The menu says vegetarian. The stock says otherwise.
Most of what determines whether a dish works for you is not printed on the menu. This shows you what is worth asking about.
Built for the table
Less guessing. More calm decisions.
The dish is listed under vegetarian. It is simmered in dashi, which is made with bonito. Nobody was being dishonest — to the kitchen, dashi is not an ingredient, it is water.
This happens constantly, in every cuisine, and it is the single most common way a careful diner gets caught out.
Listed versus derived
There are two kinds of ingredient in any dish: the ones the menu names, and the ones that come with the technique. The second category is the one that matters, because no menu on earth prints 'contains shrimp paste'.
TableSage reads both, and tells you which is which.
What this is not
It is not an allergy tool and it never claims to be. It does not detect allergens, it cannot inspect a kitchen, and it will never tell you a dish is safe. Recipes vary between restaurants and change without notice.
What it does is narrow a long menu to the few dishes worth asking about, and tell you what to ask. Walking up with one specific question is easier than three vague ones, for you and for the staff — and the staff always have the final word.
If you have a serious allergy, treat this as a way to prepare the conversation, never as a substitute for it.
Strictness is not one setting
Eating less dairy and being coeliac are not the same requirement, and an app that treats them identically is useless to both. You set each preference as a preference or as strict, and strict rules are applied as hard exclusions rather than as a score to be outweighed.
Know what to ask before you order.
Set what you avoid once. Every menu after that is a shorter list.