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

Cowboys & Indians brings an interesting fusion to the table, combining Indian food with Mexican food. Sounds kinda weird and like it might not work, but it most certainly does. This place has been around for a while with their flagship location conveniently connected to The El Rey theater on Wilshire Blvd., and the owner is the same guy who started Electric Lotus (another tasty Indian restaurant). The spot on Wilshire is tiny and almost more like a snack bar connected to the theater, a great place to get a quick bite before seeing a show, while the new place on Sunset smack dab in the middle of Silver Lake’s hipster district is more of a sit-down restaurant where you can chill out and enjoy a full meal.

I got to check out the new Cowboys & Indians last week with my homegirls-who-lunch crew, the lovely Miss Sara T. and the equally luscious Miss DoubleD. and we all really enjoyed the experience. One of the first things that caught my attention before even entering the restaurant was their sidewalk sign:

As I mentioned on my Twitter at the time, I love it when places that aren’t vegan tell you right on the menu what is (note the Tofu Bhujiya). It’s the little things that count. This is apparently quite a popular sentiment considering how often it’s now been retweeted, and repeated. While I didn’t get to try their tasty sounding vegan breakfast options as shown on the sign (we’d already missed the 3pm cut-off time), most all of the options at Cowboys & Indians also have a vegan version, and the staff seemed to be very vegan friendly, offering up information on ingredients when they knew the answer, and going back into the kitchen to ask questions about stuff they weren’t sure about. Here’s the basic stuff vegans will want to know: all the curries are vegan, made with coconut milk. The tortillas are vegan. The regular naan breads are not vegan but the whole wheat naan is.

We started our meal with a few shared appetizers.

First we tried the Vegan Samosas. These were MASSIVE! Due to the angle of the picture, the true size of this monster is not being done justice, it’s about the size of both my fists held together… huge! One would definitely be enough for two people, it’s the largest samosa I’ve ever seen before.

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What’s in a name? When I first heard about Sky’s Gourmet Tacos I thought to myself, “just how gourmet can a taco possibly be”?, and then, “Do I even want a gourmet taco?”. Well, after eating a bunch of their food, Sky’s has turned me from a Doubting Thomas into a true believer with their unique and generous specialties.

Gourmet food is not something I’m terribly interested in. I’m much more of a farmers market stall & food truck kinda gal than I am the “spend $80 to eat small portions with three different forks” type. Don’t let the word “gourmet” in Sky’s name put you off though, this place is neither hoity toity nor overly expensive, they certainly don’t skimp on portion sizes and they don’t give a crap if you make a mess and eat with your hands.

Located on Pico between Fairfax & LaBrea, Sky’s Tacos is tiny little restaurant that you may have even driven past without knowing about the delicious vegan bounty awaiting you on the inside. While Sky’s does serve a full menu of meat & cheese items, they’ve got an equally substantial vegetarian menu just begging for you to have veganized.

This gorgeous hunk of food is the Veggie Quesadilla ordered all vegan. It comes with their own vegan meat, beans and a giant heap of vegan cheese (Follow Your Heart) inside and out. Basically what you’re looking at are two tortillas that have been stuff to overflow with grilled vegetables and cheese, then layered on top with a massive amount of beans and their amazing fake meat, then piled high with even more cheese.

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