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Asheville will finally have its own 100% vegan restaurant. Not bad for a tiny little city in the mountains. Plant, opening this summer at 165 Merrimon Ave. will feature flavorful vegan dishes by former Laughing Seed chef, Jason Sellers.

From the Mountain Xpress (click here for the full story):

“We will serve flavor-sophisticated, multiculturally influenced food, using techniques that we like the best to intensify flavors based on what’s available to us at the best time,” he says.

….

Plant’s menu will be kept small enough to enable great attention to detail, he says, with fresh vegetables in the spotlight.

The restaurant also will have a char-grill. “Smoke and flame is something that’s really important to me, especially with vegan food,” says Sellers, who expects to include menu items like smoked potatoes and other dishes with “over-the-top” flavors. The chef will nod to his Italian heritage with seitan marsala and polenta dishes. He will also make his coconut-milk ice cream and other desserts, as well as pizzas and baked goods.

“I think we’ll just really surprise people with increasing the level of vegan food and offering what they may not have expected,” says Armstrong, who admits to a healthy addiction to Sellers’ ice cream.

“The menu is a hit list of all of our favorite flavors,” adds Sellers. “Our goal is lots of grilled and sautéed and cook-to-order vegan food.”

Weekend brunches will feature pancakes and yeasted Belgian waffles. “We want to take vegan brunch to a whole new level,” Sellers says.

Sounds great to me. If the food is good, I will eat at Plant all the time. I can’t wait to try their weekend brunch. Laughing Seed brunch just hasn’t been the same since they took the vegan omelet off the menu. * hint hint, Plant *

In the meantime, you can still support Asheville’s only *almost* vegan restaurant, Firestorm Cafe & Books. Their entire food menu is 100% vegan, but they do sell milk-based coffee drinks.

Update: The chef from Plant tells me that they already have some gluten-free options planned and he is working on ways to expand the gluten-free selection even further. Sounds like there may be some raw options as well, and….possibly….maybe….a vegan omelet in my future!

Vegan scramble at Rancho's

It is not easy to find a decent vegan breakfast in San Diego. It seems that all the good restaurants open after 11am. Luckily, there’s a very vegan-friendly (and carnivore-friendly) restaurant that opens at 8am and has some of the best vegan scramble I’ve ever had, not to mention some other amazing vegan options. Rancho’s Mexican & Vegetarian Cuisine a strange combination of traditional Mexican and super healthy vegan food. We were told that it came to be that way because the owner’s wife was vegan. See also my previous post about the most delicious vegan quesadillas I’ve ever had.

As good as their food is, I really didn’t want to eat there 2 mornings in a row, but I literally could not find another restaurant open for breakfast. For my 3rd morning, I had luckily discovered the Ocean Beach People’s Co-op which has a pretty good hot bar and bakery upstairs and lots of great food downstairs.

In general, it is very easy to find good vegan food in San Diego. Here are the places I had a chance to check out:

• Evolution Fast Food
  2949 5th Ave.
  San Diego, CA
  (619) 550-1818
  

  Mushroom swiss burger from Evolution

  Drive through or order take-out at the counter inside. They have a few chairs inside. The menu is reminiscent of traditional fast food – burgers, fries, shakes, and sandwiches, but way way healthier. They have several gluten-free options as well as a nice selection of raw food. The gluten-free version of the mushroom swiss burger was very flavorful and satisfying. I also grabbed a banana bread cookie to eat the next morning for breakfast, which was delicious. I came back another night for a smoothie, since they seem to have some of the more interesting smoothies in San Diego. I’m afraid I can’t remember what I got but it definitely hit the spot.

• The Greenery Raw Food Cafe
  133 Daphne St.
  Encinitas, CA
  (760)479-0996
  Not quite as good as Peace Pies (see below) but similar concept. I think I caught them at a time when they were out of most of their options, which is why it didn’t seem as good. Greenery does have a made-to-order menu for dinner, but I ate there during lunch, which is pre-made raw food items. I had a pretty good pizza and one of the best seaweed salad’s I’ve ever had.
• Peace Pies
  4230 Voltaire St.
  San Diego, CA
  (619)223-2880
  

  Raw cinnamon rolls from Peace Pies

  “I’ll have one of everything!” OK, it wasn’t exactly like that but pretty close. This 100% raw cafe didn’t look too promising when I first walked in. Most of the lunch options were pre-made in a fridge, not made-to-order. But When I looked up close, everything looked like something I had to try. I had some spaghetti with pesto, a slice of pizza, veggie sandwich, vanilla ice cream, and a slice of coconut cream pie with chocolate on top. I also got some cinnamon rolls to take for breakfast the next day. Everything I tried was outstanding. Truly delicious.

