As any vegetarian will tell you, eating out can be a challenge. There are surprisingly few vegetarian options in most establishments, so the choice for vegetarians is usually more than meagre.

It becomes critical when there is no vegetarian meal on the menu and you want to have a vegetarian dish put together. For most ignorant people, "no meat" means that poultry or fish are allowed. Or they pass a dish off as vegetarian because it only contains a bit of ham.

For most people, soups seem to automatically become vegetarian when the meat is strained out.

What I recently experienced as a vegetarian in a Thai restaurant, however, puts the icing on the cake. I ordered a soup with various vegetables and tofu. The discussion that ensued between the chef and the waiter after I ordered should have alerted me, but as nobody said anything, I thought nothing more of it.

When the soup arrived, I wondered about the strange consistency of the tofu floating in the soup. So I asked the chef what it was. He replied with the greatest naturalness: "Chicken". 

What is probably no big deal for a non-vegetarian will make any real vegetarian tear their hair out. For me it is incomprehensible that such a mistake can be made at all! Is it just complete ignorance or recklessness?