I knew that Nite Moon Cafe was located inside of a Yoga studio, and for that reason I’d put off going there even though I knew they served vegan food. I imagined a rinky-dink little studio that reeked of sweat, floors covered in that soft blue padding like at the Tae Kwondo studio, and with a tiny little juice bar or somesuch tucked over in the corner near the bathroom serving some kind of raw hemp coconut balls. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

In reality, Nite Moon is located within the huge “spiritual village” known as Golden Bridge Yoga, which according to their literature is the premier center for the study and practice of Kundalini Yoga and meditation in Los Angeles. The space inside is beautiful. It’s located directly behind the Arclight in Hollywood and from the outside you’d never know there was such a large & bustling community center situation going on inside the drab gray building. You’d certainly never guess that it’s home to an excellent vegetarian restaurant unless you stepped inside. I highly recommend that you do so.

The food served at Nite Moon is all vegetarian and most of it is vegan… not all of it though, so you have to read the (not very big) menu carefully and ask if you have any questions. There are a few soy cheese options available, but when I asked if the cheese was vegan the guy working the kitchen at the time didn’t know, but was kind enough to let me look at the packaging. The soy cheese did contain casein so it’s not vegan. In other words, don’t order the soy cheese quesadilla and just about everything else other than the goat cheese sandwich should be vegan safe.

On my first visit to Nite Moon I had the Tiki Masala Veggie Burger: Tempeh patty, caramelized onions, mango chutney, fresh basil on a whole wheat burger bun with veganaise. All sandwiches also come served with their house organic salad.

This sandwich rocks. The tempeh is perfectly seasoned and cooked to just the right stage of doneness, it’s a got a nice meaty texture to it without being too chewy or too crumbly (tempeh tends to want to fall apart). The bread was fresh and soft, really outstanding. You wanna know what the real star of the show here is though? The onions. It’s true, and I bet you never thought you’d hear me, a life-long onion hater, utter those words. Me neither. But I must give credit where credit is due, and everything about this sandwich was delicious, even the dreaded Allium cepa. They somehow manage to caramelize the hell out of these onions to that precise point in the cooking process where they submit and give up their evil sharp pungency and just turn sweet, limp and innocent. The mango chutney is either mixed with or put right on top of the onions, so the result is a savory-sweet, piquant delight. Seriously, if I’m going so far as to suggest something to you that’s slathered in onions, you know it’s got to be exceptionally good.

The side of salad they give you is no laughing matter either. They’ve actually got a lovely organic salad bar that you’re free to build your own creations from, and this includes a hot bar serving all sorts of yummy looking stuff, usually on the Indian food side of things, like lentil dals and curries, along with vegetable casseroles and other such goodies. They make the side salad right from the salad bar, everything is fresh and crisp and the portion is generous. Many people seems to come here for the salad bar alone- it doesn’t look huge at first glance, but once you take a look at all the quality ingredients they’ve got on hand, you soon realize you’re in salad heaven.

It’s the selection of awesome sandwiches that get me though. Above is shown their Veggie BLT: Grilled smoked tempeh bacon, lettuce, tomato with veganaise on organic whole wheat bread. Again, this was nothing short of delicious. I don’t know if the tempeh bacon is flavored onsite or if it’s from a package, but what I can tell you is that it’s damn good. It’s not overly salty like at some places (I’m looking at you Flore) but definitely has the smokey, bacony flavor going on. It was a little bit dry but in a way that I liked, kinda like a soft and chewy jerky… or if you must, like well-done bacon.

It was basically your classic BLT gone vegan and done just right. It was also a really large sandwich, so if you’re a big eater this would make a great lunch for you… you’ll leave super full and super satisfied.

On a subsequent visit I tried The Bridge Burger: Tempeh patty with lettuce, tomato, avocado, with veganaise on organic whole wheat bread. Similar in theme yet different enough from both the others to be unique unto itself. Again, everything was beyond fresh, the bread seemed like it came right out of the oven, the avocado was soft and ripe… another huge sandwich and lovely salad, what more could you want from lunch?

Ok, so that Tiki Masala onion burger I told you about? I loved it so much that while I was attempting to finish up this blog post I had to stop what I was going and go eat it again… it’s that good! Above is a slightly better close-up for you from my second go-round. You can see I wasn’t kidding about all the onion-mango-chutney action. They pile it on, and I ate it all… didn’t even pull out one onion or crinkle my nose up or make that “ick that is so gross” face that I usually have no physical control over when presented with an oniony dish. Crazy, right?! I think this speaks volumes about just how absolutely great this sandwich is. While it’s not going to make an onion lover out of me anytime soon, I think this is a big step forward.

It came with the usual salad, but I’d also spotted the yummy looking curried garbanzo beans in the salad bar and asked the nice dude at the counter if it was possible to just buy a small side of those without having to go full-force ahead on the salad bar. He was so nice as to scoop a hearty portion of the stuff onto my sandwich plate along with my salad, and didn’t charge me anything extra. At $10.75, the sandwich + salad combos aren’t exactly cheap, but given that all the food is organic and so delicious, I think it’s safe to say you get what you pay for… especially when they throwdown something extra for free. The curry was awesome by the way.

They’ve also got an entire separate smaller cafe within the studio where they make the drinks and desserts. They offer all manner of juices, smoothies and coffee drinks, but more importantly, a tantalizing selection of mostly vegan desserts. Again, not everything is vegan so read carefully or ask, but each time I’ve been there most of the selection was all vegan.

Vegan cinnamon roll: heated up nice and hot in the oven, not a microwave. It was love at first bite, and if I didn’t already know it was vegan, I’d never have known.

Vegan cornbread: moist, sweet & scrumptious.

I already mentioned they’ve got a really nice space here. The building is huge with very high ceilings and groovy, rustic looking wooden beams that criss-cross throughout the place, along with skylight windows providing a very bright, airy and open environment despite being indoors. Here’s a look at their main altar in front of where the Yoga classes take place.

There are two large tables and benches where you eat communal style, and there’s also a few smaller tables over by the dessert bar should you be lucky enough to snag one all to yourself. Between all this food and Yoga, there’s also a large central store area where they sell all the to-be-expected accouterments you’d expect to find at a Yoga studio, along with some new-agey jewelry, books, clothes and gift items.

Edit: I decided to edit out my baby cult diatribe as apparently it was kinda harsh. The jist of it was there’s a lot of babies and rampant baby love at Golden Birdge due to pre-natal Yoga being one of their specialties. Be ready for many infants and pregnant women, possible chanting and some interesting conversations… along with some of the tastiest and healthiest vegan sandwiches you’re going to be able to find in all of Hollywood.

www.goldenbridgeyoga.com
6322 De Longpre Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90028
(323) 936-4172

One block south of Sunset & 1/2 a block west of Vine. Parking is available in the Arclight parking structure across the street for $2.00 for the first two hours with validation. Or just take the Redline Metro to Vine and walk, it’s very close.