rec.food.veg World Guide to Vegetarianism - Miscellaneous1
Mark Wisdom
Last-modified: 23 Jul 1995
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rec.food.veg World Guide to Vegetarianism
Miscellaneous1
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The 20 parts of this guide contain a world list of vegetarian and
vegetarian-friendly restaurants, stores, organizations, services, etc.
Each part is posted on an independent schedule.
The guide is available on WWW in easy-to-use hypertext format on the
Vegetarian Pages at http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Vegetarian/
** Please send us any new listings or corrections. **
The prefered way for you to send us updates is to use the forms on the
above mentioned WWW site. E-mail updates gladly accepted also, but
please format them in the same format as is used in this guide and
keep comments and reviews short, simple, and straight to the point.
The latest posted copy of the World Guide to Vegetarianism is also
available via e-mail. For an index and instructions, send an e-mail to
mail-...@rtfm.mit.edu with the following line in the message body:
send usenet/news.answers/vegetarian/guide/index
The guide is also available via anonymous ftp from rtfm.mit.edu in the
directory /pub/usenet/news.answers/vegetarian/guide.
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Miscellaneous
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This section has listings for the following:
Airlines Cruise Ship Lines
Rail Lines
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Airlines
General Notes
- Vegetarian meals in Business Class are far better than the ones in
Coach.
- Most of the larger airlines also offer fruit plates. If you are
doing several hops on one airline and order vegetarian on all of
them, it is possible to get the same meal several times in one day.
Air India
- As in India, it is easy to get vegetarian food, but almost
impossible to get vegan food. They normally carry extra vegetarian
food.
Air UK
- Have vegan meals.
Air Vanuatu
- Seemed puzzled by the vegetarian meal request.
ALM (Dutch Antilles)
- Did well on the US-to-Netherland Antilles direction, but lost the
meal on the Netherland-to-US leg.
American Airlines
- Really good about vegetarian meals.
- Provide Vegan, Hindu Vegetarian, & Ovo-Lacto Vegetarian meals.
- While the veg dinners were comparable in quality to the non-veg, I
thought the breakfast was vastly superior: veg meal was fresh
strawberries & pineapple, and a raisin bagel.
- I thought that the vegetarian food tasted as good as airline food
gets. It was a tomato-veg.-raisin-rice dish that was served with a
salad and some bread.
- Every veggie meal comes with a packet of honey, and a cup of nuts
and raisins.
British Airways
- Good. The code for vegan meals is VGML.
Canadian
- Vegan meals are great and never the same. Ask for vegetarian meals
when booking or 24 hours before departure.
Cayman Air (Carribean)
- Generally such a short flight that they only serve a rum punch. Good
rum punch.
Continental (US)
- Continental airlines announced in the May 15, 1993 issue of
FoodService Director that they have revamped their vegetarian menu.
They now offer herbal tea and Edensoy beverages.
Breakfast trays include: cranberry and nut filled tortillas, a
vegetarian sausage pattie, and a pear and peach compote; Kashi (a
hot grain cereal), nuts and raisins, scalloped potatoes, and a
vegetarian raisin muffin; a raisin and nut filled tortilla; or a
potato and scallion filled tortilla with a southwestern sauce,
brown rice, and peanuts.
Lunches/dinners include: a vegetarian meatless pattie (soy based)
with Oriental glaze soy sauce and curried couscous medley; a
grilled vegetarian pattie with tofu-stuffed shell, marinara sauce,
and Italian green-bean medley; a stuffed baked potato shell with
chili nut filling, tofu stuffed shells and provencale sauce; or a
stuffed green pepper with chili beans, nuts, and chili sauce.
- "The vegetarian meal (I think it was vegan, except for the salad
dressing and margarine, maybe..) was excellent. Just top notch. It
was a zippy vegetable dish, in a nice sause, just a little spicy.
By far the best vegetarian meal I've ever had on a plane, and I fly
quite a bit domestically in the cheap seats. Their new meals are
quite good.
- A result of their old vegetarian menu:
"Vegan food is _wretched_. On most flights they serve just
unseasoned cooked vegetables. They give you a miniscule pack of
ground pepper and a miniscule pack of salt. They once served me a
half-raw potato."
