Turns out, Veggie Grill’s plan wasn’t foolish at all. They’re opening some new locations up here (Beaverton at the end of January, Downtown in May-ish, another Portlandy one sometime after that, with a few Seattle locations thrown in there somewhere), so they wanted to give us a head start. Honestly, for the price of a couple of advertisements they got four vegan bloggers (and a couple of omni restaurant reviewers) to try their food and listen to their story. Of course we’re writing about it—we write about everything! And you know me, I’m going to be straight with you.

We’ll get to the food in a minute, but I want to talk about the company. These guys are on a mission. They’re smart—and now they’re vegan. What started out as a business venture to build a chain of healthy fast-casual restaurants has changed their lives and just might change a few more. In researching this concept—the founders are all seasoned businessmen—they learned that vegan food can be just as flavorful and enjoyable as any other convenience food. Sure, that may not surprise you and me, but it did surprise them. Hooking up with their foodie Ray White, formerly of Native Foods, they are out to spread accessible, affordable vegan food across the country in a way that hasn’t been seen before.

You can choose to be excited about or scoff at the mass-market aspect of that. I personally don’t have a problem with it. Much like my experience at Native, sitting in the L.A. Veggie Grills, I loved looking around at a packed dining room, full of all races and ages, all eating vegan food. It’s not likely all these customers were vegan, but every vegan meal eaten means fewer animals are suffering. If we can take that to the masses, awesome. It could very well lead some to experiment at home with vegan ingredients or encourage them to try other vegan restaurants.

All right, you’ve been good and listened to me think probably way too much about this than I should. Here’s some food porn…after this photo of the Sunset location, for which I was hassled by The Man.

That’s Jess walking with Ray, who was a great storyteller. I was really glad to have met him. He has a love of produce and animals and people alike; it was nice to see the heart behind the chain, you know?

Wanna talk accessible? Vegan nachos are a gimme. They use a house cheesy blend, chili, corn salsa, and the other usual suspects for some could-be-worse junk food.

Same goes for the Buffalo wings. These drippy, saucy strips are like a gateway vegan food. You’ll find this Buffalo chick-product in sandwiches and wraps too. I’m not even a fan of vinegar, but I ate two of ‘em.

The All Hail Kale salad, ladies and gentlemen. Kale, corn salsa, cabbage, carrots, papaya-ginger vinaigrette, and agave-roasted walnuts…guess who’s gotta try to make this at home! I cannot tell you how much I loved this salad. I’m not at all embarrassed that I was the one who flat-out asked that they box up the leftovers for us. And yes, I did eat it for breakfast the next day—it held up just grand.

The VG team all had words about the mac-n-cheese. They’re apparently still tinkering with it. It’s a quinoa pasta with their gluten-free cheese sauce, so without the breadcrumbs it’s completely gluten-free. If you’re not into quinoa pasta or a very mild cheesy taste, skip it. Kids dig it and can’t tell the difference.

In addition to burgers (you know what those look like), the menu has a bunch of steaky options. The top one there is the All-American Stack, with veggie steak, dressing, the usual fixin’s, and an onion ring. (Note: Onion rings are not an option as a side, and I for one am outraged. Hear my outrage, Veggie Grill, hear meeeee!) The next is the Carne Asada, with a spicy veggie steak. I still can’t bring myself to eat vegan steak—so dumb, I know, totally psychological—but others were into it.

The sandwich I did try (and was super impressed with) was the Bayou Chicken. Here it is wrap-style, bundled up for me to take to the airport. It’s spicy and grilled, and totally satisfying. It was my top pick along with the kale salad.

It’s 2012. Your menu has to have sweet potato fries or people just aren’t going to bother with you. (Maybe 2013 will be the year of the vegan onion ring—a girl can hope.)

Dessert sampler, yes! I had three of these chocolate chip cookies over the course of the weekend and I wouldn’t mind another. The pudding has a dark chocolate base, and it’s the standard tofu pudding we’ve all made. Then the carrot cake: I loved it. It was pretty moist and mild. The frosting wasn’t übersweet, again going for the accessible, comfortable, you-could-have-made-it-at-home-but-you’re-running-errands-so-here-you-go vibe.

