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.

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.

When you think of vegan Indian food in Hampton Roads, no doubt Rajput in Ghent comes to mind. But that’s a review for another day.

Before Rajput hit the scene, there was Nawab and the restaurant, with its four location, is still going strong. When I first tried Indian food it was at Nawab’s famous lunch buffet. I was hooked.

While their vegan selections aren’t as extensive as Rajput’s menu (supposedly the largest vegan menu in Virginia), the dishes they do offer are to die for. My current favorite is the Goan Curry, a coconut-infused, creamy mixed vegetable dish. When it’s brought to your table it smells like the coconut will overpower the dish. Shredded coconut is garnished on top. But the coconut flavor is just right. I tend to order my Indian food medium to medium-hot and this dish has just enough creaminess to cut the heat.

If you’re not a coconut fan, the Eggplant Bartha, a spicy mashed eggplant dish punctuated with green peas, is also great. It was my favorite for quite a while. Other vegan dishes offered are Vegetable Jhalfrazie and Chana Masala.

All dishes are served with perfectly-cooked jasmine rice. Indian food is traditionally served with a bread known as naan, however naan is not vegan. The roti, a vegan, unleavened whole wheat bread, is great at Nawab. Roti tends to have a more cracker-like texture, but the roti at Nawab is fluffy and tender.

And I always order a side of mint chutney to slather onto my roti. It’s my favorite part of the meal, truth be told.

Nawab does offer lunch buffets, though there usually only tends to be one vegan entree. I always check with the servers about what’s vegan before deciding whether to order from the menu.

Another great thing about Nawab? Four locations! I know, most of my reviews have been of Norfolk restaurants, but I’m trying to expand. Nawab has locations at Hilltop in Virginia Beach, at Military Circle in Norfolk, on Jefferson Avenue in Newport News and one in Williamsburg.

Rather than list all the details of every location, you can visit Nawab’s Web site here.