"Go to any normal restaurant and the set of non-meat (read, tofu) is rather limited (read, none)"
We must be in dramatically different parts of the world... I never really considered the east coast particularly good for that particular kind of variety either.. ..but I have no problem eating vegetarian most of the time.
Here (Netherlands) it's also not that bad, there's often a few sections on the menu: meat, fish, vegetarian. If you're lucky, they're of similar size. Supermarkets have a reasonable selection of meat substitutes, though I prefer to use cheese, mushrooms or nuts (and meat ;))
It does vary even more, now that you mention it: I remember San Jose in Costa Rica having many different vegan (not vegetarian) option.
We must be in dramatically different parts of the world... I never really considered the east coast particularly good for that particular kind of variety either.. ..but I have no problem eating vegetarian most of the time.