Originally Posted by smackie

My wife's vegetarian so I've seen a lot of special meals in F and CW. What she does these days is book the Vegan meal as a backup and, if there's something on the F menu that looks suitable, she'll often have that instead.

The BA straight vegetarian option is often bloody horrible, even in F. It's usually pasta, often in an uninspired and bland sauce. If the pasta option is veggie in the regular bistro menu (and it often is), it's usually miles better. The F cabin staff have often been really embarrassed by what they've had to provide as a veggie special meal (they get no notes on it either, so it's always a mystery meal). The vegan option has been a lot more edible.

If you have a chat with the staff when the menus get handed out, you should be able to negotiate the best of the options on board - they want you to be happy and have almost always been really flexible and open about what's possible.

Originally Posted by CCayley

So your wife's approach is 1. order a special meal, causing BA's loading of the regular menu to be reduced since she will be assumed not to be dining from it; then 2. intercept the crew to demand first choice from the regular menu regardless of normal order of service, increasing the chance of someone else not getting their choice of meal.

Somewhat selfish behaviour, perhaps?