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

This is the ginger dish from Vegan Plate (take out): “Stir-fried mushrooms, fresh ginger, garlic, green onion and bell pepper in chef’s special sauce.” I had mine with the soy chicken option, served on brown rice. Very good.

Took a friend from out of town to check out the Thai food goodness at Vegan Plate.

I had the mint leaves with the soy-shrimp. “Stir-fried mint leaves, fresh chili, garlic, onion and bell peppers”… so good. I think it was in a light soy-sauce base, tasty and not too salty (as soy-saucy things tend to be). You’re probably thinking: “But Foodeater, we thought you hated onions!”. Too true observant reader… yet as any true onion hater will tell you, we actually prefer large chunks of onions in our food like these seen here… they’re much easier to eat around or pick out when they’re big like this, rather than when they are small and sneaky. I do enjoy the flavor that cooked onions offer to a dish, it’s the actual onion itself I cannot abide. Big pieces like this make my job easy.

My buddy ordered the orange flavored soy-chicken. I generally don’t take pictures of what other people are eating, but not only was this totally beautiful and deserving of a photo, but I also tried some of it, therefore deeming it worthy of a spot on my blog. I wouldn’t dare order a giant plate of fried stuff like this for myself, but boy was I ready to encourage my friend to order it so that I could get a taste!

The batter was super crispy and sweet, reminding me of a donut or funnel cakes… made even sweeter by the syrupy, almost candy like sauce. Sounds kind of weird huh, all that sweetness paired with the meaty flavor of fake chicken… but man alive, did it ever work! This was the tastiest orange chicken I’ve ever had by far, vegetarian or otherwise, not to mention the prettiest.

Oh these were so tasty! Vegan Plate serves up this lovely appetizer dish of vegetable steamed dumplings slathered in a delicious green curry sauce. The sauce was rich with curry, coconut and basil… truly one of the tastiest green curries I’ve tried.

This is the ‘Hot Spicy Green Beans’, aka, Prik King, at Vegan Express. What’s great about Vegan Express is that they serve both really good American style food like burgers, sandwiches, wraps and salads along with real Thai food… made by real Thai people.

The Prik King was excellent, made with tofu, red peppers, Kaffir lime leaves and served with a heaping portion of brown rice. The flavor was just right, nice and spicy… the absence of traditional fish sauce was not missed one bit.

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.

Thai spaghetti (rice vermicelli), soy chicken, romaine, bean sprouts and fresh herbs (I tasted lots of cilantro) wrapped in rice paper, served with hoisin sauce and chili paste. This was just an appetizer but so filling and tasty that I didn’t order anything else, other than Chrysanthemum tea.

Cucumber salad, vegan-chicken sate, peanut sauce.

Pad Thai.