Literally going to be flying to Paris today.
Good to know I guess lol.
Just in case it’s your first time in France : say “bonjour” when entering a store/ restaurant or when passing someone in an elevator or a staircase. Say “s’il vous plaît” and “merci” every time you ask for or get something respectively. This will save you a lot of nasty stares and displeased reactions. Actually that’s one of the reasons French people have a mean / rude reputation…we are VERY keen on politeness and when someone fails to respect these basic rules, we consider them rude and act rude in return (this analysis is not mine, it’s from a foreigner who lived in France for several years but, as a native french, I think it makes a lot of sense to explain the french mindset)
Thanks for the info! hopefully my Elementary school French comes back to me. (From Canada)
My pleasure! I’m sure it will come back and if you’re in Paris you should be fine even if it doesn’t. :) Enjoy France (in spite of what the world says, we’re not all jerks, I swear!).
If they don’t have oat milk, what should’ve they said?
I’ll go ahead and recommend HappyCow for anyone looking for plant-based options outside of their home community.
They have a map where people can suggest places that have vegetarian or vegan options but are mostly omnivorous, or full on vegetarian or vegan restaurants, cafes, grocery stores, food trucks, you name it. I think HappyCow the company also verifies the places people upload so it’s somewhat vetted.
I find that starting with HappyCow and then cross-referencing with Google Maps or OSM gives me the best results.
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Based
Lots of comments complaining about restaurants not being inclusive, but it’s unrealistic to expect others to bend to your needs.
I can’t go to a vegan joint and get upset when they don’t want to serve me a steak.
Nor can I het upset when a restaurant isn’t Halal.
If you want vegan, go to a place that sells vegan food.
Well it depends. When it’s a decent restaurant, some vegetarian and vegan options would be nice.
But the big issue is the terror vegans demanding on the spot a vegan option when going to a grill room or steak house. Like, wtf did you expect.
My take usually, as a vegan, is call the restaurant a few days in advance (if it is planned like a family dinner or work thing) and ask if they can make me something vegan. If not, no problem, I will deal with it. They are always happy to make me something and are happy with me asking in advance so the chef has time to prepare. But I won’t even bother asking when it’s a business completely based on meat. Like you said, don’t ask for meat at a vegan venue. Goes both ways.
But when I go somewhere for dinner with friends who are vegan or have no issues with vegan food, we usually go to a vegan place or somewhere with a partial vegan menu.
But in the case of the original post, if you don’t like coffee, just order something else in France. They don’t mind if you order water or anything. Just don’t order coffee and ruin it with milk, real or fake. A latte is just making fun of French culture. Or added water, ‘Americano’ is a term invented during the second world war to make fun of Americans who are too pussy to drink coffee like you should.
Latte is an Italian drink. In France it’s café au lait (or café crème in the south), which is generally a breakfast drink, served in a bowl-like cup.
Or go to Starbucks or McDonald’s, plenty of those in France too0
i sometimes work with data from foodchains and it turns out they sell more if they have a vegan and vegetarian option. yet hardly anyone buys any of those products - customers just want to feel inclusive.
if vegan food would be good the vegans should easily be able to run restaurants. but it is just in some hip spots where ppl actually consune the vegan food.
so we asked a few hundred in a webform i had to make and 99.9% said they like that vegan is an option but ordered meat. i think the question was something like why vegan food was part of their reasoning to come here in the first place and most wrote to not exclude workbuddies.
as long as foods just immitate other food to be able to sell it (e.g. vegan doner or burgers) I wont eat it. if it is a good vegan dish…go.
But the big issue is the terror vegans demanding on the spot a vegan option when going to a grill room or steak house.
This has ≈never happened.
Even with meat-based venues it depends. I went to a 1-star steak restaurant and we asked what they would do if someone asked for a vegan menu. They absolutely do accommodate it as long as they know in advance.
Though to be fair it’s a bit different than your average steakhouse
Offering at least one option that don’t include factory farmed food, that caused a lot of animal suffering in it’s production, should be the bare minimum.
“When I specifically go to a restaurant run by animal lovers and I can’t even get any dead animals from them, you shouldn’t be able to get food that didn’t harm animals in any restaurant!”
Wow. I guess there really are people who want to make it even harder to avoid causing cruelty, for no reason… Just why?
Reactionnary are just evil
This never happened. They would have given him a cup of black coffee and said " bro you’re in France now"
I was backpacking Europe. I had just left Amsterdam and gotten to Berlin. I ordered a Heineken on impulse and the bartender looked appalled and said no.