Cyprus Airways
- Repeat confirmation of vegetarian meal is essential. We forgot on
the way out and were offered a plate of raw vegetables, half a
cauliflower, a whole carrot, etc. We got it right coming back and
the food was better than the omnivores got. Main course appeared
vegan, plus yogurt, cheese and biscuits, and fresh fruit - but they
only have handy the exact number of vegetarian meals booked.
Delta (US)
- Vegetarian food is vegan by default. If you want ovo or lacto, you
must specify it. The vegetarian food is consistently much better
(more varied/interesting/quantity) than their regular offerings.
- Have stopped serving vegetarian meals (snacks?) on their short
flights.
Finnair
- Provides reasonable vegetarian meals these days. Vegan meals can be
requested as "vegetarian food which does not include eggs or milk
products". This will be noted as SPML instead of the lacto-ovo
VGML. They did very well on my last few flights.
KLM
- Good.
Lufthansa
- Suprised me by preparing a better vegetarian meal than I had
anywhere in Germany (of course in Germany I mostly ate Italian
food).
- "with some airlines, their vegetarian meal seems to be their regular
meal without the meat. But at Lufthanso, our chefs put as much care
into our vegetarian offerings as they do our regular menu. Which
means everything they use is of the highest quality, and is fresh,
not frozen." Advertisement in May 17, 1993 issue of Fortune
magazine.
- Attention: Lufthansa still believes (Summer 1994) that vegetarian
includes fish. If you fly with them, you'll have to be very specific
about your dietary requirements.
Midwest Express (US)
- Has very good vegan meals, but they really flaunt their leather
seats.
Monarch Airlines (UK)
- Vegetarian and vegan options available. Vegan is reasonable but dry.
They forget easily, so a reminder for each journey is prudent.
Northwest Airlines (US)
- Vegan breakfasts: brown rice mix, fruit, buckwheat groats,
croissant(?) (I don't think that they know what vegan really means.)
Vegan lunch: tossed salad, stuffed pepper, fruit.
Vegan dinner: tossed salad, millet and vegetable dinner, fruit.
- "Very incompetent. After ordering a vegetarian meal 2 weeks in
advance, and then confirming it 24 before the flight, you are
still likely to get a carniverous meal. The flight attendants have
attitude problems too."
- "Vegetarian breakfast was a large plate of fresh melon slices and
strawberries. Also from the a la carte regular breakfast I had a
banana, blueberry muffin, orange juice, and a box of dry cereal.
Milk and yogurt were also available. It was all you can eat except
for the melon plate which was veg special order. Snack later was
tempeh in a pita (I think). Good food."
- "Bring your own food. They really don't know what vegan means, dairy
and chicken seem to be vegan, and the stuff that really is vegan is
absolutely flavorless."
- "They served me an ovo-lacto meal instead of the vegan one I
requested. On the return flight I got no veg meal at all, nor did
another vegetarian on the flight."
Qantas (Australian)
- Great. Good service too.
SAS (Scandinavian)
- They don't care. They have a policy of not providing vegetarian
meals on local (Scandinavian) and short (whatever that means, I
guess it means European) flights. Elsewhere they offer in principle
4 possibilities - VLML, VGML, AVML, RVML (lacto, lacto-ovo, Asian,
and raw).
Singapore Airlines
- Provide Vegan, Vegetarian, Indian Vegetarian, Chinese Vegetarian,
Macrobiotic, and Low Fat Vegetarian meals. The food is excellent
and simple. My best experience with airline food.
Solomon Air
- Seemed puzzled by the vegetarian meal request.
Tan Sahsa (Honduras)
- Didn't know what a veggie meal was (1991).
Turkish Airlines
- The one report I got on Turkish Airlines indicates that if you order
a vegan meal in advance, you will get it.
TWA
- Vegetarian meals include:
Breakfast: fresh fruit cup, brown rice with couscous, bran muffin.
Lunch: vegetarian chili, vegetarian stuffed pepper, vegetable millet
bake, vegetarian casserole, curried vegetables. Includes fresh fruit
cup.
U.S. Air
- Only have one vegetarian option, but the diary is packaged
separately. Food is edible, but not wonderful. Egg noodles sometimes
served. 'Not recommended.'
- Vegetarian meals include:
Breakfast: pancakes (not necessarily vegan), peanuts, 3 slices of
oranges.
