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.

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.

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.

Okay, I’m just going to come right out and say it. Red Dog Saloon on Colley Avenue in the Ghent section of Norfolk makes the best damn vegan cheese pizza in town. Seriously. Though it’s not hard to make the top of the list considering there are only two restaurants in the area serving pizza with vegan cheese.

The crust is well-cooked, but not hard as a rock. The vegetable toppings are rich and flavorful (spinach, big sun dried tomatoes, olives). The sauce is tasty. And the vegan cheese doesn’t taste like chalk/rubber/etc.

I’m pretty sure Red Dog is using Follow Your Heart vegan cheese, known for its meltiness, but there’s just something about the vegan cheese alongside everything else this great pizza has going for it that has me craving it!

And there’s even more great news…if you don’t want to order a whole pie, Red Dog will sell them by the slice. Known for its happy hour specials, Red Dog is used to catering to thirsty visitors just looking for munchies to absorb the alcohol, so they don’t force you into the entire pizza unless you want it. I really appreciate that! And not to mention the slices are gigantic - almost the size of two slices, if you ask me. A slice will run you close to four dollars, but keep in ming it is pretty much the size of two normal slices and it comes with vegan cheese.

On a recent trip with friends we tried the vegan chicken tenders as well, which are basically deep fried chunks of Chickette roll served with some sort of mango mustard dipping sauce. The sweetness of the mango serves as a great replacement to the typical honey mustard sauce served with chicken fingers.

I’ve heard the vegan chicken sandwich is great there as well. A larger piece of chickette roll, deep fried and served sandwich style with the fixin’s.

Red Dog is a saloon and there is smoking, but if it’s nice a nice day and not too crowded you can usually luck out with a seat outdoors. There’s not really a great ambiance to Red Dog. I wouldn’t bring a family there at night on the weekends and I’d be a little upset if a date ever brought me there, but we’re just talking about vegan pizza and chicken tenders here.

Full disclosure: Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing” plays almost every hour at Red Dog (or at least it seems that way). You have been warned.

Red Dog Saloon
1421 Colley Ave
Norfolk, VA 23517
(757) 625-4674

Couldn’t find a listing of their hours, but I know they’re open for lunch and I’ve been there for last call on a number of occasions. So, my educated guess would be most likely 11:30/12 until 2 a.m.

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’