That is patently untrue. People drink piss in Berlin too, in fact, Berlin is a major tourist destination. Heineken is produced in The Netherlands and widely available and consumed throughout continental Europe. This idea that Europeans won’t serve you something they themselves wouldn’t consume, or find repugnant is also not true. But it sounds like a cool anecdote to someone who’s never been there and knows absolutely nothing about it. If you’re gonna tell that lie again, at least use Budweiser, or Coors light. At least that sticks with the theme of uncultured American faux pas, which is what your story was trying to emulate.
I’m pretty sure that a bartender that doesn’t stock a specific brand of beer out of disgust for it won’t sell it to you. You’re way overreaching with your criticism of reasonably viable story.
It is absolutely true that people drink piss in Berlin, it’s not called Heineken but Berliner Kindl though.
In Italy, at “L’Isola della Pizza” in Rome, I asked the guy if I could get a pizza with salami, pepperoni, and sausage, and the guy was like “ah, American style!”
Pepperoni is what gave it away
Salami, pepperoni and sausage? What makes the first 2 not sausage and what is in your definition pure sausage?
The honest answer is this: Salami (sliced salami), pepperoni (sliced spicy salami), and sausage (pre-cooked fennel-flavored uncased/crumbled pork sausage).
In the US, “sausage” tends to generically refer to uncured, fresh, or raw sausages, often really meaning “ground meat mixed with herbs and spices sometimes in a tube or casing (but not always).”
Americans came up with the word hot dog then decided sausage should now mostly mean loose ground pork.
Is it like the Italian American “shrimp scampi” where it’s just the words for shrimp in two different languages? My understanding is that “salami” is just the Italian word for cured sausage.
Also, “pepperoni” is an Italian American word for a spicy salami that contains peppers, so it’s just a type.
lmao, it just keeps going deeper.
Chai tea 🤦♂️
So he actually asked for sausage, cured sausage and spicy cured sausage? Whatever the sausage may be?
I’ll have the spam, spam eggs and spam.
Peperoni in Italian refers peper normally bell peppers, spicy chilly is normally peperoncino.
I guess the waiter understood he meant spicy salame. Also in Italian it is salame not salami.
In Italy, pepperoni would be peppers then wouldn’t it?
In Italian, ‘peperoni’ are bell peppers – not necessarily bulbous or large, but definitely with zero to negligible heat. Chillis are ‘peperoncino’.
That’s what I said, thanks!
The French are right. When you have fabled cuisine, lauded all over the world as the gold standard… you get resistant to change. And rightfully so.
Putain, non, is indeed the proper response to said question.
Food snobs might be one of my least favorite types of humans there are. The minute I hear/see someone start talking about how they would never eat that or whatever other bullshit, is almost like I’m hearing them start talking about the good things Trump is doing for everyone. Let’s never cross paths again, you’re insufferable.
In this thread, most of both the French and the vegans are insufferable. I like a nice strong black coffee and I don’t eat a lot of meat, but there’s a reason I don’t really want to go back to Paris or to half of the vegan restaurants I try.
I mean, it really depends on their delivery.
If they’re acting like it somehow un-stinks their shit, ok fuck off.
However, there are certain foods that everyone loves that I simply cannot stand. Cake, is a big one. I will actively seek against eating cake. It frequently leaves me feeling gross, especially on an empty stomach. I do not see it as good. I can understand someone speaking about food like that.
Either that, or oat milk isn’t on the menu and he didn’t have any.
I’m also referring to this thread.
Then that is a failure on the business. It is a very common request.
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It’s only a failure if they wanted to do that kind of business. If I open an Italian restaurant and someone orders Thai, did I fail?
“Do you have eggs? Yes. Do you have noodles? Yes. Do you have curry paste? Yes. Do you…”
~ worst customer you will ever meet
It’s not common at all.
“At all”?
In the year 2024, Oatly had annual revenue of $823.67M with 5.15% growth. Oatly had revenue of $214.32M in the quarter ending December 31, 2024, with 4.99% growth.
Oatly’s key markets are Sweden, Germany and the United Kingdom. The company’s products were available in 60,000 retail stores and 32,200 coffee shops around the world as of 31 December 2020.
Do you really think that Sweden, Germany and UK is all the world there is? I’ve got a surprise for you.
I get the sneaking suspicion you enjoy being contrarian for contradictions sake.