And that’s that. Unfortuately, I had to get on the early plane to make it back in time for work while the others stuck around for the new menu items, including full-meal, fork-n-knife plates, so check out their sites. I guess the Beaverton location won’t get the new menu just yet—baby steps—but you’ve seen the old one and they’re doing pretty OK with it. See you there!

Last week we went all the way out to the suburbs to check out the first Native Foods in the Portland area. Rumors are they’ll eventually get to us here in the city, but until then, it’s a roadtrip out to the bling-ass outdoor mall. It’s worth it. Aside from the food it was fun to just look around and see a packed fast food joint in the suburbs…and they’re all eating vegan!

Take a look at what we got (and do notice notebooks in most of the photos—it really was a business meeting).

We started with the Native Chicken Wings. That’s right, no cute alternative spellings of these meat-alikes. They came with a bunch of sauces that I didn’t eat. The others seemed to like ‘em just fine. The texture of these is pretty soft, more like Gardein than seitan. To our delight, we got six pieces, very easily shared among three people!

I got the Chicken Run Ranch Burger…hold the ranch. Look at all that stuff; why would you need dressing? I totally didn’t care that my sandwich was the same as our appetizer. It was great and I was hungry. The fries were decently spiced. Next time I’ll try the sweet potato fries.

Behold Janessa’s Oklahoma Bacon Cheeseburger! The bacon is tofu, and those are fried pickles up top. This was so intimidating…and messy…and impossible to finish, but she sure as hell enjoyed herself.

Jess’s Chicago Dip Au Jus: peppered seitan, giardiniera, and au jus. I might try this one; it seems simple enough. Sorry for the schmer photo, but when you’re sitting down to dinner with other bloggers, by the time you get to the last plate you’re shooting pretty quick just so you can start eating.

We had to try dessert. These little lovelies are the Cardamom Rose Cupcake and Peanut Butter Parfait. Both were pretty good. Not pictured is the cheesecake. My photo was crap, and I didn’t really love it. It seemed sour-creamy, and when I ate cheesecake, it was the crazy cold, crazy firm kind, not squishy. So you may love it—cheesecake’s personal like that.

Stopping to think about it, so much has happened this year, for me personally and all things vegan in general. Seriously, it’s not just because I live in the Portland bubble; the word “vegan” has reached so many this year. Oprah may have planted a serious seed a couple of years ago, and there’s always Ellen, but news of Bill Clinton’s sorta-vegan diet was everywhere. Now, I don’t totally understand why PETA named him Person of the Year—imagine that, me disagreeing with PETA—his plant-based, dairy-free (a bit o’ fish and who knows from eggs) diet is or was purely for health reasons. I have no problem with anyone choosing a vegan diet for health reasons, but PETA is about the Ethical Treatment of Animals, right? I don’t see Clinton’s message of compassion anywhere; he just wants to be able to play with his theoretical grandchildren.

I know I’m outing myself here, but in one episode of “Glee,” they said “vegan” twice, and not making fun of it, just in passing. Finn mentions the vegan meatballs at Breadsticks, and Kurt serves his dad vegan carrot soup. I also heard “vegan” in the season finale of “Venture Bros.,” and we got to see actual vegan police in “Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World.”

Pop culture aside, 2010 was an exciting time for the vegan cheese wars. Who still hasn’t tried Daiya? Chicago Soy Dairy retooled their Teese, and We Can’t Say it’s Cheese and Nacho Mom’s Vegan Queso have all made a huge push as of late. Battle on, say I, battle on. Gardein’s fakey chicken is popping up in grocery stores everywhere, and while most of it is a little too eerily meaty for me, it’s an incredible option. And what are there now, eight varieties of Earth Balance?

Personally, I went from a happily isolated, behind-the-keyboard vegan blogger to a rather busy gal interacting face-to-face with the vegan community. I joined the planning committee of Vegan Iron Chef, a little fundraiser for Try Vegan PDX that burst right out of its britches, Hulk-style. Now it’s a standalone nonprofit, and as soon as we can afford it and have a week locked away in a cave we can officially become a 501(c)(3). We’re putting the final touches on the website, and there’s already a quick guide to help you put on a competition in your own city. Two days from now we’ll be having our first planning meeting for our next competition and getting the news out on our first fundraiser for the year (an open-to-the-public casserole competition).

