Vegetarian served meat on SQ

[lingua101]

I eat anything that moves and there are times when I honestly can't tell what it is I'm eating is pork/beef/whatever until several bites in.

I always wonder how one can tell its something if you've never eaten it.

like kyo said the texture should be different. of course it is harder to differentiate between pork/beef any anykind of meat. but meat and vegie? the texture is quite different. some more this is chicken we are talking here.

like i said i may be wrong...

but the mistake has been done.. so what she wants? to get compensated by SIA because now she has to visit the doctor of being traumatize?

like someone said, if you are so strict about your diet, you will questions everything before you put it in your mouth.... again i may only speak with my own assumption

[boing]

I eat anything that moves and there are times when I honestly can't tell what it is I'm eating is pork/beef/whatever until several bites in.

I always wonder how one can tell its something if you've never eaten it.

That's a good point ! You can't base or judge to have eaten chicken if you've never eaten it before.

Even till now, I've difficulty telling the difference between mutton and beef to forewarn my Hindu friends and colleagues. In the case of this lady, I assume she's a a woman who's simple and had little education and is thus quite naive and trusted that whatever that was offered to her was what she asked for. I could be wrong here but just going with my hunch here.

I myself don't eat pork and once accidentally ate pork. It was only when someone pointed it out to me that I realized my oversight. Your taste buds can betray you ! Take it from me. Some mock meats at vegetarian restaurants do come close to resembling chicken although I can tell the difference between them as I've eaten chicken before.

Someone screwed up here, that's for sure. And you can't blame SQ if it says it didn't get the special meal request. By any chance, could it have been booked thru the new website ?

[Guy Betsy]

I might be stepping out of line here.. but no God will punish you when it was an accident... and that you did not intend on eating meat on purpose.

Now if it was an allergy, then it would have been a different issue altogether.

[prash]

Like someone has pointed out, if she is strict vegetarians, she should know straight away something is not right when she ate that chicken.

My muslim friend can straight away tell it is pork when he not knowingly eat it and straight away throw it up.

Here we are talking about chicken (meat) vs veggie.

Anyway her meal is not a special meal at the first place (ok language may be an issue here), not as bad as my friend who was asked for low cholesterol meal on CX flight and got served of Curry Chicken.

As a vegetarian myself (and that too for religious reasons like the affected passenger), I can say that it is very hard to tell sometimes especially where "mock" meat is used as a substitute. As mentioned before, you tend to trust it to be ok. I have not encountered a mix-up in my special meal requests on SQ and while it could definitely happen, it seems here that there was no entry made on the booking and the airline would not have known.

On the ground, I have faced this situation of unintentional mix-ups in restaurants etc quite a few times and if it really could not be helped, I just accept it and move on. This was very difficult initially but I've come to terms with this.

My two cents advice to the indian passenger is the rest of the world is not as veg-friendly as india might be (and i'm of indian origin myself!) so always take care to check!

In the end, he crew member did really well there. A similar experience on Qantas years ago where the TA failed to get the request through resulted in some snacks only because they really had nothing else apart from bread rolls i think!

[prash]

I might be stepping out of line here.. but no God will punish you when it was an accident... and that you did not intend on eating meat on purpose.

Now if it was an allergy, then it would have been a different issue altogether.

That is the same belief that I hold every time there's a mistake. I had no intention to consume the meat, period. Of course I'm more cautious as a result!

[Savage25]

I might be stepping out of line here.. but no God will punish you when it was an accident... and that you did not intend on eating meat on purpose.

[Saraleena]

I know that this thread hasn't received posts in ages but I just wanted to say that I had a similar experience to this. But, I didn't think it was a big deal that I have to send in a formal complaint to Singapore Airlines, however in this woman's case I do get where she is coming from. I would of been absolutely devastated if someone served me pork or non halal meat.

This experience occurred when I was coming back from Singapore to Auckland. I was traveling with three other people and we all had requested a muslim meal.
I think we had two meals that flight and the first meal we all received a muslim however, during the second meal only one out of four of us was given a muslim meal and the rest including me were given a hindu non vegetarian meal. However, instantly I realized that the codes were wrong instead of MOML it was HNML then my dad one of the passengers traveling with me, notified one of the flight attendants. The attendant said that it was prepared in a muslim kitchen and was halal however, he had no proof and we were reluctant to eat the food. I guess this part peeved me off how he was trying to convince us to eat it. But, he was sincerely apologetic and took away our trays. Apparently there were no halal meals left on the flight so he went hunting to find food for us and gave us vegetarian sandwiches, cup noodles (Clearly showed us where the halal sign was) and ice cream.

Overall, I think that the flight attendant handled the situation well and I praise him for his efforts. So, a lesson to other passengers who orders special meals (Please correct me if I am wrong) just be aware of your special meal code and double check it before you consume your meal. If your meal doesn't have a code at all you have been served the normal in flight meal all or if it is a wrong code, then you have been served a different special meal.