Lunch: salad with vegan dressing, fruit salad (watermelon, honeydew,
pineapple), pasta with spinach, mushrooms, onions.
Snacks: peanuts, vegan banana chips.
United (US)
- Claims to have many vegetarian options. Offers at least lacto-ovo
and vegan meals. If you forget to order your vegetarian meal in
advance, you may still be able to get a very nice fruit plate in
flight.
- "I fly exclusively on United. What you do need to do is request a
'vgml' which is a vegan meal. At least that is the best place to
start. Granted, your meal will not always make it to the plane, even
though you book it at the time you book the tickets, one week in
advance, a few days in advance, and 24 hours in advance."
- "Does a good job with veggie meals. They serve curried grain
patties, rice-stuffed peppers, etc. Be careful when ordering Hindu
meals, if you don't specify Hindu Vegetarian, you get chicken."
- "I ordered Indian vegetarian meals on my United flights from Hong
Kong to the US and back. Though when I ordered they said they
offered an Indian vegetarian plate, when the food arrived it was
Western style, lacking in imagination and completely without taste!
All dishes failed to satisfy. Do the chefs think that vegetarians or
vegans are lacking in taste buds?! In many cases I was simply given
steamed vegetable with no rice or noodles and no sauce, not even soy
sauce or magarine to add some zest! I love fresh vegetables, but it
would be nice to have something more to go with it. A huge
disappointment!"
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Cruise Ship Lines
Thanks to the Vegetarian Resource Group for much of the following
information.
Carnival
- Special dietary requests must be made at least two weeks prior to
departure. Travelers are also advised to talk to their waiter about
special instructions for preparing menu items. Lowfat menu items are
flagged on each menu. Two vegetarian options are noted on their
dinner menus but not for breakfast or lunch. The vegetarian dinner
menu includes pear nectar, cream of asparagus soup, sliced cucumber
and Belgium endive in lemon dressing, vegetable brochette on pilaf
rice, vegetable accompaniments, assorted cheese.
Celebrity/Fantasy
- There is a vegetarian menu which changes daily. Sample entrees
include vegetable strudel, vegetables tempura, vegetarian casserole
in puff pastry with cheese sauce, and pasta with vegetables. For
further information call (800) 437-6111.
Cunard
- No special menus are offered to vegetarians, but the cruise line
can accommodate almost any special dietary request with at least
thirty days notice prior to departure. For further information call
(800) 223-0764.
Princess
- Princess now offers a vegetarian menu. Vegetarian options for lunch
include spring vegetables vinaigrette, chilled zucchini bisque,
three bean salad, noodles with tomato sauce and basil, banana bread.
Sample vegetarian items available during dinner include broiled
grapefruit with rum and raisins, chilled banana and papaya soup,
mushroom and barley soup, mixed green salad with dressing, vegetable
pojarksy (breaded, mixed vegetable patty) with cheese sauce, spinach
flan with cream sauce, assorted vegetables. For further information
call (800) 527-6200.
Royal Caribbean
- Vegetarian lunch and dinner menus are being introduced aboard their
nine-ship fleet. The Monarch of the Seas has separate vegetarian
menus. Several items are flagged as lowfat on each menu. Vegetarian
options are usually ovo-lacto, but can be modified to be vegan.
Sample vegetarian items on their meatless lunch menu include melon
cocktail, chilled strawberry bisque, fresh vegetables, vegetable
soup, cauliflower garden salad, tropical fruit platter, sherbet,
tortellini calabrese, Hawaiian croissant sandwiches. Sample
vegetarian dishes on their meatless dinner menus include spaghetti
Alfredo style with julienne of fresh vegetables, grilled plum
tomatoes, steamed broccoli, chilled cantaloupe soup, tempura fried
broccoli and eggplant garnished with snow peas, and Oriental noodles
served with a sweet and sour sauce. For further information call
(800) 852-3268.
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Rail Lines
Amtrak (US)
- Amtrak always has Nile Spice vegetarian soup mixes (many are vegan),
carrot sticks, cheese pizza, and granola bars. On long distance
trips they also offer dry cereal & bagels for breakfast; a fettucine
dish with tomato and basil, light alfredo, or primavera sauce for
lunch; and a vegetarian (never vegan) entree at dinner.
British Rail
- Make sandwiches. Book seats far from the *very* smelly burgers in
the restaurant carriage.
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