To Live and Eat in L.A. – A Vegan Food Photo Blog

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.

This was my first visit to “Native Foods” an organic vegetarian – vegan restaurant. The food here was amazing! This was at their location in Costa Mesa.

Seen here is the “Thai Sticks” sauteed and grilled tempeh satay with peanut sauce.

This was the tempeh Reuben sandwich. Perfectly seasoned, delicious saurkraut, yummy sauce, loads of veggies, served on an organic wheat and sprouted brown rice ciabatta roll with a very tasty slaw side salad. This was so good I almost ordered another one.

My friend ordered the “Iron Yam” salad. Steamed yam on salad greens dressed with balsamic vinaigrette, topped with steamed veggies, tofu & caramelized onions. He said it was fantastic. Who could resist a giant phallic tower of tofu for lunch?

This was their vegan carrot cake with “dream cheese” frosting, whatever that means. It was simply to die for. I’m willing to bet a non-vegan wouldn’t know the difference if they weren’t told… it was moist, fluffy, sweet and delicious, rivaling any regular recipe for carrot cake that I’ve ever had.