the vegan fork: March 2007

Sunday, March 25, 2007

A sucessful hunt for vegan food in Hawaii

I successfully found some really good food in Hawaii, although I ate some mediocre meals in addition to the delicious ones and I had to be careful about restaurant selection.

At Huggo's in Kona we were able to eat right on the water -- practically right on top of it. I think we saw someone with a table on the edge get hit by some spray from some waves. It was definitely a touristy place, but the view was really beautiful and the atmosphere was relaxing and the service wasn't too over-solicitous compared to the other water-front restaurant we tried in Kona.

I had the "garden grill," which included some grilled vegetables with a rice pilaf and some black beans. It sounds very simple, but it was really delicious. The vegetables were very flavorful (especially the portobello) and fresh. The beans and rice were both very good too. It was plenty of food, but was light enough not to make me feel stuffed. I loved that the beans and rice came inside of a cooked tomato!

Grilled Vegetables

The other great meal I had was in Waimea at Daniel Thiebaut Restaurant. The restaurant was very beautiful, and it's in a building that used to be a country store for the locals (it's in a ranching town). They had a whole "vegetarian and pasta" section on the menu with several things that sounded like they could easily be made vegan. For the whole trip, I had been seeing on menus "macadamia nut-crusted" this and that...usually fish and chicken. I was dying for something vegan crusted with macadamia nuts...and I finally found it. Daniel Thiebaut had a macadamia nut-crusted tofu napoleon on the menu. It ended up being a very large serving of tofu with mac nuts and a mixture of wonderful delicate stir fried veggies between the layers served with a very rich tahini sauce. It was incredibly delicious.

Macadamia-Nut Crusted Tofu Napolean


Wednesday, March 07, 2007

Kampuchea Noodle Bar

This is a new Cambodian restaurant in the LES, and it's delicious! They have lots of meat-heavy items on the menu, but a nice veg selection as well.

Can we talk about the cocktails first? They had some that were so good! Their coconut mojito is yummy. It was delicious but not too sweet. I also tried a really good mango caipirinha. And probably the best drink I tried was made with vanilla vodka, jackfruit puree, and ginger.

The cocktails were in good company, though, because the food was also delicious. We started with the pickle plate, which was fun, but really just too many pickles for us. It had pickled cabbage, daikon, mango, radish, and cucumber.

Kampuchea -- pickle plate

We also had the one vegetarian crepe on the menu. It contained squash, bean sprouts, edamame, and onions. All the veggies had a great grilled flavor. It came with lettuce leaves to wrap the veggies in, and raw bean sprouts, basil leaves, and lime. Then the crepe was made of rice flour and coconut. It wasn't that flavorful...especially compared to the veggies, but had a fun texture and chewiness factor.

Kampuchea -- squash crepes

Kampuchea -- squash crepes

Then we had the vegetarian noodle option, the tofu katiev. The bowl contains rice noodles, tofu, squash, mushrooms, and broth. It was good, but not anything super-special. I took the leftover noodles for lunch the following day, and I think they were better then...maybe because they weren't competing with all of the other delicious food?

Kampuchea -- Tofu Katiev

My favorite of the things we ordered was the grilled eggplant num pang. It's a sandwich on a baguette with grilled eggplant and other veggies. It comes with chili mayo, so we ordered it without. I'm sure it's great with the mayo, but I really didn't miss it. The sandwich was really yummy and garlicky, and the baguette was wonderfully crusty. There were ill effects on my breath for a good 12 to 16 hours after, but it was worth it. The sandwich was definitely the best thing I ate at Kampuchea, and it had some tough competition.

kampuchea -- grilled eggplant num pang

Aside from the incredible food and drinks, the restaurant was also just a really fun place to be. It's very cute and simply decorated with an open kitchen. The servers were incredibly friendly and helpful without being annoying, and there was just a nice warm feeling about the place.

Sunday, March 04, 2007

Vancouver, BC

I tried to find and eat vegan food in Vancouver, and unfortunately most of the things I ate were somewhat disappointing. There are plenty of veg and veg-friendly restaurants there that I didn't try, though, so I'm sure Vancouver has some good food to offer.

