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

UPDATE: Sad news, The Vegan Spot has closed :( – read on to see what you missed!
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I was never big into giant meaty sandwiches even when I still ate flesh. There’s just something about a bunch of thinly sliced, dripping pink meat smothered in oil and onions that’s always been repulsive to me. Pastrami sandwiches, Reubens, Roast Beef and Philly Cheesesteaks were just never the stuff my foodie dreams were made off… not the real versions of them anyway.

Now, we’ve already discussed just how much I love me a good faux Reuben sandwich, but how about some other variety of previously disgusting cuisine made lovable? That’s where The Vegan Spot in Silver Lake comes to the rescue with their remarkable all-vegan Philly Cheesesteak.

I’d previously read some good reviews of this place over at the Your Vegan Mom and Quarrygirl blogs and I couldn’t wait to try it out for myself. The Vegan Spot was started by one of the women who also opened Flore right up the street, so I figured it had to be good. And good it was!

Alright, so I’ve never had a real Philly Cheesesteak and the one time I visited Philidelphia I got dumped and had a miserable time. What I can tell you about this sandwich though, without having anything to compare it to, was that it was fantastic! They make their own meaty stuffing and cheese sauce there, and while I have no idea what they’re doing back there in that kitchen, it’s nothing short of pure vegan genius. The meat I believe is some sort of seitan concoction, thinly sliced and to me reminiscent in flavor and texture to a Greek style gyro. It tastes and feels incredibly realistic… real enough to fool my meat-loving dad into thinking it’s the real thing, and real enough to probably freak-out the vegetarians out there who can’t hang with faux-meats. Me, I love the faux… so I say bring it.

The cheese sauce was some of the best pretend cheese I’ve had anywhere. It was supposed to be like cheddar, and I’ll be damned if it didn’t have that sharp note to it that cheddar is known for. I could tell it had mustard in it, and most likely (totally guessing here) it had nutritional yeast as well. Amazing how they got the flavor and texture so close. Would a bonafide real-cheese eating connoisseur think it was real cheddar cheese? No, mostly likely not, but they probably wouldn’t consider that crap that’s kept in heated buckets at the local 7-11 for nachos to be real cheese either, and apparently it is. Unless someone went in there with a “I’m going to hate everything vegan just because it’s vegan” stick up their butt (you know the type), they’d be hard pressed not to admit this stuff is the bomb.

Here’s a close-up so that those of you out in the middle of nowhere can partake in the fantasy, imagining yourselves about to bite into this miracle of decadent indulgence smothered in cruelty-free melted delight…

The sandwich came served on a thick and fresh French roll along with an equally fresh side salad. It would normally also come with grilled onions, but… ewwwwww.

I absolutely loved this beast of a meal and can’t wait to go back and try everything else on The Vegan Spot menu. Los Angeles has been all abuzz about the vegan Twinkies that they serve as well, created by the lovely JennShaggy. The only problem is that they are so good and so popular that they’re selling out faster than the poor girl can bake them! Every time I’ve been there in search of a Twinkie they were out, but I sure hope the stars will align for me one of these days so that I’ll end up there at the right time and get to try one.

They don’t seem to have a website yet so I have no choice but to point you to the very mixed reviews over at Yelp:
http://www.yelp.com/biz/the-vegan-spot-los-angeles.

The reviews range from those who fanatically love the place to those who judge it based on the fact that they don’t like being served by hipsters and/or hippies or who’d rather complain about the murals on the walls than talk about the actual food. Whatever… don’t go into the heart of the most hipsterfied neighborhood in town if you’ve got a problem with “hip” people serving you, problem solved. The food was awesome, the place was clean and the people working there were all friendly and helpful… what more do you need? Try the place out and make up your own mind, I’m willing to bet you’ll leave happy and stuffed. If you do manage to snag a couple of Twinkies while you’re there, please save one for me!

Apparently there’s this whole panini obsession sweeping the land, hot on the heels of the cupcakes and Pinkberry fads. Everything’s all panini this and panini that, and I totally get it, panini are delicious! Who doesn’t like a toasty grilled, action packed sandwich? The downside for us herbivores is that panini are usually made with meat and cheese. Bummer.

To our rescue comes Press Panini in Studio City, on the same cute stretch of Tijunga Village as Aroma Cafe that I told you about the other day. Press Panini is a walk-up window service joint with tables out front and back. They’ve got an extensive menu filled with many amazing sandwich options, including a vegetarian section.

On this first visit I had tried the Grilled Tofu: grilled tofu, grilled onions, portabella, lettuce, tomato and olive with a raspberry vinaigrette. I requested that they leave off the onions and include roasted bell peppers instead.

