Why hasTGI Fridays become anti-vegetarian?

For Christmas 2008, I went out to dinner with my meatatarian brother again. Last year we went to my favorite Chinese restaurant, Hunan Manor, which features a whole section of meatless entrees for a vegetarian like me (personal favorite: vegetarian honey sesame chicken).

This year we found out that the local TGI Fridays was open so we went there. The good news is that they were open for Christmas. The bad news was that they had eliminated the last remaining vegetarian option on the menu, some kind of lame cold pasta salad concoction so spiked with sulfiting agents as to be virtually inedible, yet still it was marginally better than nothing.

This is perplexing in that when I became a vegetarian 30 years ago, TGI Fridays was the first chain restaurant to offer a veggie burger (at least in the DC area). They had an excellent Garden Burger on the menu, served with a black-eyed peas salad on the side. Inexplicably, this disappeared from the menu about 3 years ago, along with the veggie wrap (served cold, but delicious) and assorted other veggie alternatives, as they began touting their red meat and Jack Daniels entrees (who oversaw this change, Karl Rove? Rush Limbaugh?). Apparently management has made a decision to stop catering to the white collar yuppie vaguely health-conscious demographic of years past to reach out to the red meat craving blue collar NASCAR demographic (much like Monday Night Football did when they brought in Hank Williams Jr. to annoy us with his "Ready for some football" braying).

I mean, its not just that Fridays has made it impossible for vegetarians like me to enjoy meals there with their non-veggie friends. It is that TGI Fridays has decided to become militantly anti-vegetarian, and that is indeed a troubling trend. It may be TGI Fridays but its not the Fridays I used to love to patronize.

For the record, my brother went with the ribs and I had to go with either the house salad or the Tuscan spinach dip with tortilla chips. I went with the dip since vegetarians need and deserve our veggies hot, not raw (we ain't frickin' rabbits, for God's sake!), even though in retrospect it was probably made with chicken soup since thats the way most restaurants insist on making it.

Therefore, unless and until Fridays gets its act together, I'm sticking with Ruby Tuesdays (great veggie burger, very good salad bar, and lots of veggie alternatives on the menu. Plus they are not afraid to cater to the more health conscious diners).

Keep Austin Weird, pt. 2

The other day, my daughter and I went to the Austin Grill restaurant in re-vitalized downtown Silver Spring, MD. I was sporting this T-shirt (but with my Obama ’08 button affixed). I had picked it up in Austin, Texas in June during 'Weirdfest.'

Anyway, the greeter person complimented me on the shirt and then our wait-person came over to tell us that the manager had seen it and liked it, too, and that he was offering us a free appetizer because of it. This worked great because my daughter usually only eats the appetizers anyway.

Anyway, just a shout-out of gratitude for our favorite Silver Spring eatery. Great food, great service, the occasional live music, plus a nice, laid-back place to enjoy a beer watching a football game.

Personally, as a lacto-ovo veggie, I like to get their Spinach Quesadillas or their Spinach Enchiladas. Their Vegetable Fajitas are probably a notch above Don Pablo's though all of these type places tend to err on the side of under-cooked veggies in their fajitas (as though vegetarians by definition prefer their veggies 'Bugs Bunny-style': raw and crispy). NOT!

Memo to all restaurants that try to make a token gesture to their vegetarian customers: Vegetarians like HOT food, just like everybody else!

(Anyway, this is my first blog rant. Yes, I do actually feel better, thanks.)

On being Vegetarian

I've been a vegetarian (Lacto-Ovo: I eat dairy products and eggs) half my life and this Michael Vick thing has just served to underscore why I made this choice.


I've never been strident or dogmatic about it, never tried to convert anyone, though countless crabs-in-the-omnivorous-barrel have tried to pull me back into the meat-eating fold. For me it's a personal choice, not for my health but for the animal's.


I just came to realize that for me to eat meat when I have so many healthy alternatives to choose from would be recreational consumption, eating meat because it tastes good (and it can, if memory serves).


This is not by way of indicting anyone who eats meat. Everyone has their reasons, makes their choices. Arctic peoples have no choice and neither do people who live in other places that do not support sustainable agriculture. We in this country have alternatives, though admittedly, vegetarianism is a life style that to some extent is a luxury available only for those of us who can afford to choose it. Or who are knowledgeable enough to find and prepare healthy alternatives to meat consumption.


I guess my point is: I don't see much of a difference between Michael Vick having animals fight to the death for his amusement, or the millions who enjoy the spectacle of bull-fighting the way I enjoy football, and raising animals to die for our pleasure at the dinner table.