Posts tagged restaurants

Vegan Meetup

Mar27
2012 2 Comments

Written by Linda

Last night was another great vegan meetup, this time at Great Sage in Clarksville, MD. This seems like a strange place for a vegan restaurant, being way out in the suburbs, but it is in a strip mall with other eco-conscious shops like Roots, Bark and Nest. I definitely want to go back and shop at Nest sometime, they have organic, fair trade, handmade stuff like gifts, home goods and clothing.

The food was so delicious. I got a big soft pretzel with three dips – honey mustard, spicy hummus and “cheese” dip.

For my main course I got the Zen Udon Bowl – udon noodles and vegetables in a slightly spicy sauce topped with two huge pieces of tofu tempura. So good.

Other people ordered these:

A delicious evening with great new vegan friends.

Posted in Food - Tagged food, vegan

Vegan Meetup

Mar04
2012 4 Comments

Written by Linda

I’ve meetup-ing a lot lately, and last night I met up with the Vegetarian Society of DC (VSDC), which has been in existence for 84 years and is the longest running vegetarian society in North America. Forty vegans/vegetarians met at the Loving Hut, which is a chain of vegan restaurants all over the world. Our local branch is in Falls Church, VA.

It’s attached to a 7-11, so you can grab a Big Gulp on your way out, because the Loving Hut does not serve soda. But they have a lot of other great stuff. The interior is open and airy.

The staff was very accommodating, giving us all separate checks, and having us order in advance so that when we arrived they just started bringing out our food. I got wonton soup which also had noodles in it, and Lemongrass Tofu and Mixed Vegetables with brown rice.

We had two long tables:

There is a display case of amazing desserts and pastries in the lobby:

Most of these come from Vegan Treats in Bethlehem, PA, an incredible vegan bakery. I bought a cannoli to go.

The couple next to me had a giant pecan roll:

And the woman across from me had a scrumptious looking chocolate cake:

I came home and put my cannoli on a plate to make it look presentable:

Then I took one bite and put it back in the box. I was so full from dinner, and I really want to enjoy this pastry, not just stuff it in my body mindlessly. It is outstandingly delicious, however it does not taste like a cannoli. The cream is totally different than cannoli cream, but it is still wonderful.

I’ll eat more of it tomorrow. Unless I happen to get up in the middle of the night because I hear it calling my name.

Posted in Food - Tagged meetup, vegan

Raw Food Day

Feb13
2012 4 Comments

Written by Linda

I didn’t eat very cleanly this weekend. Saturday I went to Elevation Burger, which has the only veggie burger that I like in all of the burger places that are popping up all over the place. They have a vegetarian veggie burger, and a vegan veggie burger. No vegan cheese though, but they always ask if I want cheese on my vegan burger. Habit for them I guess. Their fries are fried in olive oil and are excellent as well.

Elevation Burger’s philosophy regarding beef is that they use only organic, 100% grass fed, 100% free range beef, which they claim is better for our health than other burger places’ burgers. Which may be true, but it’s still a burger. They even offer a “”Vertigo Burger” – 3 to 10 patties on your bun. I don’t care how much grass a cow eats, a sandwich with 10 burger patties is not good for anyone.

They are good at burgers, but not at grammar.

Are the buns vegan? I do not know. A couple of weeks ago I ordered a veggie burger from the “fast food” counter at Whole Foods. There was a little sign listing all of the ingredients in the veggie burger, and it was indeed vegan. I then had the following conversation with the cook:

“Is the bun vegan?”

“It’s a wheat bun.”

“Ok, but is it vegan?”

“It’s a wheat bun.”

“Does it contain any dairy or eggs?”

“It’s a wheat bun.”

I ate it anyway. Being a vegan isn’t about being perfect, it’s about doing the best we can. Was that the best I could do – I don’t know. And at Elevation Burger I did not ask about the bun.

Sunday was another Sophisticated Vegan meet-up, this time at a vegan chinese restaurant – The Vegetable Garden. Normally I do not like fake meat, and many of the dishes at this restaurant contained fake meat. I do like seitan when I make it myself, but tempeh, not at all.

There were photos of all of the dishes on the menu, and something about the picture of the Orange “Beef” was calling my name. I haven’t eaten beef in about 10 years, but I do remember what real orange beef tasted like. I was not disappointed in the vegan version, as a matter of fact if I was not at a vegan restaurant I would have returned the dish because I would never have believed that it was not meat.

Absolutely delicious, but not exactly clean eating. I did have a massaged kale salad for dinner after this, but I decided to go mainly raw yesterday.

Breakfast: Banana/Peach/Peanut Butter smoothie

Morning snack: Apple and raw almonds

Lunch: Salad with tons of veggies, olives, avocado, and some leftover baked breaded tofu with olive oil and blackberry balsamic vinegar. I also ate 3 crackers.

Afternoon snack: Sugar snap peas (which I didn’t eat because my stomach was so full from all of the raw stuff I had eaten already)

By dinner time my body decided it did not want any more raw food, so I heated up this Udon Kale Mushroom Miso dish that I had made over the weekend. It is one of my favorite recipes from Veganomicon. Gentle on the stomach.

I don’t know how people eat 100% raw diets. My body just can’t digest food that quickly I guess, but eating raw until 6PM makes me feel great after a weekend of less than healthy eating.

Posted in Food - Tagged raw, recipes, vegan

I Met Some Real Vegans

Feb06
2012 4 Comments

Written by Linda

I had the best experience yesterday – I actually met some real life vegans. I’ve joined some groups on meetup.com, and a couple of them are vegan social groups. Yesterday one group met at the Sticky Fingers Bakery in Washington DC.

Sticky Fingers is known for their cupcakes – they actually won Cupcake Wars. The real Cupcake Wars, not vegan Cupcake Wars.

But they also have a little restaurant and everything they have on their menus is vegan. I’ve never been to a restaurant that offered me so many choices, but unfortunately the majority of their dishes contain fake meat. I don’t like fake meat – mostly tempeh, which I don’t care for. They also had veggie hot dogs, veggie chicken nuggets and veggie steak. I’m not sure what these things are, but I didn’t eat processed food before I became a vegan, and I didn’t become a vegan so that I could eat more processed food.

I ordered the “tuna” melt, which contained “tuna” salad made from chickpeas, which is how I make it, and some vegan cheese and tomatoes, all grilled and crispy. It was really good.

For dessert I had the red velvet cupcake – the frosting was comparable to non-vegan cupcake frosting, but I thought the cake was a bit rubbery. I’m surprised that this cupcake won the competition (actually it wasn’t the red velvet cupcake that won), but maybe I just got a rubbery batch. I’m not complaining, it tasted amazing, just the texture was a little off.

The best part of the afternoon was meeting all of the people in the vegan group. What a great bunch of people! One woman had a baby, so the age range was 15 months to 60? 70? Who knows, I can never tell peoples ages. There were men and women, students, professionals, artists, moms and dads. They all subscribe to different degrees of veganism/vegetarianism, from the extreme to the less structured. Some have been vegan for 20 years, some just started a few months ago. One thing I heard multiple times is that it is difficult to go to friends or family events and not have anything to eat, so some vegans eat non-vegan items. This is definitely a problem for vegans, the conflict between personal values and social graces, as we do tend to be nice people.

Vegans seem to have some other things in common I think. Deep thinkers, compassionate, liberal, environmentally aware, nature loving, funny and friendly. One guy was actually born in the same hospital as I was – Perth Amboy General in New Jersey – one year after me.

His parents and grandparents lived in Perth Amboy and so did mine. Perth Amboy is not like a megalopolis or anything, so this is impressive. I can’t wait to tell my mother.