• Stephanie’s Bakery
  4879 Voltaire St.
  San Diego, CA
  Their website proclaims that they have the “best vegan pizza ever!” so that definitely seemed worth trying. Unfortunately, they were out of the gluten-free crust, but I decided to suffer through the gluten in order to get to try out their pizza. I don’t know if it lived up to the hype, but it was pretty good pizza. Definitely no complaints. I had the “Supreme” pizza which includes vegan pepperoni and several vegetables. They also use Follow Your Heart cheese. I also grabbed a gluten-free brownie, which was very tasty. Their other cakes looked absolutely incredible, but I didn’t want to eat any more gluten than I already had.
• All Vegan
  4669 Park Blvd.
  San Diego, CA
  

  S'mores from All Vegan

  Not a restaurant at all, but they had some really awesome vegan treats. The s’mores was particularly amazing. Truly amazing. They also had a nice selection of chocolates. Most of the store is non-edible things like shoes, belts, wallets, and other hard-to-find vegan items.

Overall San Diego is far more vegan-friendly than your average city, but not so awesome as Los Angeles or NYC. There are pockets of the area where good vegan food is very hard to find (ie Coronado Island, where I was staying). If you show up with a good list of restaurants and a GPS, you’ll have no problem finding enough food to eat.

As an aside, an interesting peculiarity about San Diego is that many many restaurants seem to offer young coconut water as a beverage, straight from the shell.

Daiya vegan cheese

Any time I see vegan quesadillas on a menu, I have to order them. They were my breakfast this morning at Rancho’s Mexican & Vegetarian Restaurant in San Diego. I became instantly suspicious when my cheese was not only delicious, but also chewy and stretchy. Everyone knows that vegan cheese does not taste and feel like that. Not possible.

I called the waiter over to ask if they had made a mistake with my order, but he said no – it was Daiya cheese. This may be old news to a lot of people, but I’d never heard of Daiya so I figured it was some “lactose-free” cheese with casein in it. I gave him the benefit of the doubt, ate my quesadillas, and hoped that I wouldn’t be puking sick later from eating cow’s milk (which I was not).

It turns out that Rancho’s knows what it’s doing. I stopped off at a little hippie food coop to see if I could find it. There it was, Daiya vegan cheese. Holy crap, it’s good. You must eat it. It’s been a super long time for me, but I’m pretty sure this is just what eating cheese used to be like. Close, at least.

Even better, it’s allergen-free for most people. From their website:

Daiya products do not contain many of the common allergens including; soy, dairy (casein or lactose), gluten, egg, peanuts, and tree nuts (excluding coconut)

The Farmacy Juice and Tonic Bar

It’s hard for most of us to get too excited about a juice and smoothie bar, but maybe that’s because most of them aren’t as satisfying and exciting as they could be.

The Farmacy Juice and Tonic Bar, in West Asheville, is appropriate for vegans, raw foodists, those who are gluten-intolerant, or any health-conscious person who also wants to enjoy their meal. They offer juices, smoothies, “super smoothie meal replacements”, raw soup, tonics, and shots. Their smoothies feature such exciting ingredients as chia seeds, coconut yoghurt, cacao, mesquite, spirulina, lavendar, and all the fresh fruits and veggies you’d expect. They also have something I’ve only been able to read about but have always wanted to try: Rejuvelac, as made famous by Dr. Anne Wigmore of the Hippocrates Institute.

Judy and Carl, who operate The Farmacy, do things differently than most places. For instance, you get a coconut water chaser with your wheatgrass shot. And they’ll first bring you a taste of your smoothie so you can ask for changes before they pour it. They are also wonderful, positive, interesting people who enjoy getting to know their customers.

Prices are extremely reasonable and we’ve never been unhappy with our order. Give them a try any Wednesday through Saturday, inside the West Village Market at 771 Haywood Rd. in West Asheville.

