Wednesday, August 16, 2006

something fishy goin' on

So, Bertie is now a vegetarian. It's a good thing that he doesn't tend to frequent ski resorts. I had another hilarious Thredbo vegetarian experience.

This time around, we had a similar deal with the accomodation, breakfast included every day as well as three dinners. The restaurant had a Thai menu, though they also had a small western menu, for variety. They had helpfully marked the vegetarian items: one entree, one soup, and two mains. Poor compared to your average Thai restaurant, but not too bad for Thredbo. However, one of the mains with a 'V' next to it contained oyster sauce. I asked if oyster sauce indeed contained fish or oyster, and if so, could soy or some other sauce be substituted? The message back from the chef was: yes, a little bit; and yes, but (hmph) it wouldn't taste as good.

Call me paranoid but I feared an attack of chef-rage. That sort of chef might be the sort of chef who will spit in my plate in retaliation for my show of disrespect. This is exactly what I don't like about fancy restaurants. You're supposed to sit down, shut up, and eat the food exactly the way the chef decides to prepare it. Maybe I'm not much of a gourmet, I just prefer somewhere a bit more flexible. It's not like I was mucking around with the dishes just for fun. I was only suggesting that a vegetarian meal be made actually vegetarian.

So I ploughed through Pad Thai on three different nights. I do quite like Pad Thai, though I won't be ordering one for a while now.

3 comments:

Bertie Mabootoo said...

I must admit, in my past gluten-free days, I've been treated fairly well by chefs/restaurants, it's just been food labelling that's messed me up. On that note, though, I bought some "Garden Vegetable" cup a soup a few weeks back, thinking that sounded fairly meat free, but on closer inspection it had bacon in it...

zjcroft said...

I also love Pad Thai but its one Thai dish that is frequently screwed up. I had a very bad experience about a year ago (actually I haven't had it since), there was so much chilli involved that I couldn't taste a thing, totally ruined....I once attempted to make Pad Thai at home, don't know what happened but it was so disgusting that I threw it out!

Olivia said...

I've tried at home too, with a jar of 'Pad Thai' sauce and it didn't taste anything like it. It's a mystery... or just my meagre cooking skills