To Live and Eat in L.A.

I’ve been super excited to share this meal at Portland’s Tin Shed Garden Cafe with you, so I hope you’re sitting down, comfortable and not distracted… this food requires your full attention. The Tin Shed is located in, you guessed it, a converted tin shed. There’s also a beautiful patio garden area where patrons are welcome along with their dogs… the restaurant even serves special doggy meals including a vegetarian rice and garden burger! Of course, I wasn’t here for no dog food.

This glorious plate of food you see above is the cleverly named Tim Curry: Tofu, roasted garlic, yam, zucchini, mushroom & sweet onion in a coconut-curry sauce, served over a bed of spinach & topped with roasted peanuts, raisins & avocado. This was what my friend ordered (the sour cream is not vegan), but of course she let me try some and… oh mama… will you just look at this thing? The only reason I didn’t order it was because I didn’t think it would feel breakfasty enough, and that’s what I was craving. Once this was served though it all totally clicked into place and I fully understood the logic of it’s sweet & savory curry morning appeal, and was appropriately jealous.

I sure wasn’t jealous for long because just look at what I got: this is the veganized Big Hit Burrito: Scrambled eggs (substituted with really great tofu), sausage (which they subbed with a tasty vegan sausage, not the typical freezer variety), roasted garlic, yams, zucchini, mushroom & onion in a flour tortilla topped with pesto sauce and tomato. I regret not getting a photo of its insides for you because they sure were pretty, but also so delicious that any thoughts of stopping to take a photograph once I’d gotten started eating were out of the question. This is probably the best breakfast burrito I’ve ever had.

As for that gorgeous contrast of orange and white to the left of the burrito, those are the homemade grits topped with vegan cheddar. The cheddar looked and tasted so real that I had to ask twice to make sure it really was the vegan cheese. I don’t know what brand they use but I was impressed. The grits were very tasty and a nice change of pace.

Now here’s the point where it turns even more decadent… but how I could I see something like this on the menu and not try it?

The Belly Pleaser: Coconut milk, jasmine rice, fresh ginger & vanilla simmered into a porridge and topped with fresh mango & cinnamon. You don’t even need me to tell you how delicious this was do you… you just know by looking at and reading about it, right? Allow me to tell you that in your wildest imaginings it doesn’t taste as incredible as it did in real life. My belly sure was pleased. It reminded me of the “arroz con leche” (rice with milk) that my grandmothers cook in Bolivia used to make when I was growing up, but with the wonderful coconut milk infusing the whole thing and the spice of ginger perking it up and blending perfectly with the sweet mango. Wow. And this was just the half-order!

While not a vegetarian restaurant Tin Shed is very veggie & vegan friendly. They’ll substitute tofu in any of their egg dishes (their tofu rocks) and any of the burgers can be made with a garden burger. There’s also a selection of salads, sandwiches and dinner plates, a full bar and a happy hour if you’re into that sort of thing. The crowd here is hip & young, with lots of tattoos and babies in strollers, willing to hang out and wait for sometimes more than an hour for a table as there’s usually always going to be a wait… and judging by this excellent meal we had, it’s probably always going to be well worth it.
www.tinshedgardencafe.com

Stayed tuned for ‘Foodeater Does Vegan Portland’, Pt. 6!

1. Foodeater Does Vegan Portland, V.2: FlavourSpot
2. Foodeater Does Vegan Portland, V.7: Kinta Restaurant
3. Foodeater Does Vegan Portland, V.1: Nutshell
4. Foodeater Does Vegan Portland, V.4: The Farm Cafe
5. Foodeater Does Vegan Portland, V.6: Voodoo Doughnut

This entry was posted on Friday, August 8th, 2008 at 11:17 pm and is filed under Portland. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.