Article: The Challenge of Getting Clear Menu Information

This article does a great job detailing the difficulty of getting clear information when visiting a restaurant. Though it focuses on greenwashing and not vegan issues directly, we wanted to share it because trying to obtain accurate information on dishes for vegans is just as big a challenge. And also, it's good to see some checks and balances on farm-to-table claims.

We know most of our readers know that feeling, when a server tells you something is vegan and they didn't go back to the kitchen first. Sometimes you feel confident that they know what vegan means, and other times you get that queasy feeling that you're either going to get a dish with cheese in it or you're going to have to be "that guy" who insists on them going back and getting more information.

We have been served an item that we were told is vegan, but when we returned to the same place a couple months later (the menu had not changed, but it's possible the recipe had), we were told the item we'd been served before was not vegan. Who do we believe? We err on the side of caution and try not to dwell on the fact that we probably ate something that wasn't vegan.

http://www.tampabay.com/projects/2016/food/farm-to-fable/restaurants/