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.

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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.

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.