Vegan Hampton Roads

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 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.

There’s not much to say about this one, only that if you’re looking for a vegan pizza you can get it here. Bella carries Follow Your Heart vegan cheese, which I consider one of the most melty vegan cheeses around. I’ve ordered takeout from Bella and dined in and the pizza is much better in person - trust me. It’s not horrible on delivery, but their crust is much better fresh and I’ve found they give you more vegan cheese when you dine in. It’s a little skimpy when you order delivery.

The waitress at the restaurant said they only serve the vegan cheese with the pizzas, but I’m sure with some prodding you could get it on a veggie sub as well, which they also serve.

The restaurant is a typical family place with some al fresco seating along Colley Avenue in the warmer months. They also sell pastas, salads, sandwiches and beer.

This is the only vegan cheese pizza I’ve had in town, but, word is Red Dog’s new vegan menu includes a mean pizza. The last few times I’ve hit Red Dog it’s been for drinks only, but it’s on my list!

You all know what pizza looks like, but here’s a shot from my most recent visit. A pie with vegan cheese, black olives, garlic, onions and tomatoes.

I will update this post with prices as soon as I track down that take-out menu, but be warned they charge almost a dollar per topping, so check out the menu for topping specials. And they charge an extra fee for the vegan cheese, but you should have expected that.

The details:

Bella Pizzeria
1308 Colley Ave
Norfolk, VA 23517
(757) 625-3525

Hours: Sunday through Thursday, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m; Friday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 11 p.m.

Dine-in, take-out or delivery
Accepts cash and major credit cards.

Wow, this place came out of nowhere! Well, not really. They’ve had a location at the Virginia Beach Oceanfront for seven years or so, but they recently opened a Ghent location and added a large number of vegan items to their menu.

Nearly every item on their menu can be made vegan – even their famous fish tacos – for an additional 20 percent. After numerous visits in the last month (I think I’m addicted), the fish tacos have to be my favorite. And to tell you the truth, when I considered a vegan fish taco, I wasn’t too excited. I was picturing scary, rubbery, faux fish.

Vegan fish taco from Pelon's.

Continue reading ‘Pelon’s Baja Grill in Ghent’

Sushi is something usually reserved for the meat-eaters among us, not vegetarians and vegans. But Kotobuki in the Ghent section of Norfolk has changed that with its extensive, and sometimes startling (vegetarian shrimp, anyone?), vegetarian menu. The owners even launched a monthly vegetarian lunch special, but you’ll need to ask for that when the server brings you a menu.

I’m usually a fan of the vegetable maki (hand rolls). I always get fried sweet potato and avocado rolls, and I always preface it with a bowl of miso soup. Their miso soup is one of my favorites and the owners assured me its fish flake free.

But when I want something to stick to my ribs, I go for the Vegetarian Sesame Chicken. The chicken pieces have a truly meaty texture and are fried and drenched in a sweet sesame sauce atop a bed of lettuce. In the bento tray, you also receive a salad with a terribly addictive dressing, a tiny fried spring roll and potato cake, and of course rice. And like most meals at the restaurant, it comes with a miso soup appetizer. Also not featured on the menu is brown rice, but they usually have it on hand for the vegetarian specials, so ask for it if you like.

The veg sesame chicken is a favorite among friends, but I’ve also tried the veg chicken teryaki and the veg chicken and broccoli. The teryaki has a great sauce, but the “meat” is a turn off - half moon shaped and cooked to a crisp, it’s pretty hard to tear your teeth through. The chicken and broccoli was the least enjoyable with an off-tasting gravy.

There are still a number of the restaurant’s faux meat dishes I’ve yet to try, such as the tofu steak or the eggplant “ham” platter, which won an award from PETA in 2006 for the best vegetarian meal in Hampton Roads

You may like these dishes, but if you’re going for the first time and want something spot-on, go for the veg sesame chicken.

And don’t forget the wealth of vegetable maki available, from vegetarian shrimp tempura rolls to spinach, fried tofu and asparagus rolls. Kotobuki also offers a number of veggie-friendly appetizers.

The details:

Kotobuki Japanese Restaurant & Sushi Bar
721 W. 21st Street
Norfolk
Phone: (757) 628-1025

Hours:
Lunch: Mon - Fri, 11 a.m. - 2:30 p.m.; Sat - Sun, 11 a.m. - 3 p.m.
Dinner: Mon - Thur, 5 - 10 p.m.; Fri - Sat, 5 - 11 p.m.; Sun, 4:30 - 9:30 p.m.

Dine in or take out.
Accepts cash and major credit cards