Saturday was my husband's company picnic. We decided to take the granddaughters. We knew they would have a blast with all of the activities planned for kids. I have to admit, I was impressed, not only with everything they did for the employees and their families, but the thought put into it. They had a vegan food option, which was a pleasant surprise. It was an awesome veggie wrap. They also had all kinds of blow ups for the kids, everything from a bouncy house to an obstacle course, a huge slide and a giant blown up slip and slide with water spraying in all directions. There was miniature golf, bingo, giveaways, face painting, and a giant monster truck called The Raminator that we could ride in. They had snow cones from a Mahomet youth club and two other local vendors (who are regularly at the farmer's market) with free goodies for us. There was definitely no lack of things to do. With a heat index that day of 105, the water slide was a huge success. Both girls loved it, especially Kaia, who went on it at least 30 times. :) They both got a kick out of The Raminator, surprisingly Lexi liked it the most. Of course, both girls wanted their face painted.
Lexi loves Minnie Mouse. This is early in the process.
My little Hello Kitty.
We were all pretty exhausted when we left (we were there for almost 4 hours). I gave the girls baths when we got home and that seemed to revive them, although Lexi hated to wash the remnants of her Minnie Mouse off. :)
We decided to go to a local Italian restaurant for dinner, my husband had a half off certificate he had purchased earlier. I ordered a vegetarian pasta that had tomatoes, black olives, onions sauteed in olive oil and fresh basil, omitting the parmesan cheese sprinkled on top to make it vegan (or so I thought).
This is the picture I took before realizing what was wrong.
I had clarified with the waitress that the dish was vegetarian, and that the only dairy or egg in it was the cheese sprinkled on top. She also double checked my salad dressing and left the croutons off of my salad.
She was very nice and I thought we understood each other. I never try to be difficult, but I am specific. I was enjoying my dinner, when about a third of the way into it, something tasted fishy (literally). I started looking through my pasta and I found pieces of anchovy! I was upset and got the waitress's attention. When I mentioned the anchovy, she said "Oh sorry, they use one as a secret ingredient in the sauce, but they don't usually leave it in when it's served." I told her it's not vegetarian when it has fish in it, which anchovy is. She apologized and took the dish away. I wasn't going to finish it, and at this point I had lost my appetite so I didn't want anything else. I didn't want to ruin dinner for everyone, so we stayed, and my husband and the girls finished their dishes. When our bill came, they had taken $3 off of a $14 dinner for my inconvenience. Still trying to be diplomatic, I spoke to the manager about the confusion. She also commented that the anchovy is a secret ingredient, but that it can be made without it to be vegetarian. I pointed out that unless my server asked the chef for me, I have no way of knowing to ask for it to be made without anchovy, since I wasn't even told it had anchovy in the first place. They did end up taking my dinner off the bill, which I'm glad they did, but more than that I wanted them to understand what was wrong. I tried not to be the 'crazy vegan lady' but I don't know how well I did. Have you ever had a similar situation and if so how did you handle it?
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