Hoping to get some answers from people who have some experience working behind the scenes at restaurants. 

I have to eat out with clients about twice a week and I do enjoy it but I often end up wasting my food. I’ve been a vegetarian since I was 11 for various reasons and I’m 30 now. It’s just not a thing I eat. Most of the time, any restaurant (in California) will have at least one veggie menu item so I don’t usually have a problem ordering anywhere. Anyways, I’ve noticed a lot of times, the cooks don’t clean off the grill that often, leaving rice grain sized pieces of burnt meat all over my food. Whenever it happens, I don’t know how to approach it without being a dick so I just don’t eat the food and say I’m full. 

I know it’s a super first world problem and I’m an asshole alone for wasting good food but is there any way to approach this before it happens without being an entitled putz? 