegetarian option, but not only that having good vegetarian food is a plus also. because, I personally wouldn't go to the ones that are lames.

Good Luck!!!!!!

[thecooktoo]

Offering vegetarian meals or specials is nice, but not necessarily profitable for a restaurant. With only 2% or so of the population really vegetarians (and about 10% of those are vegans, now we are talking small numbers), that constitutes a very small percent of the total population. True, another 10% are "leaning" and another 6 or 8% are "interested", that means that the true believers is really a very small % of the poplulation.

My inclination is to make sure that I always offer vegetarian offerings that I can tie to other dishes or other menu items. I rarely design a dish just for vegetarians, unless it is for a dinner party that someone has requested those entrees.

Jim