Can I rant for a minute? .... Where's my soap box?... is this thing on??
For the most part, vegetarianism in the Twin Cities is easy to do. A good number of great restaurants cater to us weirdos exceptionally well, but every so often a GREAT restaurant (the one everyone is talking about) forgets about us. Can't win them all, right? Some of the GREAT ones I often hear about are 112 Eatery, Butcher & the Boar, Brasa, Fogo de Chao to name a few... And after I hear all these lovely words and rave reviews, the reviewer (realizing they are talking to me) says, "Oh, but they don't have a whole lot of vegetarian".
Because I have heard this so many times, I've never bothered to take a close look at the menus of the aforementioned. Today I did. And today I got REALLY excited and then got REALLY disappointed within the span of a few minutes.
I checked out Brasa's homepage. I hit 'Food' in the upper right hand corner. 'Food' populated a list of MENUS in the lower right hand corner. Holy shit!!! 'Minneapolis Vegetarian'. Could it be?! A whole special menu dedicated to my diet?
Turns out, it can't be true. Well, it can in name, but not in content. The vegetarian menu simply listed the meat-free items from the standard menu... but in a vegetarian font with lots of extra vegetarian spacing. As if we don't realize the candied yams are probably a safe bet. Sigh. I thought I won. Perhaps, this attempt at a Vegetarian Menu was just a chance to spare us all the reading (which maybe I appreciate a little...).
I probably wouldn't be ranting about this if it wasn't for one thing - the thing that pushed me over the edge, even to the point of being somewhat (and totally stupidly) offended. Listed under Lunch Specials, that one thing was the item listed as Side Plate Special. Oh thank you for this very special option made just for us vegetarians!! Thanks for telling me to combine all the extras and sides to make something unique and satisfying for my entire meal!! I'm so excited to eat all the things that meat-eaters generally ignore on your menu!! Yay, what a great day to be a vegetarian! Yeah, the sarcasm is thick and the offence is snarky.
For the record, I will outright say... I will go to Brasa, I will order the side plate special and I will probably love every bite of it. This is not a critique on their food in the least bit. But what bugs me about the Vegetarian Menu approach is this: It's a poor attempt to cater to us outcast eaters. You call out to us directly using words like Vegetarian and Vegan, and then fall short on delivery. Presenting us with nothing but the things that happen to be meat-free. I don't mind if you are a restaurant that doesn't cater to me, but please don't pretend that you do. Please stop getting me all excited with claims of vegetarianism! I'd much rather keep showing up expecting to be disappointed and then discover that you have several sides that I can patch together a whole meal out of and feeling rather proud and crafty about it...
because, really, you don't speak vegetarian very well at all.
written September 16, 2011 - Mary
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