To Live and Eat in L.A.

Here’s a tasty vegan lunch I had a few weeks ago at Real Food Daily in West Hollywood.

I was enticed by the menu and the hot weather to order the soup of the week, “Cool as a Cucumber”, a cold cucumber soup with fresh dill. It was simple, light and refreshing. Plus I got to eat flowers and that’s always cool.

This was the Tofu Wrap which involves “herbed tofu, vegetables and sun-dried tomato pesto in a spinach tortilla”. The presentation was rather sparse with nothing else on the big plate other than the wrap, but aesthetics aside, it was hearty and tasty.

It’s a crying shame that I’ve lived so close to Papa George’s Hy Mart Deli all this time without realizing that they offer some of the best sandwiches and wraps in town, until now.

Hys Mart is a small family run Mediterranean Deli. The mom, pop and son who run this place are super cool and have been in business for over 30 years. They make all kinds salads, deli style sandwiches and middle eastern specialties like gyro’s and falafel. Where they shine in my humble opinion is in their vegetarian specials. There’s at least 10 different vegetarian plates to choose from. Some of them come with feta cheese and/or labni yogurt, but they can make your order dairy free by request.

My favorite is the “Shahkloot Special”. It’s a large lavash wrap stuffed with tabouleh, olives, cucumber, mint, basil, avocado, hummus, falafel, tomato, pickles, tahina, lettuce and pepperchinis. The standard version minus my editing would also include feta cheese and onions. The owner told me that Shahkloot means basically throwing in everything that’s in the kitchen. It’s so good, and so big and makes for the perfect lunch… or dinner. I even picked a few up the other day to take on a picnic. My mom loved the chicken wrap she had as well, so consider this another place where you can eat comfortably with mixed company.