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

This is the delicious salad at Vinh Loi Tofu.

So good and fresh on scorching hot summer day. “Fresh green leaves with tofu, vege beef, vege chicken and coconut sauce”. As you can see, it’s actually much more than their humble description would lead you to believe. Along with the greens there are also bean sprouts, cucumbers, shredded carrots and radish, cilantro, mint and those yummy crispy onion bits. Aside from being fantastic, it’s also huge, they don’t skimp on anything here.

Wow, this was really good! It’s the spicy chicken salad from Vegan Plate. I therefore don’t need to tell you it’s not real chicken, right?

“Soy chicken tossed in a spicy lime juice, served with red onion dressing on a bed of mixed greens”.

I asked for medium spicy and the heat level was just right. Their fake-chicken I already knew was awesome, but the lime and onion flavoring was just great. Even as an unabashed onion basher, I gotta say I loved it. It didn’t taste oniony at all, it was just very limey… a perfect mix of sweet, sour and spicy all in one plate. Good stuff I tell ya, good stuff!

As promised, I’m now making my way through the salads at HealthyCA. This one here is the “Tofancho” salad.

“Ancho chili marinated grilled tofu, carrots, cucumbers, avocado, daikon sprouts and cilantro on a bed of greens”. I got mine with the roasted peppers dressing (love it) and quinoa salad as choice of side. As you can clearly see for yourself, this baby is huge! Their portions here are always quite generous… there’s actually more tofu there than you can see in the photo, there is a whole bunch more stacked underneath that slab. This salad as excellent, everything was perfectly fresh and so beatifully arranged. The ancho chili tofu was tasty, though I like the other marinated tofus (tofus’? tofuses? tofii?) better (for example their “Vegan Feast“). The daikon sprouts had a spicy kick to them, nicely tempered by the smooth & creamy avocado and juicy, crispy cucumbers.

Almost too pretty too eat. But just almost…

“Romaine lettuce, carrots, shredded beets, alfalfa sprouts, tomatoes, celery, avocado, cucumber and sunflower seeds”. I also had them add grilled tofu, and had it with the tahini dressing. Who could ask for a more perfect lunch?

This lovely arrangement is the ‘Kelp Noodle Salad Bowl’ at Hugo’s. The kelp noodles (which you can barely see under there) are topped with “julienned vegetables, sprouts, snow peas, cilantro and scallions. Tossed with orange-mango-sesame-chili dressing. Garnished with mixed sea vegetables, pickled ginger and toasted sesame seeds”. They offer a choice of protein, mine was the grilled tofu. It was fantastic, the dressing was very subtle and let the flavors of the other ingredients come through. The pickled ginger took it over the top.

The “Green Power Salad” .This photo does not accurately convey the size of this beautiful monster! It’s so big that I’m really not sure how our tiny little waitress was able to carry it with one hand (I’m not kidding). Amazingly good, especially with their perfect peanut dressing. I ate about a third of it (along with the miso soup below) and was full, so I gave the leftovers to a homeless man.

Miso soup and iced chrysanthemum tea.