restaurant Archives - Page 5 of 8

Ipanema Cafe

While we would have been perfectly happy going back to Harrison Street Coffee Shop for lunch Sunday, we decided to continue the standard food tour every vegan does when they visit a different city. So we went to Ipanema Cafe instead, which was right around the corner from Harrison Street.

Ipanema Cafe is in the basement of a building. Lots of exposed brick and definitely on the dark side. I can see it being a favorite of people with hangovers and vampires. The place was full when we got there, but the bar was empty so we decided to go ahead and sit there to eat. They were serving the brunch menu but while we were sitting there we could see the dinner menu posted on the wall and spent some time drooling over those options and wishing we could come back for dinner.

I ordered The Rubi (Tempeh Benedict) – smoky grilled tempeh resting on homemade english muffin, sautéed spinach, mushrooms, onions and marinated tomato. Topped with a vegan citrus béarnaise sauce. The tempeh was packed with flavor and sliced thin. Baked, I think. Everything else complemented it well. It was definitely a winner. It also came with sweet potato hash and fresh fruit. Here is a blurry picture thanks to the fact that my camera only focuses when it feels like it. I’m sure someone on some blog will make a snarky post about crappy food porn pics. That person can bite it.

Kevin got the French Toast with Warm Apple Compote – Billy Bread dipped in sweet apple sauce batter and griddled. It was good, but apparently didn’t come close to touching the french toast at Pick Me Up Cafe in Chicago.

The girl at Harrison Street said we HAD to get a piece of pie at Ipanema. Just as we were getting ready to ask about that, the bartender came out with a free piece of blueberry pie for us since we were from out of town. How cool was that? It had a shortbread crust with a tasty, crunchy streusel on top. It was really good, but the baker in me is always thinking of things I’d do differently. Can’t help it. 🙂

I don’t know what we’re going to do about food today. Harrison Street and Panda Veg are both closed. Time to hit up Happy Cow!

Harrison Street Coffee Shop

Whenever I’m visiting Virginia, if I go nowhere else, I try to get by Harrison Street Coffee Shop. They have a good assortment of breakfast and brunch items, sandwiches, soup and salad. Not big heavy meals, but exactly the amount of food I want. And almost everything is vegan. Oh yeah, and they usually have some baked goods around. And the coffee is good. They only down side is that the hours can get sketchy when VCU is out.

Local bar gives us a vegan night

In January, the Graveyard Tavern in East Atlanta started serving a vegan special on Thursday nights. So far it’s been a three course menu with an appetizer, salad or soup, a main dish and dessert. These are definitely different offerings than you’ll find at the veg restaurants around town so it’s a nice change. I’ll take you on a tour through crappy, dark iPhone photos.

Ha, don’t judge this poor veggie stack by it’s pic.

This was basically pasta & veggie sausages in sauce. Good, but I can do at home.

Dessert was kind of like a smoothie. Nice, but lacking my favorite dessert ingredient, chocolate.

All in all, off to a good start! Our next visit, we were greeted with these lovely fried tofu nuggets. These were amazing! I think it was an asian sweet and sour sauce with it. BBQ sauce might have been better. But honestly, they were so good naked that it didn’t matter.

Main course was a shepherd’s pie. Again, good, but something I can make at home.

Now this is the kind of dessert I can get behind! I think it was a chocolate mousse in a sort of peanut buttery crunchy shell. Really good.

See, these are just getting better! Next visit:

The green and gold minestrone soup was slightly salty but otherwise excellent.

Beer bangers, mustard mashed potatoes and onion gravy. Again, good, but I can make.

And I’m not a huge fan of pumpkin pie. It’s okay, but again, lack chocolate. I think this particular meal was my least favorite. Again, it was still pretty good.

After a little break from vegan night, I got my favorite meal there so far! Collard green wontons with sweet chili sauce. I could eat a bowl full of these.

Gnocchi with cashew thyme pesto. Now THIS is what I’m talkin’ about! If you’ve ever made gnocchi you know why they’re appreciated so much more if someone else does all the work.

Dessert did lack chocolate. But the gnocchi was so rockin’ that I didn’t care. Brandied peach and almond cobbler:

So that wraps up the vegan nights I’ve tried so far. I know there was one more I forgot to take pics of. Oh well. If you’re looking to shake up your vegan routine, give it a try.

Why didn’t anyone tell me about this?

After voting last Friday, I went off in search of a Goodwill that turned out to no longer be there. That seems to happen all the time with Goodwill around here. It wasn’t a total waste of time though because across the street from where it should have been was this:

What? Why has this been kept from me? I know it’s ITP OTP, but still, a vegan Jamaican restaurant! So of course I went in. The guy said everything is vegan. VEGAN. Woohoo! So I bought a callaloo pie and a tofu pie and went off to meet Kevin. Well, I ate half of each cause I was starving. Then I met Kevin at Cosmo’s and he had pie, and Ken & Leigh had pie. I think everyone agreed they were mighty tasty. So later we grabbed up Matt and went back there for dinner. Kevin got the vegetarian steak:

And I got the vegetarian ground beef. They were out of the chicken which seems pretty popular becvause everyone that walked in asked for it.

The dinners come with rice & peas and then you get a choice of salad or veggies. I know it looks remarkably brown, and blurry, but it was really tasty. The steak and ground beef had distinctively different flavors so it isn’t just the same exact stuff in another shape.

I wish this place was in closer to home but I could make it sort of be on the way to Dekalb Farmer’s Market. They also have a bunch of juices if you’re into that. The guy let us sample one and it was pretty good. While you can eat there, it is really designed more as a take out place. So don’t expect tablecloths and, uh, silverware.

Vegetarian Paradise
6125 Covington Hwy.
Lithonia, GA 30035
(678) 518-8649

Date Night Food

Friday night we had a nice date night that started with Cafe Sunflower and then was followed by the symphony. We started with pear in a wine sauce with endive. No picture because I forgot. It was refreshing though. I had the ravioli with butternut squash (I think) and tofu ricotta. They’ve switched from using regular ricotta which rocks!

And Kevin got the lemon chicken.

Oh, and we split a piece of strawberry cake. But I was too interested in tearing into it to take a picture.

I’ve had pretty consistently good food at Cafe Sunflower over the years. My only complaint has been trying to find the hidden non-vegan items. But the server this night asked us right off if we were vegan and then gave us the whole rundown of the menu and what we could and couldn’t get or substitutions that could be made. Other vegetarian restaurants should take note if they’d like to gain the trust of vegans.