Other than bee pollan and honey, there is nothing on the menu that vegans need to look out for.

Once a week or so, I go out for a fancy coffee drink. For a while, it was a soy latte, or almond milk latte if it was available.*

During a visit to Firestorm Cafe in Asheville, I ordered a latte and the girl taking my order suggested I try a “vegan breve”. She explained that a regular breve is made with half-and-half. The VEGAN breve at Firestorm is made with almond milk and coconut creme. Of course I agreed to try that instead and it was the most delicious coffee drink ever, by far.

I like the breve so much that I started drinking them 3 or 4 times a week. I’ve had to consciously limit myself to only one per week. “Breve Friday” I call it.

As far as I know, Firestorm is the only place in town that serves vegan breves. You have 2 options. Their “Coconut Creme Breve” is listed on their menu. It’s what I described above but also has syrups in it for flavor. I hate syrups in my food, so I specifically ask for a vegan breve without the syrups. Or I should say, I used to ask for that. Now I just tell them “I’ll have the usual.”

* Note: Those who have known me for a long time, know that I used to really eschew coffee in all forms, so this may seem like an odd statement.  What can I say – life takes weird turns sometimes.

Blynk Organic

I wound up spending more time at the Southpark Mall in Charlotte today than I had planned. Way more. So of course at a certain point I got hungry for lunch. In desperation, I visited the food court thinking maybe there would be something that passed for edible food, but I was not optimistic.

Walking past all the crappy fast food, probably scowling without realizing it, I spotted a little booth hidden way at the end called Blynk Organic. Holy crap, that sounded promising! And then, written in chalk next to their soup of the day, “vegan and gluten-free”. I could not believe it.

I got a soup and salad combo. The soup was a simple Indian chick pea dish they called “Taj Mahal”. The salads are made to order from a variety of organic vegetables (as are the wraps and sandwiches). I had mixed greens, cucumbers, chick peas, marinated eggplant, and tofu.

Honestly, it was one of the most satisfying and delicious meals I’ve had in months. And I got it in a shopping mall. That’s amazing.

Idli Sambhar Chutney (not my photo, and not from Swad but looks just like theirs)

I spent the afternoon in Greenville today, and as I always do before going to another city, I checked out in advance what my lunch options would be. Happy Cow pretty much had one restaurant choice for me, not including grocery store hot bars.

I like checking out all vegetarian restaurants anyway, and authentic Indian food can be hard to find, so we decided to give it a try.

First, let me get out of the way that the food was absolutely great. I ate a lot of Indian food in high school at homes of friends and I’ve been lamenting the fact that I never seem to get that same experience in restaurants. Particularly the fact that I can never find idli on the menu. Well, I found it today and it was just as I remember, along with sambar (like a soup) and cucumber chutney. I also ordered a vegan “tomato omelet” made with lentil flour. In all honesty, it was not much like an omelet at all, not even a vegan one, but it was incredibly tasty even so. It was a little thinner and crispier than you would expect from an omelet.

But more importantly, being in Swad was just a wonderful happy experience. It is clearly a family restaurant with the owner also being the chef, and his son being the waiter. When I asked what had no dairy in it, the chef personally came to my table, asked if I was vegan, and then told me everything on the menu that I could have, which was almost everything.

He seemed genuinely delighted to have me there, and made a point of mentioning that the entire restaurant is vegetarian and the cooking equipment never touches meat of any kind, or any eggs. The owner is a lifelong vegetarian.

I was so very full when I finished my meal. But when the owner so enthusiastically came back to my table to give me a free cup of lentil soup and rice to try, I had to say yes. And it was delicious. I wish I could remember what it was exactly.

The people there were so genuine. I really felt as though I was a guest in their home and they were serving me the best they had to offer. I absolutely will make this a regular stop any time I’m in Greenville.

Swad is located at 1421-A Laurens Rd. in Greenville, SC. Open Mon-Sat 11AM-9PM.

Asian Slaw and Potato Salad

A new vegetarian restaurant opened up today in downtown Asheville. Green Light Cafe, on Lexington near College (across from Tops Shoes) offers a new healthy option for dining out.

Everything on the menu is vegan or can be made vegan, with the exception of one of the dips. There are also several gluten-free options, although they do not have gluten-free bread for the sandwiches and wraps at this point. For the raw fooders, there are several salads and at least one raw dip.