It was awesome… just look… you can almost taste it, right? Yeah, this panini had it going on. Everything is made to order and grilled fresh. While it’s not a vegetarian place, they are fully vegetarian and vegan aware. Last I was there the owners girlfriend worked there, and she is a vegan, so they totally get it. They even use a separate grill for the vegetarian panini so you don’t have to worry about your tofu being grilled in meat juice.

Back to the panini, the bread was perfectly crispy (tell them if you don’t want it grilled with margarine), everything inside delicious and grilled nice & hot, with the raspberry vinaigrette tying everything together with a pretty and slightly sweet pink bow. Yum.

My next Press Panini adventure involved the Teriyaki Tofu: grilled tofu, grilled onions, portabella and avocado with teriyaki sauce. Again I got no onions, and again I loved it. The teriyaki sauce was just right, very flavorful but not too salty or overpowering. The nicely melted avocado was not only delicious but also added back in some of the cheesiness that you might be feeling deprived of. Sure, avocado tastes nothing like cheese, but the fattiness of it kind of tricks your palate a little bit. Again I must declare: Yum.

Can you handle more? They’ve also a big selection of salads, some already vegan such as the Grilled Vegetable Salad along with others the come with chicken, which they’ll substitute tofu in for you.

They also serve homemade soups and there’s usually always one available that’s vegan, the Lentil and Bean Soup. Now I’m not a big soup person so I’m not an expert on the topic, however, this was perhaps the best lentil soup I’ve ever had. Really, it was so good… thick and hearty and filling, a meal in and of itself.

You can see I’m digging on Press Panini and I think you will to. There’s parking in the back and you can expect a little wait because it’s all grilled to order, and well worth your time. All the panini are $9 and they’ve also got daily kid sized specials for $5. There’s a bit of whining on Yelp about the price, but the panini are large, delicious and will fill you up. I think it’s worth what you pay for, but then again, I don’t think $9 is too much for an awesome sandwich on a trendy street that no one should expect to be cheap in the first place. I’ll say it again: Yum.

This is also a great option for going out to eat with people who aren’t open to dining at exclusively vegetarian places (aka, my dad). There are plenty of options to make all present very happy.

www.presspanini.com

[Update 9/08] Veganopolis has closed up shop and moved to Chicago.
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There’s no way I was going to Portland to miss out on eating at a restaurant with a name like Veganopolis.

I’d heard mixed reviews about the place, some extremely positive, some not so nice. Still, the name was too cool to pass up and I liked how they described themselves on their website:

“Veganopolis Cafeteria is a 100% vegan dining and retail establishment. We serve casual gourmet and offer vegan lunch buffets M-F, 11am-3pm. Saturdays we offer an extensive Vegan Breakfast Buffet from 9am-5pm. We also offer fresh grilled sandwiches, Fresh Salads, a Kid’s menu, Counter service and a relaxed child-friendly environment. Espresso drinks, Vegan desserts including Shakes, Floats and Sundaes. We are a casein free zone and we refrain from serving honey. Baked goods made fresh here are wheat free and all organic.

Sounds good to me! I’d planned to spend part of the day at Powells, the ginormous bookstore downtown, so I stopped for lunch at Veganopolis first as it’s just a few blocks away. I decided to forgo the buffet and order something off the menu… the main reason being one of my all time favorite names in the language of culinary delights: Reuben.

It’s true, I’m a vegan Reuben sandwich addict and I have to try them whenever I’m am lucky enough to come across one in the wild… it’s like spotting a rare bird or one of those special flowers that only blooms for a day. The quest for vegan Reubens is particularly rewarding because no matter where you go, the restaurant will have it’s own unique interpretation of just what constitutes a proper one. Above is Veganopolis’ tasty version: Braised corned vegan ham, soy mozarella, house thousand island and sauerkraut piled on rustic rye.

It’s was pretty good. Not as great as the Follow Your Heart Reuben but it was still good in it’s own right. The veggie ham was tasty and very meat-like. I don’t know that I would have guessed that it was supposed to be corned ham had I not read that on the menu, but it was a perfectly suitable vegetarian stand-in for it’s real life fleshy counterpart. The thousand island dressing was a little too sweet for my taste, but the sauerkraut helped balance it out. The bread was fresh and the whole sandwich was grilled nice and crispy. The fries were roasted potatoes, the flavor was good but not having been fried the texture was a wee bit soft, though nothing a squirt of organic ketchup couldn’t handle.

They’ve got a lot of other tantalizing sandwiches on the menu as well as a salads, vegan shakes and all kinds of other goodies, including their ever changing buffet. Veganopolis made for a very satisfying lunch spot and while it didn’t blow my mind, I don’t always need lunch to rock my world. Sometimes all I’m after is a good sandwich to fortify me for a full day of book shopping. I got my good sandwich, and I ended up with a bunch of great books too… I was a happy camper.

