Vegan Hampton Roads

Well folks, the vegan picks for restaurant week in Downtown Norfolk and Ghent are few and far between, but at least we have some options! Click each restaurant below for their restaurant week menu. Before you head out to any of these restaurants, you may want to call and confirm if certain dishes are in fact vegan or can be made vegan. I haven’t made any calls myself, but I’ve included those places offering dishes that seem like they should be vegan. And unfortunately vegans will not be able to enjoy all three courses on restaurant week since the desserts seem to all be non-vegan, but maybe you can talk them into a substitution for you.

California Pizza Kitchen - Hummus appetizer and veggie pizza without cheese.

Freemason Abbey - House salad and balsamic grilled eggplant, though be warned that Freemason Abbey uses meat stock in their rice which comes with the vegetarian dish. Make sure you ask for a different side.

Monastery - House salad and pasta florentine dish. Surprising that there are options at this decidedly un-vegan, Hungarian restaurant. I’m not sure about any of the other, more traditional dishes, but my suspicion is that none of them is vegan or vegetarian. If you find out something different, let us know!

Pasha - Hummus or kale salad appetizer and vegetarian plate entree (a few items on this platter are not vegan, so you’ll need to ask for a substitution).

Rajput Indian Cuisine - Vegetable samosa appetizer, vegetable jalfrezi or chana masala entree, and gajjar halwa (carrot pudding) for dessert. This is the only fully-vegan, three course meal you can get on restaurant week and it’s only $20! Rajput is great.

Boot - Many of the Boot’s dishes are vegetarian and some can be made vegan upon request, so just let your server know and they’ll give you your options at the table. I ate dinner recently at the Boot and had some great vegan dishes. **update** The sorbet on the Boot’s restaurant week menu is vegan! Thanks to Kristen for letting us know. And she said it was pretty tasty.

Remember, you can follow us on Twitter for up-to-the-minute Hampton Roads vegan dining news and conversation @veganHR. For local vegan food porn, check out our flickr stream.

Machismo Burrito Bar was around serving up its football-sized burritos before Moe’s, Chipotle, Qdoba and the other chains even considered hitting the Hampton Roads scene, and the restaurant still boasts a dedicated following thanks to its delicious food and vegan options.

Machismo's newest location in Downtown Norfolk.

The menu at Machismo is pretty simple - it’s organized into burritos, of course, tacos, quesadillas, nachos and salads. Once you decide what you want, you’ll need to figure out the fillings and toppings, from bright yellow saffron rice to perfectly cooked black beans to a hot, green salsa, just to name a few. Like a Subway for burritos, you follow your food along letting the friendly folks at Machismo know what you want and how much before they attempt to wrap it up in a neat football of foil. You even get your choice of tortillas, from wheat, to spinach and chipotle. Or you can get the burrito in a bowl, sans tortilla.

Continue reading ‘Machismo Burrito Bar’

Sorry for the lack of updates, folks! I’ve been in a K-hole known as student teaching the last 14 weeks and if you or anyone you know has ever student taught, you know how ridiculously exhausting it is. But I’m virtually done** which means I’m back to obsessing over delicious vegan food in Hampton Roads!

With my first update as a recovering student teacher, I’ve got some good news and some bad news. The good news first:

1. San Antonio Sam’s in Norfolk is now offering Daiya vegan cheese on any of their dishes for an extra $1.50. If you haven’t heard of Daiya or gotten a chance to try it, it’s the new haute vegan cheese. You know how us vegans are - always on the search for the most realistic vegan cheese - that elusive creature. Well, I had a chance to try Daiya out at zpizza in Virginia Beach and it is pretty delicious. It even has that oh-my-god-it’s-like-Napalm-in-my-mouth-it’s-so-hot feel like real cheese! Flavor-wise it’s pretty mild. I only tried the mozzarella version, but the company makes a cheddar flavor. I generally didn’t go to San Antonio Sam’s for food because the vegetarian menu consisted of mainly cheese and sour cream-laden Tex-Mex dishes, but I’ll be stopping by soon to support the addition of Daiya to the menu.

**update: Evidently Sam’s is now using Follow Your Heart vegan cheese instead of Daiya. FYH is vegan, but in my opinion isn’t as great as Daiya. Regardless, it’s great to see a restaurant catering to vegans and those with dairy sensitivities!

2. Swirls has a cold weather special going on - buy one get one free! Someone should go with me so I don’t eat two cups of vegan frozen yogurt by myself.

