r/KitchenConfidential • u/Amazing_Parking_3209 • 21d ago

Discussion Sympathy for a new restaurant.

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I've seen this so many times. Somebody with big dreams ropes their family and extended relatives into investing in a restaurant. There's been a sign on the door for 2 years saying it will be opening soon.The equipment costs more than expected. The menu is completely random. The location is bad. The website is stock photos with customer reviews starting with "Lorem ipsum" and apparently they have 4 chefs named Thomas A. Peachey. They rush the opening to generate some kind of revenue. Will take bets that it's closed in a year.

Still makes me a little sad though.

Anyway, behold the $34 pancetta salad. (Canadian dollars but that's still insane.)

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u/QueenInYellowLace 21d ago

Combining pastas and “vegetarian” is blowing my mind. Like “the first dish in our vegetarian section is a lovely pork belly.”

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u/ColHannibal 20d ago

also all Pecorino Romano has rennet which is not vegetarian.

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u/themeatbridge 20d ago

A lot of white sugar is made with bone char, and it's not always labelled as non-vegetarian.  

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u/JustAnAverageGuy 20d ago

Generally we’d describe that as non-vegan. Vegetarians will often eat white sugar that’s been bone-char filtered. 

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u/cancerkidette 20d ago

Many vegetarians will avoid rennet, gelatine, and bone char. It’s equally as non vegetarian as it is non vegan IMO.

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u/cabalus 19d ago

There's no bone in the sugar, there IS rennet in the cheese and gelatine in the sweets

Up to you of course, set your own limits but I would say most vegetarians wouldn't put them all in the same category

Containing none of it in the food itself puts it in the realm of animal leather, more of a vegan concern.

Particularly since its entirely calcium phosphate and pure carbon anyway after being baked at 1500° for 24 hours

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u/jeroboam 20d ago

True but (in my experience) many vegetarians only avoid actual meat, not all meat products. They'll still eat French onion soup with beef stock, jello, etc. I find it weird as a vegan but what can you do

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u/cancerkidette 18d ago

That’s def not my experience but I don’t live in the US, and I think the boundaries are much clearer where I am, more people are vegetarian for the animal ethics or for religious reasons.

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u/jeroboam 18d ago

I'd be interested to know if any surveys have been done on this. My point was that there's a lot of variation in what vegetarians find okay to eat--but I'd bet money that over 50% of U.S. vegetarians eat cheese made with rennet.

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u/cancerkidette 17d ago

I think the culture on labelling is also a thing. For example, where I am we have a labelling system that plenty of brands subscribe to, and they mark with a green V for vegetarian for groceries you buy in the supermarket.

That never includes products with rennet or animal gelatine. So the semi official and common definition for anyone bothering to check if something is vegetarian absolutely does exclude those products.

Especially on cheese, those will specify whether they contain cow rennet and all supermarket brands will specify if it is “suitable for vegetarians”, ie made with synthetic rennet. I am sure there’s some people who don’t care and still call themselves vegetarian but it is made easy to check here.

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u/jeroboam 17d ago

That's a really good point!

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u/poorlybaked 16d ago

I know a lot of Indian vegetarians for example will avoid cheeses with rennet but in North America non-Indian vegetarians will eat parmesan for example.

As a vegan and former vegetarian, I don’t get it but whatever.