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Mani’s

Tofu Scramble from Mani’s

Our meal at Mani’s in LA was by far the most disappointing. The service was very slow, the food sub par.

I ordered the tofu scramble which my waitress said, “was popular with the health types” when I asked about it. After a generous helping of salt it approached being edible. I’m sure the asparagus came from a bag in their freezer, and the fruit tasted like it came from a can. Next to my toast were several pats of butter, much to my dismay.

I know not everyone knows what “vegan” is, but if you’re going to offer specifically vegan things on your menu, labeled as such, it’s a nice touch to make sure the vegan plates don’t go out to the tables with butter on them. Thankfully they were in little foil wrappers so we could easily remove them from the plate, but it didn’t give us much confidence that butter, or other non-vegan things, weren’t used in the preparation of our meal.

Stewart’s meal wasn’t great either, the Vegan Wheat-Free Pancakes:

Perhaps the bakery section of Mani’s is good - they seemed to have a decent selection of vegan baked goods in their pastry case, but I wouldn’t recommend going there for a sit-down meal. The service was slow and the check was quite large, making the entire experience a bit of a let-down.

1 comment December 2nd, 2006

Cru

Raw Pad Thai from Cru

We only went to one raw vegen restaurant while in California, but I had the pleasure of visiting twice: once with a local friend of mine and again with Stewart in tow.

Here is the first dish I tried at Cru, formally the Jade Cafe: Raw Pad Thai. The noodles were described as “root” on the menu with no other specifics, and they were impossibly long and unbelievably thin. It came with bell peppers, cucumbers, cabbage, cilantro, lime wedges, and a spicy sauce which my server informed me was not peanut based. Whatever they used, it was sure tasty. I finished my entire meal, washed down with a glass of watermelon juice.

My friend had the Bento Box:

Lots of tasty marinated vegetables including collard greens, mushrooms, avocados, sprouts, cucumbers, carrots and red cabbage. She at all of hers as well.

Desert! Desert was amazing. A raw key lime pie:

It had pistachio “crust” which wasn’t crusty at all, but was still appreciated. The filling was tart, smooth, and unidentifiable. It was topped with fresh kiwis and coconut cream. This was so good I ordered it again when we stopped in the next day, but the second iteration was way too tart for my liking.

We also got a scoop of their chocolate gelato after a strong recommendation from the server, and it was delicious. I was afraid it’d be gritty or have a disturbing vegetal aftertaste, but it was perfectly chocolaty and creamy:

Add comment December 2nd, 2006

Fatty’s and Co

Black Lentil Strudel from Fatty’s

The worst pictures of the trip were taken here, at Fatty’s and Co in Pasadena. I had to battle the romatic low-light ambiance with nothing but a camera phone. My apologies.

First up was my meal, their Black Lentil Strudel: crispy wedges of strudel balanced on freshly steamed broccoli, surrounded by a nut based bechamel sauce. It was topped with a balsamic reduction and little purple flowers. The whole thing was delicious, and I nearly licked my plate clean.

Stewart ordered the Cacciatore:

I’m still uncertain as to what the little sand castle-like structure actually consisted of, but it seemed to be vegetables (specific, I know) that were tossed in a marinara sauce that Stewart was quite fond of.

The vegetables were surrounded by a barbeque sauce and wedges of zucchini. He said both parts of the meal were good on their own, but not mixed together.

We didn’t have room for dessert, but we ordered the Apple Pie A La Mode anyway:

It was a very decent specimen of apple pie. Delicious and served warm, but not by any means spectacular. The soy ice cream was standard, no surprises there either.

Add comment December 2nd, 2006

California Vegan

Orange Chicken Dinner Special from California Vegan

I got the Orange Chicken Dinner Special. I was really excited when the put it down in front of me. The orange chicken looked perfect - just the right color and an appetizing glaze. Upon tasting it, however, I was disappointed.

I’ve had a lot of meat analogues, but never I have I tasted one like this. The texture was fine, but it had a strange aftertaste. It wasn’t bad, but it was off-putting enough that I didn’t finish it.

The fried rice was decent but on the bland side, the salad was also decent with a pleasant peanut dressing, but the spring roll was by far the best part of the dish. It tasted vaguely crab-like (even though I think the last time I had crab was 15 years ago) and I wished I had more than one.

Stewart got a Chicken wrap which he didn’t like at all:

A side of perfectly executed french fires:

And we shared the Banana Spring Roll for Dessert:

The banana spring roll was tasty, if a bit oily. They lined won ton wrappers with shredded coconut and placed a whole banana inside, wrapped it up, deep fried it and served it with chocolate and cherry sauce. It was pretty good, but I ended up scraping out the coconut from the last piece because I’m a terrible dinner date.

Oh well!

Add comment December 2nd, 2006

Lychee and Blackberry/Raspberry gelato from Angelato

Lychee and Blackberry/Raspberry gelato from Angelato

While in Santa Monica, Stewart and I stopped in at Angelato after reading something online about them having a variety of soy gelato flavors.

We were disappointed to see that they only had vanilla and chocolate, but the wide array of vegan sorbetto lifted our spirits. Here is my Lychee sorbetto and Stewarts Blackberry Raspberry.

This is “two scoops” according to the sign, but I counted at least four. Super tasty, but I couldn’t finish it all.

Add comment December 2nd, 2006