Stayed tuned for ‘Foodeater Does Vegan Portland’, Pt. 9…
The final installment!

I didn’t want to leave you all weekend looking at something ugly like that last Anthony Bourdain post, so I will leave you with something much prettier, and I’ll bet, much tastier too.

This is the garbanzo bean (chickpea) salad sandwich at Pure Luck, which I think might have a fancier official name to it but I don’t have the menu in front of me. In all of it’s straightforward simplicity, I’d have to say it was an outstanding sandwich. It’s like a really good chicken or tuna salad sandwich, minus the animal bits and mayo (they use Vegenaise). The texture of the beans is thick and chunky, with some celery in there too I believe… it really does have a nice meaty bite to it that is neither pasty or mushy. They’ve come up with the perfect combo of seasonings to where it’s just right, truly a delicious sandwich that leaves you licking your fingers after each bite. I always love their bread here too and this lightly toasted and tasty bun was no exception. Don’t get me started on tasty buns.

This sandwich is usually served with fries or their yummy vegan Cesar salad but they were happy to oblige my request for the Potato Pals instead (fried gnocchi). The garbanzo salad can also be ordered as part of a larger salad, a full meal in it’s own right. This sandwich is a newer addition to the Pure Luck menu, and like everything else I’ve had there, it surely did not disappoint.

I took an out-of-town friend by Pure Luck today, he was as excited to hear about their microbrews on tap as I am about their bbq jackfruit. Sadly they were still closed for the holidays. So instead we bucked up our chins and headed west down Melrose towards M Café de Chaya.

This yummy hunk of yum is the “Melrose Avenue Muffaletta” with: “grilled seitan, spicy seitan ‘salami’, miso-cured tofu cheese, roasted red peppers, sun-dried tomatoes, carrots, arugula & olive spread, in a sourdough boule… served by the wedge”. It was every bit as good as it sounds and looks. Very action packed!

The delicious side dish is the ‘Maple Veggies and Brussels Sprouts with Chestnuts”. I’m pretty sure that the other stuff going on in there involved eggplant, yams and adzuki beans.

This place is super trendy, expensive, and trying to find parking nearby pretty much sucks, but I love it all the same.

This was lunch at Native Foods in Westwood about a month ago. I wish I had a better photo of it for you because it was mighty tasty.

From the menu: “Portobello & Sausage Burger: Big grilled beauties with seitan sausage, pommodoro, caramelized onions, pesto and sweet roasted garlic clove garnish.”

On the side is yummy Thai cole slaw. The sandwich was great… very garlicky and the sausage tasted authentically Italian. Kind of a messy meal, it was easier to eat with a knife & fork than as a “handheld”.

Native Foods rules. When I was last there they were expanding to occupy the much larger space next door, which is great because their existing space was much too small. How lucky the UCLA students are… if I was going to school or working near this place I’d have to muster great restraint to not eat there every day.

Won’t you take me down, to yummy town?

Here is the lovely ‘Ciao Bella’ with “Portabella mushroom, onions, red peppers, lettuce, tomato, pesto spread, hemp bread”. Got mine without the onions and with the potato salad option. Very good, in particular the pesto and hemp bread are quite tasty.

The vegan Reuben at Follow Your Heart has long been at the top of my list of favorite foods to eat in Los Angeles, and I was loving this sandwich long before I was ever even a vegetarian or vegan. Yeah, it’s that good.

This monster serving consists of: thinly sliced wheatmeat, sauerkraut, mustard and Vegenaise on oversized rye bread, with oven-baked baked fries. Served with dill pickle and Thousand Island dressing. It normally comes with Swiss cheese, but they offer it with their amazing non-dairy “cottage-style tofu” instead to make it vegan, and I tell you, that stuff is so delicious. I preferred it to the real stuff even when I was a cheese eater.

Despite how huge it looks in the picture, this really does not do justice to the size of this beast. It’s truly a giant sandwich. One half of it is probably enough to feed two people, so you can imagine that I was working on leftovers for a while. I’m not exaggerating when I rave to you about how yummy this sandwich is. It’s the sort of thing that you suddenly get a craving for late at night, long after the restaurant has closed and there’s not a thing you can do about it but wait until daytime. I’ve been going to Follow Your Heart specifically for this meal since I was a teenager and I still love it. They’ve got so many other fantastic items on their menu but I’ve tried only a few of them, because every time I go there and start checking out the menu, it’s always the Reuben that calls my name.

That said, I did have something different there recently… more on that soon to come.

p.s… Thank you Don Bolles, because if it wasn’t for the little review you wrote about this sandwich in the L.A. Weekly many years ago, I may have never learned of it’s existence. A tip of the hat, and a squirt of Dr. Bronner’s soap to you, Sir.