The grumpy vegan

You know it's really not that hard. If you know me you've probably heard or realized that I'm vegan. If you know I'm vegan you probably assume that it's really hard for me to find food that I can eat, or that everything I eat sucks. Well you're wrong: A) I eat some damned good food (if you came to the barbeque please note that we thought that stuff sucked just as much as you did.) B) It really isn't that hard. My department at work just went on a team building dinner. It was fun but I have to tell you setting this up was a pain in the ass, and it wasn't fucking me! Now most of the group is totally cool and will eat almost anywhere. I'm pretty damned flexible myself. I really only have one criteria. I want to go to a place that has one thing I can order off the menu. I mean pretty much anywhere will give you like, pan fried vegitables over rice if you ask but I want to be able to order one thing. That's it, just one thing off the menu. Somehow every place that was decided upon was somewhere that I couldn't. let's just distill this down to something simple. I don't eat meat, milk products, or eggs. Also other shit that comes from animals but those three are in essence pretty easy to spot, everyone with me here? Making dinner plans with someone like me you might think that I probably don't want to go to Ruth's Cris steak house no? Makes sense I might not want to eat there. Seems pretty straight forward to most people. So the first place that is proposed for our team building dinner..... Fondue It's a steak place with the steak removed and REPLACED WITH FUCKING CHEESE. everything they have is cheese. cheesy cheese cheese cheeeeeeese. I don't eat cheese. "they have chocolate." I shit you not they said that. Milk chocolate by the way has milk in it. But aside from that who the hell is going to eat a chocolate fondue for dinner. I didn't want to go to the cheese place, I'd rather eat at home. It's not me it's just that you picked a place as if you where trying to piss me off. We didn't go to an indian place because one of us can't handle spicy food. All I'm asking for is the same respect. You know that they'll make a dish especially for him if he asks but nobody wants to make him do that. Next few places get batted around, everybody has some problem with some place, whatever then we come up with this place called Roy's. O.K. someone not me comes up with this place. No menu online so I call them. Me "What sort of things do you have on the menu that don't have any meat in them?" Them "The way we usually handle that is that you just tell us when you get here and the chef will make you something special for that evening." I haven't even gotten to the milk thing yet. They don't have one single thing on the menu that doesn't fucking have fish in it. honestly steak houses have fucking baked potatoes on the menu half the time. Fucking Outback has things I can order, this place doesn't. Dood, you wouldn't be as big of a bastard as to take the jewish kid to pork-oh-rama would you? I'm just asking for the same respect. It's not a fad, I'm not doing it to irritate you, I'm not doing it for fun. Look into it a tiny bit. You wouldn't treat animals the way they treat the food you eat. Seriously, you wouldn't. Anyway, after trying and failing to explain why I don't want to eat at Roy's I give up and say you know what just pick a place and make reservations. I score, first of she says "Even Roy's." Now, if you where having a conversation with someone and they made a big stink about somehting and eventually gave in and said something like "whatever you want." the thing you do is NOT pick that thing that pissed them off. Pick something related. It's called comprimise. That's how you get basically what you want while not pissing off the person you've just pissed off further. Little tip, when someone says the words "whatever you want" if it isn't the absolute very first most instantanioustest fucking thing they say.... they probably don't mean it. They're probably just saying it because they're sick and fucking tired of discussing it with you and they're more willing to put up with it and fume quietly than they are willing to bitch about it. That being said, back to the score... So "even Roy's" turns into me all but harping on her with an email every couple of days asking if she's made reservations because I was supposed to make them before she vetoed my restaurant choice (not bitter about the veto it was some random pick off the internet.) And I don't want my boss thinking I'm irrisponsible because team building day comes up and we don't have reservations and end up at like denny's or something. So all but harping turns into "I'll make the reservations tomorrow" and "I'll make the reservations tomorrow" turns into "they didn't have a table for us on the day we wanted so we're going to this brazilian place" Now if you've ever heard of or been to a Brazillian barbeque you probably just did the thing that I did in my head which was "Jesus fucking christ woman no. Anywhere you want applies only to restaurants that I can actually have something without meat in it custom ordered. What the hell are you thinking?" If you didn't know, Brazillian BBQ is basically just meat. You have a little indicator on your table green and red. If it's green they bring you meat. If it's red they don't. Really, it's true, ask your Brazillian friend. Apparently at most of them you should be able to order some sort of vegitable but at the ones my norcal friends go to you can't. Also it's just more meat than the american meat place and I didn't think that was possible until I heard of it. At an american place they're going to decorate your plate with rice and garnish or something. The brazilian place they're going to come by with a big hunk of meat on a skewer (literally) and shave some off for you. This place is not a BBQ. That's the score. Fortunately I decide to follow the menu link before I email her back and say "what the fuck where you thinking!" It's a Brazillian restaruant, not a Brazillian BBQ. So no complaints from bob here not only is it not a meatsa only place but it has not one but TWO things on the menu I can order. That's really all it has but it meats my minimum criteria. Honestly, if they have at least one thing on the menu, they'll do something cool for me. If they don't even have one I'm just affraid their little heads will pop off their bodies if I ask. Now to be not just fair but more than fair. There's a ton of shit up there that's kinda bitchy, and deservingly so, but a little bitchy. I'm not entirely sure that they didn't have a table on the day we wanted was entirely an accident. My guesse is that she probably realized what an assinine thing she'd done and wanted to comprimise a little but maybe like most of us had a little issue admiting she was wrong even to her self and sorta accidentally forgot to make reservations at this REALLY fucking popular place in the valley until 2 days before our dinner. That's what I think, and I'm sticking to it. And it was GOOD. Even though they only had like one or two things we could order Oh BTW, of the 10 of us 3 of us don't eat meat. Fucking 30%. it was still good. I loved it. And the waiter was great too. I just asked for something with no meat or milk and he pointed to this one thing (I'd seen it online but missed it on the menu, different font or something and I'm starting to decompose it seems.) I order that and when it's delivered (along with the two others because the 3 of us all get the same thing) he sets mine down separately from the other two and says here, this one is for you.. no butter. I can't tell you how cool it is to have a good waiter that actually connects the fucking dots and thinks of something like that. So that was fun. Work paid for dinner, I finally got to get a little drunk with my boss, food was good, we all laughed at each other's jokes. THE BAND WAS TERRIBLE. everything was good, and that's not just the vodka talking. I think the vodka is typing, but not talking.