3. La Bella Italia in Norfolk is advertising a four course menu that’s “vegetarian & vegan friendly.” I stopped by a while back and couldn’t get a straight answer about what was vegan since the four course menu was all meat or cheese dishes. I’m planning on calling again and hoping I get someone a little more informed about what the four course vegan menu might look like and, more importantly, whether it’s worth $30. If someone finds out before I do, please update here!

And now for the bad news: Chickette is no longer vegan! Neither are some Morningstar products!

I’m more upset about the Chickette, because quite a few local restaurants have it on their menus as a vegan option, including Red Dog Saloon and The Taphouse, both in Ghent. The Taphouse has already switched out the non-vegan Chickette with a new brand, but still lists it on their menu as Chickette. Red Dog is going to use up the rest of their Chickette, which they buy in bulk, before considering a switch. Here’s the info from the company’s Web site:

In January 2009, we communicated the following information to the Food Allergy and Anaphylasis Network (FANN).  Starting in the Summer of 2009, MorningStar Farms Griller Recipe Crumbles, MorningStar Farms Sausage Style Crumbles and Worthington Chickette Chub Roll will contain milk and egg ingredients. The ingredient statement will include this change and will also list “milk and egg ingredients” in the “contains” statement.  Because product formulations may change from time to time, consumers are strongly encouraged to read the package label prior to every purchase. For more information, contact MorningStar Farms at (800) 962-0120 or visit our website at www.morningstarfarms.com

Oh, and in case you end up at Yorgo’s wondering about their Chickette salad…it’s vegan! They used Chickette originally, I think, and just kept the name, but the salad is made with delicious Gardein faux chicken. Whew…because I just couldn’t take that sort of heartache. That vegan chicken salad might be the best thing on the planet. The same goes for the Chickette Sandwich at Charlie’s Cafe. The restaurant uses Boca chicken patties, which are vegan, but just calls it Chickette on the menu (thanks to Matthew for that info!).

** If you know of a school looking for a hardworking and optimistic new teacher, let me know!

In an attempt to gather all of the vegan-friendly restaurants around Hampton Roads in one place, I created a Google Map. This gives you a snapshot of restaurants and health food stores in the region that cater to vegan diners in one way or another - some more than others.

It’s still in the works, with more locations being added, but the map will give you a big picture view while I tackle the backlog of restaurant reviews I’ve got going. Plus you can add these locations to your own Google Maps online, or even on your iPhone. Whoa!

And if there’s something you think I should add to the map, please let me know!

View Vegan Hampton Roads in a larger map

Sorry for the hiatus! I was in Europe for a few weeks vacationing and sampling delicious vegan food. If you’re ever in Berlin, you must seek out YoYo Foodworld! Now, back to the many vegan things Hampton Roads has to offer…

Indian restaurants are always great places to find vegetarian and vegan options, but Rajput Indian Cuisine in the Ghent section of Norfolk really goes out of its way to spoil diners, especially us vegans.

First off, let me just say this so you can mark it off on your calendars for the next year, Rajput offers a vegetarian and vegan dinner buffet on the first Thursday of every month. That means next week - on Thursday, September 3rd - you could be sitting down to a giant plate of mostly vegan buffet items, such as vegetable samosa, mint chutney, roti, vegetable jalfryizi, tofu patia (to die for - you must get this if you see it on the menu!), cauliflower and potatoes, and you can polish it all off with a dessert of carrot pudding before heading up there to do it again. All vegan! Those are just a few of the items I’ve seen on the monthly buffet. The price runs under $15 for the dinner buffet.

The lunch buffets at Rajput tend to cater more to the omnivores, but if you luck out with a veg-friendly buffet one day for the lunch it will run you around $10.

Rajput offers a veg-friendly brunch on the weekends, which basically means the buffet is full of your typical vegetarian, mostly vegan items, and there is a table on the other side of the room with some meat dishes. I always forget about this, but I’m pleasantly surprised when I head in for a weekend lunch and most of the buffet is vegan.

If you happen to check out the buffet one night and it’s not vegan friendly enough to make it worth your while, the menu is expansive. Rajput boasts one of the largest vegan menus in the Commonwealth. Make sure you ask for the vegan menu. The regular menu includes most of the vegan items, but I’ve found some gems (like tofu patia!) on the strictly vegan menu. Plus it’s just fun to have an entire menu at your vegan fingertips full of so many choices.

Some great things to try at Rajput are the Tofu Patia ($10.95), which I wanted to mention at least three times in this review, Caulfilower Potatoes ($10.95), Eggplant Bhartha ($11.95), and the Chana Masala ($10.95). There are plenty of other vegan dishes, but those are some of my favorites. All of the entrees are served with perfectly cooked basmati rice and you can specify the spiciness of your dishes. I tend to go with medium hot for most dishes.