Also huge is my involvement with the first vegan blog conference, Vida Vegan, with Janessa and Jess (who also made me get on twitter). We’ve got an amazing bunch of speakers and registrants from all over the country, Canada, the U.K., Germany—even Thailand! I know there’s still a lot—no, A LOT—of work to do, but I’m so excited to bring all these vegan bloggers together to learn and eat and play. We’ll all walk away ready to produce cleaner and better-written sites, add fun stuff like videos and podcasts, and see ourselves as members of a larger community. So yeah, lots to look forward to.

Believe it or not, this is a first for me. Sure, I’ve had soycurl tacos at Taqueria Los Gorditos, but I’ve never made them myself. When we first started making vegan tacos we used TVP, then moved on to LiteLife fakey chicken strips, and now we’ve been using tempeh (recipe here) for quite some time—and loving it. But what if you’re out of tempeh and you still get the hankerin’ for tacos? Those soycurls are just sitting right there in the cabinet, waiting to be rehydrated and spiced and grilled up.

As I have yet to make my big batch of Taco Town, the proprietary blend of spices that I promised to share with you probably a year ago, we just shook a little of this and a little of that, along with Butler’s chickeny soycurl seasoning. You know what was missing? Paprika! We were totally out. I don’t know how that happened. Paprika’s one of my favorite things in this world and I allowed it to disappear? What the hell? I know it doesn’t sound right that a traditionally Hungarian spice should make or break a Mexi-ish dish, but it totally does.

The soycurls were not to blame, but these were some pretty sad tacos, beautiful though they may be. The flavor was just flat. It had spice, it had bite, but it lacked that warm middle ground. If you’ve been making tacos without paprika, then I just have to wonder how you can feel alive. You’re just fooling yourself, man. Get on the paprika bus, ’cause it’s a funky one.

Oh, and let’s hear it for crunchy shells. Makes you feel like a kid again, and not just because you make a huge mess of yourself. There’s delight in that crunch.

Like many whirlwind affairs, it began with coffee. A simple house coffee served in a shapely glass mug. Maybe it was the lighting, but I was a goner from the start. Herbivore was to be mine, at least for the weekend.

Herbivore popped up every which way I was searching for vegan food in San Francisco. Seeing as it couldn’t possibly be the only vegan food in the city I went ahead and fell for the hype. Well, good call on my part, ’cause this place is amazing. It’s all vegan, all the time, and they’ve got an enormous menu.

I’d planned to meet an old friend here Saturday afternoon, so that morning Tom and I gave this place a test run with breakfast. (As with the dinner photos, please excuse the crappy quality; low lighting and the ol’ travel pocket camera are staunch opponents of food porn.)

Tom got the corn cakes, which came with guacamole, salsa, sour cream, a ton of black beans, and potatoes. And he finished it, down to the last bean. He was just as pleased with the soul music being piped at us. Some restaurants we avoid simply because of the music. Not an issue here.

I thought I’d keep it light and ordered a few sides: tempeh, potatoes, and blueberry cornbread. Oops. Six strips of tempeh, a huge helping of super-fab spicy potatoes, and two giant pieces of blueberry cornbread! I managed the tempeh and most of the potatoes. Almost all of the cornbread got boxed for snacking later.

Luckily, in San Francisco it doesn’t take long to walk off a meal. A couple of miles of up and down and up and up and “Are you kidding me, there’s more?” up and you’re ready for dessert. So my friend (not vegetarian at all but still pointed out her leather-looking jacket was an animal-friendly imposter) and I grabbed a table out back and got our a-la-mode on. I got the German chocolate cake and she went with the rhubarb pie. They were delightful, and were left to our table for something like two hours, not being harassed, and were even told we “could stay forever.” But it got cold.

Later that night we met up with one of Tom’s old friends and his ladyfriend. Where to go, where to go…how about Herbivore? We started off with a bottle of wine for the grown-ups and a gingery fruity drink for me (it’s vodka, lime, ginger juice, and your choice of mango, papaya, pear, or pineapple—I got the pineapple). We all had a pretty tough time narrowing down our choices. Seriously, check out the menu and you’ll understand. In the end, here’s what we ended up with (and were all pleased with, if I might add).

