dalameda

I have done a search but didn't turn up any recent threads about the prevalence of vegetarian food on Asiana J. My wife and I will be flying from ICN to SFO in October (final leg of a round trip to Nepal) Does Asiana usually have 1 option that is vegetarian on their menu or is it better to pre-order the hindu vegetarian option? Thanks!

sfvoyage

You should definitely pre-order a veggie special meal. OZ's veggie meals in J are nothing special, but at least you'll have something suitable to eat.

JoeDaejeon

In my opinion, you should absolutely order a vegetarian, or any other special meal you desire, on ANY airline you're traveling, unless you're absolutely certain they have vegetarian meals as standard and won't run out. I've lost track of how many times I've seen passengers around me assume there will be a vegetarian option for them, just because maybe they're used to it being available on airlines in their home country. Absolutely, under no circumstances should you expect there will be a vegetarian menu available by default on OZ. I cannot remember seeing a single standard vegetarian meal on OZ ever. Whenever passengers request a vegetarian meal, the FA simply tells them to chose one of the options, and for the passenger to manually remove the meat. That's the best you're going to get if you don't pre-order. Or if you're extremely lucky, another passenger preordered a vegetarian meal, but decided they didn't want it, and you can get it, but the chances of that happening are extremely small.

corbomite

Yes you should definitely preorder, aside from Buddhist monks (and sometimes not even them) vegetarianism is not widespread in East Asia. Also what may appear to be vegetarian food is usually not because fish sauces and fish stocks are so pervasive

sfvoyage

So true, not to mention gelatin (in a lot of dessert and yogurt), oyster sauce and meat/chicken powder/broth, and lard in Chinese baked goods. In Tokyo, one of the most famous and upscale Japanese vegetarian restaurants uses daishi (katsuo - or bonito flake-based - stock), and I had to call ahead to ask them to exceptionally exclude use of dashi.

dalameda

Thanks! Very helpful answers. We will go with pre-ordering.