No Indian meal is complete without some bread. Luckily Rajput has a long list of vegan breads from which you can order. My favorite is the garlic roti ($3.95). I’ve said before that Nawab’s roti is my favorite, because it tends to be softer and fluffier, but they only offer plain roti. Rajput offers plain ($2.50), garlic, and prathas stuffed with things like onions and potatoes.

Every meal ordered from the menu starts out with some pappadum and two chutneys - generally onion and mint. These are vegan and delicious! Like a yummy seeded cracker to put your hunger at ease before you get down to business.

If you want to try a number of things, but the buffet isn’t very vegan, you can order a combination plate called Vegan Thali ($16.95), which includes vegetable pakora, palak tofu, chana masala, salad, basmati rice, roti bread and carrot dessert.

If you want to share, you can order a vegan dinner combo for two ($31.95) that includes an appetizer and entree of your choice, and these combos can be scaled up for four people, six, etc.

The service is always great. Takeout and catering is available. And forgive me for the lack of photos on this post, but Indian food isn’t the most photogenic - it might be the most delicious, though.

Rajput Indian Cuisine

742 W, 21st Street
Norfolk, VA 23517
(757) 625 4634

Lunch: Mon-Fri 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., Sat-Sun noon to 3 p.m.

Dinner: Sun-Thu 5 p.m. to 10 p.m., Fri-Sat 5:00 p.m.-10:30 p.m.

Remember, you can follow us on Twitter for up-to-the-minute Hampton Roads vegan dining news and conversation @veganHR. For local vegan food porn, check out our flickr stream.

Norfolk Restaurant Week is a great idea and it’s going on now. To encourage dining out, restaurants offer prix fixe menus of usually three courses for $20 or $30. The menus are set ahead of time and it’s a great way to try a few new restaurants without busting your wallet.

But the sad thing is, many of these restaurants offer little in the way of vegan options on their standard menus, so they rarely go out of their way to cater to even vegetarians on their restaurant week menus.

Thankfully there are a few options in case you want to participate this week:

Rajput Indian Cuisine is offering a three course menu for $20 and quite a few of the choices are vegan, including the vegetable samosa appetizer; vegetable jalfrezi and chana masala entrees; and gajjar halwa dessert (carrot pudding).

The Boot is offering their entire menu at three courses for $30 and quite a few of their items can be made vegan if you specify.

Sirena Cucina Italiana doesn’t have their restaurant week specials up on their Web site, but they offer a number of vegetarian and easily-veganized menu items. Not sure if those will be on the restaurant week special, but it’s a possibility.

And that’s it!

I’m hoping we get some more options in the future, because I may be vegan, but I would still like to enjoy restaurant week and support local businesses.

I’ve been sitting on this blog post for a while because, frankly, there are just too many vegan options for me to try. This blog may die before I try everything at Yorgo’s available to vegans.

Yorgo's Bageldashery in Norfolk. The counter is calm for the photo, but this place can get busy enough on the weekends for a line to form outside the door.

The bagel shop has been around for quite a few years - many of my friends worked there in high school and at its peak they had three locations in the region. Right now there is only one on Colonial Avenue in the Ghent section of Norfolk (aka the Hampton Roads vegan’s paradise), but it’s worth the drive from anywhere in the region. The lines can run out the door on the weekends, though - you’ve been warned!

First and foremost, I must say, the bagels are delicious. There are a ton of flavors, sweet and savory, baked every morning, including everyone’s favorite everything bagel. The shop recently started offering a whole wheat everything bagel that I like much more - it’s just as soft and chewy as the original, but you’ll feel better about eating it. At least I do when I slather it with vegan herb cream cheese.

If you’ve been on a carb overload and can’t stand the idea of eating a whole bagel, you can get anything on a wrap (whole wheat, spinach, sun dried tomato…even the jalapeno “cheddar” wrap is vegan!).

Yorgo’s offers the typical omni, sandwich fare, but the vegan menu started with Tofutti cream cheese. Just plain. But it was a start. Then the shop hit the big time and started offering a flavored vegan cream cheese every week or so. My personal favorites have been the herb (guaranteed to make you smell like garlic for at least two days) and chipotle flavors. I’ve also seen lemon caper, cinnamon sugar, roasted mushroom and garlic, and a sun dried tomato pine nut pesto. Haven’t tried those, though, because I was too busy getting addicted to some of their other offerings. Yorgo’s always has plain Tofutti on hand when they aren’t offering a flavored special.

