Think Beyond the Mushroom

God help you if you are a restaurant-going vegetarian and don't like mushrooms.

I get that there are many of you out there - meat-eaters and vegetarians alike - that are big fans of the mushroom. I happen to not be one of you. That's alright though. This is not a post debating the merits of the ill-textured little fungus. It's about how, as a vegetarian, I'm constantly subjected to them as my "meat alternative" by so many restaurants - particularly the nicer ones.

My fellow vegetarians and vegans will probably all be familiar with what I'm saying. However, they may not find it to be a problem, for they may adore mushrooms. That said, who couldn't use a little variety? How about some options? How many times have I gone to a nice restaurant only to discover that they only offer one vegetarian dish - Portabella Ravioli. This is especially disappointing to me, as I find the portabella to be the most offensive of the shrooms. 

Last night's dinner was a perfect illustration of the great overuse of mushrooms. Wanting to choose a nice place to have a dinner date and also try something new, Brian and I chose to go to Touche here in Springfield. We chose this partly for the atmosphere and also because we were told they had a separate menu featuring their vegetarian options. The place was beautiful and the atmosphere was right-on - off to a good start. The menus come and as I begin to peruse my options, I start to notice a disturbing trend. Out of maybe ten or twelve vegetarian options in the menu, about 5 were mushroom based and mentioned mushrooms in the name of the dish. I will give it to them, at least they had that many different dishes to choose from - mushrooms or not. The food came, and it was pretty good. But I couldn't help but notice the small pile of mushrooms that appeared on my husband's plate from a vegetarian dish that was NOT one of the aforementioned mushroom-based dishes. Apparently, you're getting them one way or another. 

I find that I encounter this problem mainly at finer dining restaurants. In general, eating out has become much easier for us vegetarians than it was 10 or 15 years ago. I would like to think that trained chefs of nicer restaurants could be a little more creative than relying on one ingredient on which to base their meals.

Dear chefs, 
We beg you, can we please move beyond the portabella burgers, the mushroom risottos, and the portabella raviolis? It would be so nice to enjoy a nice evening out at your fabulous restaurant and actually find something to eat as well. Just don't make it vegetable lasagne; we are tired of that too. 

Sincerely, 
Mushroom-hating Vegetarians of the World