Vegan fast food… it’s a brilliant concept whose time has come. Veggie Grill nailed it with their flagship eateries located in Irvine and El Segundo. They offer food that is “Nutrient-rich, 100% plant based, and free of cholesterol, animal fat and trans fats”. Translation: Delicious vegan fast food that tastes like junk food but isn’t. Or at least, isn’t as bad as regular junk food.

The ony thing that’s sucked about Veggie Grill up until now is that for those of us in L.A. proper, El Segundo and Irvine (a city lucky enough to have two Veggie Grills!) are a heck of a schlep. In traffic, forget about it (and there’s always traffic). So, it is with much joy and great excitement that I bring you the news of Veggie Grill coming to Los Angeles… West Hollywood to be exact. Opening officially on Tuesday, September 29th at 11:00am, our brand spanking new Veggie Grill is located at 8000 Sunset Blvd. at the intersection of Crescent Heights & Laurel Canyon. That’s the big building where the Laemmle Sunset 5 theater is at, and where the Virgin Megastore used to be. Out with the old, in with the new! This is seriously great news folks. The food at Veggie Grill is awesome and their new location makes them a lot more accessible than ever before. Welcome to your new favorite indulgence.

I got my first Veggie Grill experience a while back at their Irvine Spectrum location. I’d heard so much good stuff about this place that I expected it might not live up to all the hype. Boy was I wrong. First I’ll tell you about my appetizers…

These are the Chill Out Wings: Bite sized chillin’ chickin’ with tangy BBQ sauce. The fake meats at Veggie Grill are “specially seasoned and marinated veggie protein” and that’s about all they’re telling. Sounds good to me, as long as it’s not made of animal bits I’m happy to eat it. These were super delicious tasting chicken fingers, just like I used to love eating at Denny’s back in the day. Along with the rad BBQ sauce they also gave me an equally rad ranch dip, but these were so tasty they were great on their own too. The texture and taste is incredibly realistic, even my bird-eating friend who I was dining with admitted he wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between these “wings” and real chicken. Our feathered friends are very pleased with these new developments.

Here we have the Steamin’ Kale: Organic kale with ginger-miso and roasted sesame seeds. Yummmms…. I’m a lover of kale, and ginger, and miso, and sesame, so this really hit the spot. You can see in the photo it’s steamed just the right amount so it wasn’t too raw or too mushy, and the dressing is a perfect match for the wonderfully mild flavor of kale.

Fully appetized, I was ready for the main event.

This plate of goodness you see before you is what happens when you order the Bayou Chickin’: Chillin’ chickin’ lightly blackened with Cajun spices, lettuce, tomato, red onion (hell no), avocado and spicy vegan mayo. It comes on a wheat bun with red cabbage slaw, which you can substitute for a charge with the kale, a salad or sweet potato fries. The fries were part of the reason I went there in the first place so of course I got those.

The chicken burger was fantastic. The patty’s not burned, the charred looking stuff is the Cajun spices perfectly blackened and perfectly delicious. The spicy mayo wasn’t too spicy but added just the right amount of heat and the ripe & creamy avocado smoothed out it’s bite. I love love loved this and despite all the other equally tantalizing stuff on the menu, I think I might end up ordering this Bayou burger every time.

The sweet potato fries, which they’ve renamed Sweetheart Fries, come with a nice chipotle ranch and are, in a word- Divine. I have a not-so-mild obsession with sweet potato fries and these crispy beauties did not disappoint. I expect this to become a problem once the new Veggie Grill location opens not far from me.

I’m gonna show you what my friends ate too, ok? I didn’t try theirs but everything looked so good, and my friends were so stoked that I figured I should share.

Friend #1 got the V-Burger: Marinated and grilled veggie-steak burger, pickles, lettuce, red onion, tomato, and chipotle ranch. She also added on the avocado. This friend is a vegetarian and said it was the best veggie burger she’d ever eaten.

Friend #2 got the Chipotle BBQ Shredded veggie-steak, marinated in tangy BBQ sauce, with chipotle ranch, caramelized onion, lettuce, tomato. I almost got that one, and it sure looked and smelled good. This friend is an omnivore and is not a healthy eater at all. He ate this mostly in silence, and once he’d finished he looked up from his plate with a very solemn look on his face and said “that was the best meal I’ve eaten in months”. I have no doubt that it was.

Dessert. Yes, they’ve got that too. Along with chocolate pudding and oatmeal-chocolate chip cookies they also offer carrot cake. No brainer for me… I adore carrot cake, especially when it’s vegan carrot cake and done well. Veggie Grill does it well indeed, this cake was everything a carrot cake should be, including moist, sweet, and topped with a most excellent cream-cheesey frosting studded with chopped walnuts and carrot. It was seriously top-notch even though it was technically fast food, and we left no behind no evidence.

If you’ve already been to Veggie Grill than you probably understand why I’m so thrilled for the opening of their West Hollywood spot, and if you live in the area, you’re as thrilled as I am. If you haven’t tried them yet, you are in a for a real treat. You vegans & vegetarians out there are about to rediscover the freedom of being able to walking into a fast food restaurant to order a quick burger and fries, but in a highly evolved fashion. What’s cool about Veggie Grill too is that you can take non-veg people there, and even if they’re the whiny kind who complain and say obnoxious things like “Where’s the beef?” when you try to get them to eat vegetarian, even they will be impressed by plant food that tastes THIS good.

Get excited L.A. because Veggie Grill is coming your way! See? I’m so excited that I’m starting to rhyme! Mark your calendars my fellow foodeaters… everything changes Tuesday, September 29th when Veggie Grill opens it’s doors. How about dinner and a movie? I’m a cheap date.

Veggie Grill
in Irvine & El Segundo, and soon to be at:
8000 Sunset Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90046
(323) 822-7575
http://www.veggiegrill.com