Vegan flavor-of-the-moment cream cheese at Yorgo's Bageldashery in Norfolk shmeared on a toasted whole wheat everything bagel.

A delicous option if you’re not in the mood for vegan cream cheese is the TLT - tempeh bacon, lettuce and tomato with a herb vegan mayo. It’s great on a whole wheat everything bagel and the tempeh is sliced thin and seasoned well.

If you’re into deli salads, Yorgo’s takes the cake for the best vegan egg and vegan chicken salads. I used to go for the vegan egg salad with lots of spicy mustard and onions on an everything bagel, but my current order is the vegan chicken salad on a sun dried tomato wrap with lettuce, tomato and onions ($5.65). I really recommend the vegan chicken salad in a wrap, because it’s a bit crumbly on a bagel. The chicken salad as a sandwich is pretty pricey, but you can buy the salad in a tub for a little more than 6 bucks. The vegan egg salad is also available by the tub.

Vegan chicken salad on a sundried tomato wrap with lettuce, tomato and onion.

Other vegan menu specials I’ve seen include the Italian, which involves a vegan sausage chili thing, and the Inside Out Omelet, which is a tofu scramble in wrap with spinach and other toppings. Yorgo’s also offers a vegan sausage (or tempeh bacon) egg and cheese, which is surprisingly delicious.

I’ve written so much already, but I feel like I’ve just broken the surface of Yorgo’s vegan offerings. Have I even started on the baked goods? The bagel shop employs a vegan baker that has turned out some of the most amazing desserts I’ve ever had, vegan or otherwise. I’m still dreaming of the coconut cream pie.

Some of the other items I’ve tried - all vegan - include: Boston cream cake, carrot cake cookies, cinnamon rolls, brownies, cookies. Some of the ones I haven’t tried but I wish I had: banana split cake, Almond Joy cake, strawberry shortcake, chocolate raspberry cake. The big slices of cake tend to run about $3.25, which is steep for dessert, but the slices are huge. It took me two or three sittings to finish my hunk of Boston Cream Cake. And if you’re going to try anything, go for the carrot cake cookie, which is basically two slices of carrot cake sandwiched around sweet cream cheese icing.

Disclaimer: I may have written a lot, but I feel like I’m forgetting even more menu items! If there’s something I forgot, leave it in the comments.

The basics:

Yorgo’s Bageldashery
2123 Colonial Avenue (near 22nd street)
Norfolk’s Historic Ghent
757.623.6609

Hours: Mon-Fri 6 am to 3 pm
Sat-Sun 7 am to 3 pm

*Yorgo’s has free wireless Internet and offers custom catering.

Remember, you can follow us on Twitter for up-to-the-minute Hampton Roads vegan dining news and conversation @veganHR. For local vegan food porn, check out our flickr stream.

Sometimes you just want a really good sandwich. But, for vegans, sandwiches can be tricky. Sure, we can make some great ones on our own, but restaurants leave us with roasted vegetable and hummus wraps. Don’t get me wrong - I love roasted veggies, I love hummus, but I feel like I deserve a little more every once in a while.

Enter Gourmet Gang. The company has been around for a while serving the lunch and office crowd with sandwiches and salads. They offer a few vegetarian options on their regular menu, but most include cheese and well, without the cheese they aren’t that good.

Sometime last year Gourmet Gang got the great idea to start offering a weekly vegetarian sandwich special and, lucky for you and me, most of them are vegan. I’ve never had a sandwich as delicious as the crabless crabcake at Gourmet Gang. Now, if you’re like me, the idea of vegan seafood is just about the most unappetizing thing imaginable. But you need to let your guard down on this one.

The crabless crabcake ($6.25) is a mixture of tofu and traditional crabcake ingredients like celery, red pepper, Old Bay seasoning and bread crumbs. Everything is pulled together by a vegan roasted red pepper mayo, diced tomatoes and field greens. Sounds simple enough, but it’s mind-blowingly delicious. So delicious a friend had it catered at her wedding. That good!

The crabless crabcake sandwich at Gourmet Gang. Easily the best vegan sandwich in Hampton Roads.

My second favorite GG vegan sandwich is the tempeh ruben ($6.25). The ruben is vegan if you ask for no-cheese, but thankfully you don’t miss the Swiss. On delicious sliced rye, they put some well-cooked and seasoned tempeh, apple sauerkraut, vegan Thousand Island dressing and pickles.

The vegan tempeh ruben at Gourmet Gang

As for their regular menu, you can order the roasted vegetable ($5.95) or grilled portabella ($6.25) sandwiches without cheese or mayo as vegan options if you’re stuck without a delicious special that week. And bonus - Veganaise is available upon request!