The first thing they brought us was chlorophyll water, which they serve free of charge. It didn’t have a strong flavor but I did feel as though I was getting my meal off to an extra healthy start.

We then ordered the savory pocket appetizer which had a flakey spelt flour and coconut butter crust. It was magical. I will no doubt go back there many more times just to order that.

For entrees, we had sweet potato patties over rice with peanut sauce which was amazing, although a little more like breakfast than I’d expected. More sweet than savory. We also ordered the Jamaican Rice Mixup which was also a little sweeter than expected, but still a very filling, healthy, and tasty meal. The food was so filling actually, that we took half of it home with us.

But that didn’t stop me from ordering the Chunky Monkey cookie (I was won over by my server’s enthusiasm for it). It wasn’t the greatest cookie in the universe, but I did enjoy the blend of chocolate, banana, and walnut. They weren’t stingy with the good stuff.

High quality and generous portions and the whole thing cost us only $25 (before tip, after taxes).

More so than other restaurants, the staff seems so genuinely happy to serve their customers. It made me that much more happy about giving them my business. It’s a little unfortunate that their name is so similar to another healthy restaurant that is just a block away, The Green Sage, but on the other hand, Green Light Cafe has actually been around since 1998 as a catering and “mobile cafe” based out of Black Mountain. It is only their downtown Asheville location that is new.

So overall, I am genuinely excited about this new addition to Asheville. If you’re not a vegetarian or if you’re not into health food, you might be inclined to think “what do we need another healthy veg restaurant for?” But if you are into vegetarian health food, you’re probably just as tired as I am of eating the same things all the time. Green Light Cafe brings a whole new set of options to town. Check them out and give them your support!

[P.S. - like an idiot, I left my camera at home so I didn't get any pictures. I'll take some the next time I'm there. The picture currently on this post is from their website and is not what we ordered.]

Native Foods Cheeseburger

I just returned from a week-long vacation in Los Angeles, where the primary goal of my trip was to eat at as many vegan restaurants as possible. If only there had been more room in my stomach and more hours in a day, I would have tried more meals at more restaurants. But I did manage to check out quite a few. I tried, sort of, to stick with gluten-free and sugar-free foods, but there were just too many temptations. And it was a vacation so what the heck. I definitely need to stay on the straight-and-narrow for a while because my pants are now way too tight.

I took some photos of the food I ate but tragically left my camera at the beach on my 3rd day in town. But here is a great shot of the Native Foods cheeseburger, stolen from Vegan Food Blog.

Follow Your Heart, the company that makes the delicious vegan cheese that actually melts, has a restaurant (and full grocery store) in L.A! We stopped there for our first meal of the trip – Sunday brunch. I was able to try a vegan “om-lette” with mushrooms, onions, and vegan cheese. Delicious! I had a taste of their french toast which was just as I remember french toast to be. The tapioca pudding was good, but some of the other options for dessert might have been a better pick. The service was comically bad. We literally had to wave our arms around to get the attention of a server, and even that didn’t work sometimes. Luckily we were in good company so the 2-hour meal was still enjoyable.

Better Life Cuisine is a raw food restaurant in Santa Monica. Our first visit there for dinner was quite good. We tried the supreme tacos and the manicotti rolls, which were both excellent. Filling, without being too heavy. Their raw eggless salad was impressive. After that, it went downhill. Their desserts are tasty, but way way too sweet. We tried the cinnamon roll and the pumpkin pie. But what really disappointed us was breakfast. We grabbed a couple of smoothies on our way out of town for a day trip. We had been looking forward to their durian-coconut smoothie ever since we’d spotted it on the menu. It was unforgivably bad. It smelled vaguely of durian but tasted like watered down almond milk with some cinnamon thrown in. Not sure there was any coconut in it at all. We also tried a Gil’s green smoothie, which was equally bad. If we had not already been well on our way when we tried it, we would have demanded our $10 (each!) back. Truly awful.

Native Foods is an all-vegan comfort food type of place. Not a good choice if you want to eat healthy, but the food was great. The bacon cheeseburger was just like I remember from childhood, except without the greasy meat. We also ordered from the kids menu and got the quinoa macaroni and cheese and the chicken nuggets. Both were amazing.

