Hotels go vegan to take on Tuesday factor

LUDHIANA: Just because December 31 is a Tuesday, it doesn't mean the year-end has to be a spoiled one. And as city folks these days are busy looking for alternatives to make this New Year just as special, restaurateurs and hoteliers are doing their due working quite hard for days now on the vegan menu for the day.
While some are collecting flavors from the world to tickle and please the vegan customer base, others have simply decided to go veggie on the day, decreasing the percentage of non-veg food to a great extent.
Atul Mehta, owner of a restaurant near Model Gram, says they have been working for days now on the vegetarian menu. "Our idea was to put up vegetarian dishes in such a way that they look and taste like its non-vegetarian counterpart. This is because we don't want to have our customer that miserable feeling of turning vegan for a day. Our Sui Tai Pie and paneer jhunjhunwala gives you a feel that you are actually consuming meat. The feeling is just as important you know", he says.
So while Atul has tried its best to give out a non-vegetarian feel to all the cuisines in his restaurant, Umesh Yadav from a five-star hotel in Ferozepur road says their agenda was to have variety and a lot of options for their customers. "We have introduced 'flavor of the world', this New Year which will give our vegan friends a lot to choose from. The problem with having vegetarian food is the lack of options available and this time we have tried to combat that. Just because it's a Tuesday doesn't mean you can't be bon appetite", he says.
Another bar-cum-restaurant in Ferozepur Road though has gone an extra mile changing the food ratio completely. The ratio of vegetarian and non-vegetarian food now is 70:30. "We still have 30 per cent non-vegetarian food because people who drink tend to have non-veg food more", says Kaushik Jadali, head chef at a restaurant cum bar in a mall in Ferozepur road.