There are a few side items available. Sometimes the weekly pasta salad is vegan and the fruit salad is vegan, of course. None of the desserts are vegan - but they should think about adding a vegan option soon (wink, wink).

Gourmet Gang has seven locations across Hampton Roads and has pretty skimpy hours - generally between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. They will deliver to some offices, but your best bet is to call in an order and pick up because these places get insane at lunch time. The food is good and people swarm during lunch. You can also fax in an order…if you have a fax machine laying around.

The current special is the Italian Lentil Ball with vegan mozzarella and marinara…you would know that already if you followed us on Twitter @veganHR!

You can also keep up with local vegan food porn through our flickr photostream.

Frozen yogurt. Reminds me of the days when I would beg my mom to take me to TCBY after doctor’s visits. I loved that place.

Now, thanks to Swirls on Colley Avenue in Norfolk, the vegans can get a taste of some vanilla fro-yo and reminisce about those days in the bright lights and weird 80s decor of the TCBY.

This place is adorable. Tiny as can be and very simple. You get a cup, you fill it with fro-yo (vegans only have one option at a time - vanilla or chocolate), and then you can put as many toppings on as you like. Toppings go from the typical chocolate sauce, nuts, and strawberries, to fun stuff like Oreos and those beloved cereals from our childhood Cap’n Crunch, Fruity Pebbles and Cocoa Puffs. All of which are vegan.

The DIY frozen yogurt wall at Swirls. The vegan flavor is usually at the far left.

And the berries don’t stop. The day I visited there were blueberries and raspberries, and a friend told me he lucked out with kiwi on a recent trip. And the nuts include typical chopped walnuts as well as slivered almonds.

For my first Swirls frozen yogurt treat, I topped the vanilla with fresh strawberries, chopped walnuts, Hershey’s chocolate sauce and shredded coconut. It was so icy cold and delicious. I ate it all on my short walk home.

On my second visit I went crazy with chocolate vegan frozen yogurt, Cap’n Crunch, Fruity Pebbles, coconut, strawberries, kiwi, almonds, chocolate sauce, and a maraschino cherry on top.

The toppings wall at Swirls. Definitely try the Cap'n Crunch and the Fruity Pebbles.

The flavor of all the toppings and the creaminess of the frozen yogurt was great. My only complaint was that the vanilla fro-yo was so cold it didn’t want to snake into my cup like you imagine soft serve would. And the vanilla flavor wasn’t very pronounced. However, the chocolate was perfect.

But I’m not complaining! Swirls fills a void left by the closure of KB’s Custard just a few blocks down, which offered a couple vegan frozen custard flavors every week. Come to think of it, KB’s Web site has been hinting at a new location to be revealed “soon” for nearly two years. We’re still waiting!

Prices are fair, I think. Here’s how it works. Once you get the cup and fill it up with your fro-yo and all the toppings you can handle, the friendly person at the cash register weighs the cup and charges you by weight. My cup cost about $4.60.

Swirls is tiny and really meant as a carry-out joint, but there are one or two window seats in case you want to dine-in.

They accept credit cards. I’ll update this post with important things like address and hours once I find out, but the place is new and doesn’t have a Web site. It’s located across from the Naro Cinema on Colley Avenue in the Ghent section of Norfolk, in a strip of shops that include an art/framing store, a hair salon and a laundromat. It’s also, ironically, next to a Dairy Queen.

And another update - You can now follow Vegan Hampton Roads on Twitter @veganHR. I’m using the Twitter account to post immediate info about vegan dining news in the region, including specials at local restaurants, and trying to keep the Web site for reviews.

Let’s take a moment of silence to remember Amalfi Ristorante in Ghent, along with its vegan brunch, vegan cheesecake, faux chicken marsala, spicy vegan spaghetti and meatballs, vegan gelato…wow, what a loss! And I could have continued with the list.

I don’t have too many details about the closure, only that last week someone tried to visit the restaurant and there was a “for rent” sign in the window and all of its patio tables and chairs were removed.

It’s Web site and phone are still operational, but I couldn’t get a hold of anyone. The reviews of Amalfi were mixed - some people had delicious food and service, other times the food was sub-par and the service absent. I’ve experienced both. The prices were a little high, but for a nice vegan Italian dinner every once in a while I didn’t mind.

This leaves a big void in the vegan dining options in Hampton Roads, but a big opportunity for someone wanting to bring a new Italian place into the mix, possibly with better service and lower prices? We’ll be waiting.