Phil and I went to a nice cafe last weekend, that we had been to once or twice before. It is situated in a renovated old Lane House, and judging by the prices, the western menu and the English-speaking waiters it is clearly catering to the ex-pat crowd. For the sake of anonymity I will thinly veil the identity of the place by calling it Roquette.
Upon perusing the menu I decided that the vegetarian choices were a little slim, and so instead I'd get the Chef's Omlette, which comes with sundried tomatoes, mushrooms, gruyere cheese and ham- but omit the ham.
Waiter:"And what would you like madam?"
Me: "I'll have the chef's omlette, but without the ham please."
Waiter: "Sure, one chef's omlette, no ham."
As he bustled away I started to think that that was too easy for Shanghai, but decided to not be so negative, and trust in the very efficient waiter's skills. But I was eager to see what would happen.
Waiter: "Here madam- one Chef's Omlette, no ham."
I poked at the pink things in the omlette and wondered if they were just bits of tomato, but sure enough they were ham.
Me: "Excuse me, this has ham in it."
Waiter: "Really?"
Phil tastes the meat for me
Phil: "Yes it's ham."Normally at this point the waiters try to argue with me about the meat. There is just so little understanding of vegetarianism here that they can't comprehend that I would want the food entirely without meat. This is the point where they start saying, "oh, but it's chopped very small", or "but it is no good without at least a little sausage". However I was pleasantly surprised that the waiter accepted our explaination and took the plate away without argument.
Waiter: "Sure I'll change it."
Moments later he put the same plate down in front of me.
Waiter: "Excuse me madam, I talked to the chef, and he says that this is NOT ham... it's bacon."After several moments of me opening and closing my mouth like a suffocating fish I finally spluttered:
Me: "But Bacon is Ham! I mean, it's all pig!"
Waiter: "Oh so you don't want bacon either?"
3 comments:
Hehe, this sounds just like dinner at my Dad's place. I was vego for 7+ years yet EVERY time I went round there, they managed to cook me a meal with ham/bacon/whatever meat they could muscle up.
"Oh, you can just eat around it."
I'm sure they'd have a mighty fine business opening a B&B in Shanghai.
Hehehe yeah they'd fit right in for sure!
You know, I say this is bad in China but it is pretty hard to get a veg meal in oz at times once you leave the safe confines of major metropolitan areas. Oh well, c'est la vie.... or c'est la veal?
Lol! wow!
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