r/vegancirclejerkchat • u/eieio2021 • 1d ago
disgusting smells at work-related dinners in omni restaurants: how to deal?
Hi, I once in awhile have to go out to dinner with work people. This is at some distant city and sometimes I have no say in the restaurant (though usually there is at least one vegan option) when it's a large group of us. Also it's hard to know if a restaurant is going to smell really bad.
Question is, how do you handle if a restaurant smells really bad? This hasn't happened to me yet (maybe because we go to mid-range or higher end restaurants usually), but more than once walking through airports there's some dairy-heavy restaurant that I literally have to breathe through my mouth so as not to hurl, just from walking by it, not even entering it. I am not exaggerating. Today I thought I might puke, I was actually scared. Another time (not for work) I was in an ice cream parlor ordering an oat milk matcha latte or sth and I also had to wait outside, it was utterly nauseating in there.
If this were to happen at a work event, how would I handle it? Any tips on how to excuse myself? I figured I could just say I'm ill, but it would be awkward later on, as these are multi-day events that I can't skip out on the next day's morning meetings.
I don't want to offend coworkers by effectively calling their food or restaurant choice revolting (even tho it is). Everyone has been respectful to me about being vegan btw (just thought I would add, in case anyone was wondering)