Stonegrill:

The Stonegrill is a restaurant where most of the entrees are served raw but with a hot rock on which you cook it. Most of those entrees are slabs of meat or fish, but they also have a vegetarian entree that's served on the rock. It came with a portobello cap on the rock, and a plate of onions, peppers, broccoli, and mushrooms for me to add to the rock. It's interesting that the stuff doesn't really cook until you cut into it. Only the exposed surface cooks. So you cut the things into really small pieces and let those cook. Amazingly, the slab of rock stays super-hot for a long time.
The vegetables were nice and fresh and it was fun to cook them on the stone. However, the vegetables are completely plain, no marinade, and they're served with just some soy sauce for dipping. I would have been happier with a more interesting dipping sauce.

Vegetarian entree from Stonegrill in Vancouver, BC

We decided to order the "orange soup" for dessert. When we asked our server for it, she tried to steer us away. She told us that it's "interesting," "the owner's own creation," and "not the best dessert on the menu." However, the only other vegan option they had was sorbet, and we were pretty curious about the orange soup.

It's orange juice cooked with lily bulb pieces and Grand Marnier, served inside an orange shell. I was surprised that it was warm; I think it might have worked better cold. It was okay, but not terrific. It seemed a little bitter, which was probably due to the Grand Marnier. The lily bulbs didn't have much flavor, but they were weirdly crunchy for a dessert.

Orange Soup from Stonegrill in Vancouver, BC

Hon's Wun Tun House:

I wanted to go to Hon's because it has two kitchens: one for vegetarian food and one for other food. I thought that sounded great, and I could be assured that my food was totally veg (no oyster sauce to worry about). The place was big and crowded and loud and the two kitchens were open so you could see into them.

There were lots of fun choices on the menu, but I made a bad decision. I ordered "braised wheat gluten with vegetables." When it arrived, I didn't notice which kitchen it came from and the server didn't say anything. It looked kind of gross, so I was hoping it was my dining partner's "chicken with vegetables." I tried to tell him it must be his. He told me it must be mine. We both suggested the other person take a bite to find out. Finally a server came back with the chicken dish, and it was clear that the gross-looking dish was mine.

Braised Wheat Gluten with Vegetables, Hon's Wun Tun House, Vancouver

And it was gross. The gluten was...limp. The sauce had very little flavor. The vegetables were fine, but they were in the flavorless sauce. It was all kind of greasy. I didn't eat much of it.

We had some vegetarian pot stickers as an appetizer, and they were pretty bad too. They were super-greasy and not very flavorful. Oh, and Hon's claims to have a trademark on "potstickers." You would think they would serve really good ones!

The chicken dish, by the way, looked really good, and my dining partner confirmed that it was.

The Naam:

I wanted to go to The Naam because they're Vancouver's oldest veg restaurant, so I figured they must know what they're doing. It's a cute little place, and amazingly enough they're open 24 hours. We went for breakfast.

The truth is that they are one of those old school veg places that relies heavily on dairy and eggs and had a few vegan options, but not many. I ordered the tofu scramble and some home fries. The food was very good. I loved the fact that the scramble had lots of veggies in it. And that the scramble wasn't bright yellow with turmeric as they often are. The home fries were really good.

Scrambled Tofu at The Naam, Vancouver, BC

I was disappointed by the few vegan options, though. I wanted a cookie for the road. They had tons of cookies at the counter, but when I asked if any were vegan, I was told no, even though they had a sign listing lots of vegan cookies.

Friday, March 02, 2007

Lan Cafe

Lan Cafe is a new-ish vegan Vietnamese restaurant on 6th St (India Row). It's super-tiny, and the atmosphere isn't great, but the food was pretty good and it would be a great place to order delivery from if you live nearby.

We started with the vegetarian shrimp papaya salad. I was remembering how good the green papaya salad was at Pukk and hoping for something similar. The "vegetarian shrimp" kind of grossed me out because I don't like the taste of seafood, real or fake. But it wasn't that fishy, and was really just slightly funky chunks of tofu. The salad was okay but not really what I was looking for. I think I wanted it to be more sweet and tart and have more peanuts, but it was kind of bland (and too light on the peanuts).

Vegetarian Shrimp Papaya Salad at Lan Cafe

Then we tried the Seitan with Mixed Vegetables and the Pad Thai. Both dishes were good but maybe a little too greasy, and the seitan dish was a little heavy on the sweet sauce.

Seitan with mixed vegetables at Lan Cafe


Pad Thai at Lan Cafe

I would definitely go back to Lan Cafe, but I may be inclined to plan ahead and get takeout rather than eating in their tiny dining room.