I’m a french vegetarian living in France after living 6 years in Scotland, France is years behind on the diet inclusion issue, I was shocked how difficult it was to find a place to eat out in Paris, way too many cafe/restaurant/etc… gets defensive and refuse to serve you if you don’t have the “historical diet” (whatever that means) of france, and a lot of them don’t offer any “common alternative diet” options on the menu. And it’s not better outside of Paris.
Then of course there are some great places that try to include everyone regardless of their diet, and they are increasing in numbers, but they are still the exception rather than the norm which is a shame.
If you ever goes in Paris and looking for a fully vegetarian classy restaurant, I recommand “Polichinelle”, it’s a bit on the expensive side (~50 euro/person), but it’s high level cuisine, and for a special occasion it’s really worth it.
The French are actually quite conservative in many ways.
A French person decrying the lack of quality food in Paris in comparison to Scotland. British cuisine is truly amazing.
Haha, Indeed the irony is at its maximum. Although, I think haggis was pretty good (even the vegetarian version)
While I’m talking about it, have you guys seen the documentaries about wild haggis ? https://youtu.be/tvLXG4_SoO4
Italy is just as bad with this kind of stuff, at least in my experience. I’m not even vegan or vegetarian, but I saw it happen a lot when I was there. They had the same kind of “historical diet” excuse, and I’m sitting here thinking “you fuckers didn’t even get tomatoes until the 16th century and now you’re acting like you invented them.”
I hate food purists so much.
All of Europe is highly anti veg. As it should be.
You’ll be hard-pressed to find a German restaurant without a good choice of vegetarian options and at least some vegan ones. Germany is about 2% vegan, 10% ovo-lacto-vegetarian, and 55% flexitarian. That’s 67% of the population having an active look at those choices and you’d be very out of place with “if there’s no meat it’s not food” comments. You just insulted a huge number of quite cherished traditional dishes.
Go on, go, go to Swabia and say that Käsespätzle are not food. I’m waiting. They’ll probably lock you into a madhouse.
Not many vegan options around, but one place in Sorrento made me the best vegan pizza I ever had when I asked (there was nothing vegan on the menu). No vegan cheese necessary, I think it was the crust and oil that made it. Got bored of the same tomato pasta item every night at the hotel though.
One of the most basic pizza, the marinara (tomato, oil, garlic, oregano) is technically vegan and any pizzeria worth its name will have it on the menu.
Interesting, thanks. The Sorrento place was a cafe so they didn’t specialise in pizza, but it sure was good. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a marinara pizza marked vegan here in Oz. They probably all use bulk garlic sauce bottles with milk as ingredient.
I’m guessing you’re not in Melbourne then, but Red Sparrow is a fully vegan pizza restaurant with a few locations there. Very good, from what I’ve heard.
Never been to Italy, but I expected it would be even worse over there, Italians are often very invested in their opinion about food😄 some of my Italian friends can spend the whole meal debating about what they are eating
Pasta too lol Cut it with the knife and you get to eat for free… until they kick you out
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I love France and all, but let’s not pretend they have good coffee culture. What passes for cappuccino there… The horrors I’ve seen.
There is plenty of good coffee in Paris, but you need to go to typically smaller places where they only make that.
Although I don’t drink milk much anymore I wouldn’t know if the cappuccino they make is good.
Coffee lovers and cappuccino are mutually exclusive terms IMHO :D.
Italy entered the chat…
Well, if it’s before 11AM at least
It’s crazy, food is top notch, or what you pay for it, but coffee is always the french 3/4. So not very good.
To be fair, they invented it and the Italians refined the espresso in 1961 so.
Part of why it’s relatively bad is because they still make it the same way as they did back then
Sure, but the “third wave” coffee is even worse IMO.
Is that foamy lattes w syrup?
Nah, the “hipster espresso” I’d call it. Usually tastes sour, "but that’s normal, not everyone can appreciate all the ‘flavours’ "
Ah, I am guilty of liking that. But I do think it is a very different taste than regular dark roasted chocolaty coffee and they should suprise you with a funky light-roasted one as their standard bean. Those are more suited for specialty places where they have multiple grinders with multiple beans.
Sure no problemo ! But why can’t they have an espresso that at least is somewhat like a real Italian one …
I love France they take food and tradition seriously while at the same time their own government is afraid off them.
All governments should be afraid of their people. The French ae doing something right.
If I were a government, I’d be afraid of French traditions, too.