Real Food Daily is similar to Native Foods in that it offers vegan versions of all your old favorites. I would say it’s slightly more upscale, with respect to both the food and atmosphere. We tried the gluten-free pizza and the club triple decker.  We meant to go back for breakfast but never had the chance. If I lived in L.A., I probably would eat here all the time. They also had some raw options.

Seed is a vegan, organic, macrobiotic restaurant a couple of blocks from Venice Beach. They had a big sign about their award-winning blackened tempeh burger. John had the good sense to order that – it was amazing. I got the Japanese vegetable curry bowl (supposedly with wild mushrooms and squash), which was disappointing. Too much carrot, almost no mushrooms at all. The $5 Madonna coconut mouse was good in that it wasn’t overly sweet, but it wasn’t very flavorful either. I’d eat here again, but I’d order differently next time.

101 Coffee Shop was recommended by a friend as the best vegan breakfast in town. 101 is a traditional diner, but it has one vegan breakfast item – “No Huevos” Rancheros. It was so good that it sent John into a tirade about how restaurants in Seattle and Asheville serve flavorless food. And it actually opened at breakfast time which puts it ahead of most of the other restaurants that serve vegan breakfasts. It was also quite a bit cheaper than everywhere else.

Interim Cafe (also known as Newsroom Cafe) was also recommended as having some of the best vegan food in town. Newsroom is not all vegetarian but they have a ton of vegan options. They also have quite a few gluten-free items. It was one of the best meals I’ve ever had. I had the vegan spinach quesadillas – a meal I’ve been craving for years. It was everything I dreamed it would be. I was also able to try a bite of their superfood veggie burger, which was pretty good. The wild mushroom tamales were a letdown. I thought the vegan scone was pretty bad too. The chocolate soft-serve ice cream was impressive.

Babycakes NYC Bakery in downtown L.A. was so good we ordered 3 rounds of food. A great surprise was the fact that much of their items are gluten-free and sugar-free! We had a carrot cupcake, lemon poppy seed bread, corn bread, and banana bread, which were all amazing. The sugar-cinnamon doughnut was OK, but not nearly as good as other vegan doughnuts I’ve had.

On our way to Palm Springs for the day, we stopped in a charming little college town called Claremont for breakfast, and then again for dinner on our way back to L.A. We hadn’t planned ahead so there might have been other vegan places to eat there but we just stopped in at whatever looked promising.

Full of Life had some tofu dishes on the menu that looked pretty good so we decided to give it a try. I was about to order a scramble when I spotted the “Tofu Omlette” on the specials board. Assuming that meant it was an omlette made of tofu instead of eggs, I ordered it. Based on my questions, the woman taking my order must have realized I was a vegan because she asked if I could eat eggs. English was her second language and the conversation was a little confusing but I realize now that it was intended to be a typical omlette but with tofu and veggies inside. What arrived at my table was a pile of the omlette’s insides, very carefully arranged in the shape of an omlette. This wasn’t terribly filling but the spices made it very tasty and they definitely get an A for effort.

Ecoterra is a little hippie grocery store with a cafe inside. Their chef comes in each morning and makes the day’s food items which you can then pick out of a refrigerator. So it isn’t really a cafe in the way we expected it to be. We got some spanish rice and a turkey and cheese sandwich. Good food but nothing to write home about. The guy working there was exceptionally friendly and helpful, even willing to heat up our rice in a frying pan for us because we don’t like using microwaves.

BoBo Gallery is an art gallery, music venue, and vegetarian cafe all rolled into one. They are one of the few restaurants that seems to value the growing number of people who want vegan and gluten-free – not just one or the other. Their menu is mostly vegan and has extensive gluten-free options.

About half their menu is also raw and living foods, which is a first for Asheville. Other restaurants in town, such as Ophelia’s and Laughing Seed, offer raw specials or a couple of raw salads, but BoBo has a full menu of raw appetizers, entrees, and desserts.

This little gem is rare in the world and Asheville should feel very fortunate to have it. I hope everyone will support BoBo Gallery and enjoy their awesome food and friendly, welcoming environment.

BoBo Gallery is located in downtown Asheville at 22 Lexington Ave.

Update: I don’t think this restaurant exists anymore, but they do still exist as a small art gallery and bar. The Green Light Cafe has opened up in it’s place though and it’s delicious. Check it out.