Business Lunch

When I first became a vegetarian in 2000, I worked for a large manufacturing company based in the meat-and-potatoes Midwest. So business dinners and lunches (particularly when visiting company headquarters) could be a real challenge. I mean, just because I'm a vegetarian doesn't mean that I want to eat a salad at every meal. But I've had to suffer through eating a large plate of asparagus accompanied with bread at Ruth's Chris (it was good, though), eating cheesestick appetizers as a meal and, of course, eating mediocre iceberg lettuce salads at more places than I can think of.

My current job is based on the gulf coast of northwest Florida, a place that has great seafood but lacks a wide selection of restaurants that include thoughtful vegetarian selections. Likely because the people who visit locally-owned restaurants are looking for fresh seafood, so I can't blame them. Supply, demand, all that. Yet another reason I like staying in a condo and preparing all my food from what I buy in the Greenwise section from Publix.

Inevitably, though, I have lunch meetings down here and I have to balance my desire to have something other than a salad with my desire not to be a wet blanket on co-workers and business associates who don't really care to go to McAllister's or Panera. I once really liked the Donut Hole's egg salad sandwich, but I'm trying to really cut back on eggs (and mayonnaise), so I didn't have a good suggestion for lunch today. Just that we not go to a specifically seafood restaurant. So we ended up at Pineapple Willy's in Panama City Beach.

Funny, I haven't been to Pineapple Willy's since the summer of 1983 when my family stayed the one and only time at Pier 99 (since gone and replaced with a high-rise condo, Shores of Panama--this is a good thing; Pier 99 was a dump). I remembered liking the place then and it is very kid-friendly. But not terribly vegetarian-friendly. There were exactly two meat-free items on the menu, from what I could tell. Onion rings and a "house salad." So guess what I had for lunch. Iceberg lettuce, a few cherry tomatoes (better than sliced large tomatoes), a few cucumbers (oh hey, that's a nice bonus), shredded cheese, onion and bell pepper (which, fortunately was easy to remove) and croutons. A fairly bland and unexciting salad. But they did serve Newman's Own balsamic vinaigrette dressing, so that helped. It just would have been nice to have something a little more interesting.

Oh, and I totally got the Vidalia onion rings. They were pretty tasty. But, you know, a roasted portobello mushroom sandwich woulda been nice for lunch. Eh.