I’m only now getting around to sharing my bay area food stories with you nearly a month after the fact, but as they say, good things come to those who wait. So without further adieu…

My first stop was Neecha Thai which recently opened in the Grand Lake district of Oakland. They are not an exclusively vegetarian restaurant but they have a plethora of vegetarian/vegan choices. For starters we had their incredible corn cakes. Think of these as an edible orgy of crispy, slightly chewy corn and lime love. Fantastic. [Update: Probably made with egg]

As I’d just stepped off a plane I opted for a lighter meal and went with their salad. Sadly I can’t recall it’s name or all of what was in it, but I do remember it involved apples, crispy yams and a very tasty, citrus dressing.

The next day we got to catch up with the folks vending vegan soul food at the Lake Merritt farmers market. Wow… this was so awesome! My plate consisted of spicy greens, stickily-sweet amazing yams and finger-lickin’ good BBQ tofu. They also had a great potato salad as well as a lentil dish. Now that’s some good eating right there.

Next came a special treat as we learned that Herbivore had just opened in their new Berkeley location on Shattuck. Of course I had to go!

First came our appetizer of soft tacos: “two soft taco shells with beans, guacamole, vegan sour cream and salsa”. Yum!

My entree was the Lemongrass Noodles: “Char-broiled vegetables garnished with fresh cilantro and crushed peanuts in a lemongrass-ginger dressing over rice noodles with tofu”. It was delicious with the strong and pungent flavor of the lemongrass and the spiciness of the ginger. Berkeley just got even that much cooler.

I’d heard tell that the vegan brunch at Fellini (also in Berkeley) is something else. I can now attest to the fact that these rumours are all true, it was excellent. I had the tofu scramble with vegan sausage, which came with grilled potatoes & vegan sour cream, wheat biscuit, jam and vegan butter.

Yet another breakfast spread, this time on another visit back to Herbivore.

I tell you, I can’t get enough of their blueberry cornbread. It’s the best thing on earth!

I had already starting moving stuff around on the plate before remembering to take a picture, which is why it looks a bit of a mess. Anyhow, this was their Southwestern style tofu scramble which comes with potatoes, black beans, guacamole, vegan sour cream and spicy cornbread. All of it rocked. Talk about being in multi-flavored cornbread heaven! I actually only tasted some of this savory-spicy version, which was great, but at that point I’d really had my fill and needed to go catch my plane.

Here’s to another delicious time well spent eating and cavorting up north. I highly recommend it.

My eating frenzy this weekend while in San Francisco began appropriately enough at Herbivore, a vegan restaurant with two locations… I visited the one in the Mission district on Valencia. I think it’s safe to say that this place is any vegetarians dream eatery, with an extensive and affordable selection of items ranging from American style burgers and sandwiches, to Asian noodle and curry dishes, through to Middle Eastern and Italian style fare. Seriously, they’ve got anything you could possibly want.

I ordered the shawarma wrap which is made with grilled seitan, seasoned onions (and I didn’t even hate them), tomatoes, hummus, hot sauce, pickles and tahini, and served with a green salad. For a bit extra they’ll also stuff it full of potatoes and eggplant. Who was I to say no to that?

It was so totally yummy! I can’t really say that it tasted anything like real shawarma, but that hardly seemed to matter considering just how delicious it was on it’s own merit. As you can see, it’s gigantic and could easily feed two or three people. And no, I didn’t share.

On my second visit to Herbivore I got their veggie shish kabob. This was basically grilled tofu and vegetables on skewers (corn, zucchini, peppers, tomatoes, onions, mushrooms) served over brown rice and with two different sauces (lemon-garlic & peanut orange-miso). Simple yet delicious.

And how could I pass up dessert? We’re talking a vegan carrot cake the size of a small island in the Pacific. Truly delicious, and so big that even with four of us digging into it, there was nearly a third of it left over when we were all stuffed. How is it that some people still think that vegan food is boring?

Last but certainly not least, I had breakfast at Herbivore on my last day there. I got the scrambled tofu with with spinach, mushrooms, tomatoes (and a lot of garlic) with house potatoes.

As you see it comes with yummy whole grain toast, but I passed that up in favor of a sideorder of the blueberry cornbread. Words really cannot convey how amazing this bread is…cornbread has always been one of my favorite foods on earth, and the addition of delicious blueberries along with vegan buttery spread just took it over the top. All this along with the double soy-latte that I ordered had me in a sufficent enough breakfast food coma just in time for my flight back home to L.A.