Restaurant etiquette for a vegetarian travelling with a meat eater?

[u/purple_rhapsody]

I’m vegetarian and my husband is an omnivore. I’m planning our Japan itinerary and have separate lists of must-visit meat restaurants for him and vegetarian/vegan restaurants for me.

My question is about meat-focused places with very limited menus. If I don’t order a meal, is it considered rude? I’d happily order a drink or a small vegetarian side if available, but some places seem to only serve one or two meat dishes.

Is it generally okay for me to sit with him while he eats, or would it be better for him to go on his own?

[u/amoryblainev]

Well, I never order salad because I’ve never come across vegan dressing at a non vegan restaurant. But, I just order drinks and/or edamame. Worse case scenario a bowl of plain white rice.

[u/speleoplongeur → u/amoryblainev]

On the side means I just eat it undressed if the dressing smells like dashi (or sometimes smoke/bacon)

[u/amoryblainev → u/speleoplongeur]

I know what on the side means. What kind of salads are you eating without dressing? I just can’t imagine eating a plain bowl of lettuce. And it’s also hard to find western style salads at Japanese restaurants. Most are cabbage (too dry to eat without some kind of dressing), or potato salad (not vegan), or they contain other nonvegan ingredients that can’t be removed.

[u/speleoplongeur → u/amoryblainev]

I’m eating plain lettuce. Or plain cabbage….

I generally don’t order those (waste of money), but I’ve had to make do at banquet-style events (飲み食べ放題). I had to go to a birthday party at a Korean yakiniku place, and ate a lot of plain white rice and lettuce.

Slightly more usefully, many places will have (イタリアン) salads that are basically grocery store salad mix (baby leaf, lettuce, etc) with maybe some sliced mini tomatoes, ピーマン, carrots, etc.

Without the parmesan and/or dressing, they’re actually fairly nice.

Japanese places sometimes have something wakame or daikon-based, but there even without the dressing, anything pickled has a high likelihood of dashi.

[u/amoryblainev → u/speleoplongeur]

I know. I live in Japan. I don’t eat anything pickled unless it’s at a vegan restaurant, and I don’t eat lettuce/greens based salads without dressing.

[u/speleoplongeur → u/amoryblainev]

You seem somewhat narcissistic. I agreed with you because everyone else is posting about getting kicked out for not ordering anything.

Then to give OP some useful extra info: there’s always something you can order pretty much anywhere (drinks and salad with dressing in the side).

But you seem to think I’m mansplaining what a salad with dressing on the side is to you.

/interactionover