Cycle 5 – Item 150

4 (Wed) June 2014

American-Style Greek Salad

1.5

at Cyma Greek Taverna

(Robinsons Place)

-Ermita, Manila, Metro Manila, Philippines-

with JG, MJK

Whereas traditional attitudes among fellow diners in the company of a vegetarian used to be condescendingly dismissive at best, people nowadays seem to be overly accommodating.  Eating out in a group setting that includes a vegetarian, everyone makes it a point of ordering only the veg items from the menu.  It’s like an implicit acknowledgment that vegetarianism is superior and that, even if one is personally too weak to follow the righteous way, one should step aside and spread rose petals along the path for the enlightened few.

One of the new interns in our division is a vegetarian.  For lunch today, we all went to a Chinese restaurant and got various types of stir-fried veggie and tofu dishes.  After work, for reasons that I can’t now recall/fathom, I walked her around the mall to show her all the veggie options.  To wrap up the tour, I bought her dinner at Cyma Greek Taverna and selected veg exclusively.  WTF?!  In retrospect, I feel like an idiot.

Even worse, the “Greek” salad was the worst thing that I’ve had from this Greek restaurant thus far; the “American-style” should’ve tipped me off.

(See also GLOBAL FOOD GLOSSARY)

(See also RESTAURANTS IN PHILIPPINES)