Hello and welcome to Eight Years In. And if you’re a returning reader, welcome back! For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Rebekah. I’ve been vegan for nine years now. And I don’t live in LA or the UK or anywhere that has a ton of vegan options. While this fact can get me frustrated at times, it has brought me some pretty good wisdom for new vegans who may be in a similar situation as I am.
And today, I want to talk to you about getting a vegan meal at a restaurant. Particularly for people who don’t have tons of vegan restaurants around. There is a bit of a learning curve to it, especially in some areas where pickings are particularly scarce. But even if you don’t live in a vegan paradise, you can still get a vegan meal at a restaurant. And that’s what I want to help you with today.
Try happy cow
So the first piece of advice I have for you is to try downloading the HappyCow app or going on their website. (Link here) HappyCow is a database where vegans and vegetarians can go to find the veg-friendliness of the restaurants in their area alongside reviews. I’ve found it to be quite helpful. There’s even a feature that tells you if a restaurant is vegan or vegetarian. This can help you discover options in your area that you didn’t know you had!
For me, there aren’t currently any vegan or vegetarian restaurants in my city. But HappyCow has still been a good addition to my restaurant choosing. Whenever I’m looking at a new restaurant, if I can find it on HappyCow, I’ll know right away if it’s a good place for finding options and if the options there are decent. For me, it makes things a lot easier.
Building up your knowledge
That being said, I didn’t use HappyCow for most of the years that I have been vegan. It existed, but I didn’t really know much about it. Plus, HappyCow is made better by its users so it probably wasn’t as good back nine years ago anyway. What I needed to learn to do was build my knowledge of cuisine in general to make good educated guesses about what might be in my food and ask questions from there.
As the years went on, I learned more about food and cooking, so I was able to realize which kinds of places would be more reliable for me and which places would be more challenging to find something to eat. If you’re just beginning your journey, I wanted to put together a small list of tips that will help get your thinking on the right track to be able to sniff out your vegan options easier.
American-style restaurants usually suck
Okay, so being from the US, I feel it is necessary to say this upfront. If you like American-Style restaurants, I hear you. But most of them are not very vegan-friendly. It’s not even that they sneak animal products into things, but rather they tend to be centered around animal products.
So if you’re looking for some good vegan options and you’re in the United States, I would really recommend you look for restaurants that serve international cuisine. Those are going to have the most interesting options for you. If you’re in the United States and looking for an option at an American Style restaurant, often your option will be fries and a salad, with a Beyond or Impossible burger if you’re lucky. And that (for me) can get old pretty quick.
You don’t have to divulge
So my next tip is that you don’t have to admit that you’re vegan. I know it seems weird to bring this up, but I find that a lot of vegans feel the need to say they’re vegan in these situations because they think it’s going to help. In my experience, it doesn’t.
You’d think it would, right? But this works against us in two ways. First of all, there are still a lot of people who don’t know what veganism is or what it means. So even if they get it that you’re trying to indicate what kind of food and ingredients you will eat, they’re likely not going to know the finer points of vegan food. So you may still get the sprinkle of cheese in your burrito (or whatever) if you put it that way.
The second thing to keep in mind is that some people, whether they understand what veganism is, have a bad emotional memory bonded with the word. And there are a lot of possible reasons for this. In general it boils down to their personal defensiveness of their own choices or having met a not-so-nice vegan in the past. But at any rate, mentioning you’re vegan to people can backfire. While that doesn’t mean that you cannot say it or shouldn’t say it, it can be more drama. I personally would like to avoid that when I’m just trying to order my food.
So what do I do instead? Well, I take a look at the menu item I want to order and simply specify the substitutions that I need. Like if we’re going with the burrito example. I’ll say “this burrito looks good, but can I get it without cheese and instead of the meat, could you just put some vegetables on the grill for me?” That tends to be better received than “is this vegan? Could you make this item vegan?” It takes out the guess work for the other person and side-steps a word that can bring emotional volatility.
What might be in your food
So if you’re vegan you’re obviously not going to be ordering the steak or fried chicken. But there are things that you might not realize may be in your food. And this has a lot to do with what I was talking about, with building your knowledge about food. Here are a couple pointers that you might not have thought about.
Sauté—when vegetables are sautéed, they might be sautéed in butter instead of oil. You’re going to want to ask your server or simply request your vegetables to be sautéed in oil.
Fish sauce—in a lot of Asian cuisine specifically, there are a lot of options for vegetarians and vegans, but you’re going to want to ask to leave out any fish sauce. It’s a condiment often used in flavoring sauces and stir-fries, and it is easy for the cook to leave out when you ask.
Garden salad—A lot of times you may be tempted to think the garden salad or side salad will be an easy vegan option, but if the ingredients aren’t listed, they will often have cheese in them (if not hard boiled egg, or nonvegan croutons or salad dressing already added). So it’s an easy ask to ask what your salad comes with.
Ghee—if you like Indian curries, it can be easy to find food without meat in it. And usually, you know whether or not milk/cream is used in the sauce. But one thing many people may forget about is ghee, which is clarified butter and is often used in curry. It’s another thing that’s easy to as about as long as you’re aware of it.
Simple is not a failing
When it comes to difficult ordering situation, sometimes it’s easiest for everybody to just order very plain food. Now, I know that a lot of modern vegans aren’t going to like this advice, but it’s true. And I’ve done it many a time when it was simply too difficult to figure out what would and wouldn’t be possible to get from a restaurant in terms of options.
It’s true that a plain baked potato and a side of iceberg lettuce do not count as a full meal or make vegan food look super exciting to nonvegans. But sometimes you just have to do what you have to do. Remember, sometimes it’s not about convincing everyone to go vegan in that exact moment. Solving the problem and living the best life you can is sometimes all you can do.
Don’t feel bad
I know this is an odd subheader but I really feel it encapsulates my messages the best that I can. When it comes to being vegan at a nonvegan restaurant, there are a lot of opportunities for both mistakes and awkward moments. And what I really just want to say is, to the best of your ability, don’t take it personally.
Everyone makes mistakes and when you’re dealing with big differences between people, things can be quite emotionally precarious. Just do your best and try to be gentle with yourself if you fall short in some way. As you learn more and get used to your vegan lifestyle, you’ll find yourself more comfortable and capable in these situations. You just need some practice. If you have a hard time accepting your mistakes when it comes to veganism, give this post a read.
Help us learn together!
Thank you for reading my thoughts. If you found this helpful and are interested in other vegan content, please subscribe to the blog for updates when new posts go live. And if you have experience in ordering vegan meals at nonvegan restaurants, give us some of your tips in the comments so that we can all learn from each other. As usual, have an amazing day!