Red curry: Char-broiled vegetables, tofu, potatoes and cilantro over rice.

Ravioli: Vegetable-filled ravioli in a sea of pesto. And garlic bread (for soppin’ up the pesto you can’t manage to eat with the ravioli).

Mac and cheese: With broccoli and red pepper, in a nutritional-yeast–based sauce.

Curry-coconut udon: Where’s the udon? She wasn’t feeling like udon and went with rice instead. Atop the rice are roasted vegetables, cilantro, and shredded coconut.

So that was day one at Herbivore. The next day we were just going to walk over to Golden Gate Park and wing it for lunch…but we were drawn back in. And I was finally called on it. Our waitress asked, “Weren’t you here yesterday?” “Yes, three times, as a matter of fact.” As if they’d complain. I dropped a bunch of cash and brought three locals (possibly repeat customers themselves) in. It was still a bit chilly out so we scored a table by the window to still be able to soak up some sun.

Tom got the burrito: beans, brown rice, guacamole, vegan sour cream, jalapenos, and salsa in a whole wheat tortilla. You can add tofu, seitan, tempeh, soy protein, vegetables, or fakey chicken. He went with the tempeh and was a very happy boy.

I had a fakey chicken sandwich. The soy chicken is in little chunks, topped with tomato, onion, pickle, and lettuce on French bread. No garlic-lemon sauce for me, but if you like that sort of thing I bet it’s fantastic. The salad that seems to come with everything is very lightly dressed and is topped with beets, which I love, as luck would have it. I’d never had cold beets before and I’m mighty glad to have been introduced to them.

And just so you don’t think I’m alone in my insti-love of this place, check out what I found on the restroom door: 

I so wanted to serve this on a paper plate, but that’s just not in my nature—I don’t know that I’ve ever purchased paper plates. I was going for the fried chicken take-out thing, but this ended up being not nearly as low-rent as I’d hoped (although I guarantee you it was cheaper than take-out). Sure, it’s deep-fried processed chik-alike. I coated Trader Joe’s chickenless strips in spicy, corny cajun seasoning and dipped them in good old-fashioned oil, oil, oil! Then, to round out our not-so-fast-food spread, I mixed up some cole slaw (sort-of recipe at the end) and baked up some biscuits with shredded Italian-blend Diaya worked into the dough. If I’d used boxed biscuit mix or bagged slaw vegetables I could have raised the convenience quotient, but whatever. It was sorta junk food. And we stuffed ourselves silly.

This was definitely a novelty dinner—the apartment smelled of oil for hours. And since I’ve gotten myself over my fried food addiction I don’t want to backslide. Moderation, boys and girls, moderation.

I’ve been itchin’ to come up with a not-so-good-for-you meal since someone recently asked me how I stayed in good shape eating vegan, because all the vegans she knows are fat. Well, I’m not in all that great of shape and I suspect “all the vegans” she knows is one guy. The fact is over the last five years I’ve lost about 25 pounds. Some of that is due to my not being sick anymore (endometriosis among other womanly lumps and bumps and icky tissues), but also because I just can’t help but eat better. I do eat a lot of pasta, and I do love a good cupcake, but I guess stepping out of the convenience food arena does a body good. I’m exposed to a lot less high-fructose corn syrup and modified <fill in the blank>.

Yesterday I ran into a Fred Meyer, a regular ol’ giant chain grocery store, and after picking up my cabbage, agave nectar, and Vegenaise from the “natural” section, I walked the rest of the store, aisle by aisle. There was nothing there for me. Shelf-stable pickles, canned soups, frozen pizzas—and people were filling their carts up with this stuff. It’s not elitism, just sadness that most of our country is filling up its carts (and bodies) with additives and preservatives and other unnecessary crap, even though they know better. It’s not ignorance, it’s acceptance, and that’s the sad part. The check-out guy chuckled as he scanned my groceries, “I just love the names they give this stuff. Vegenaise? What’s that other one, Tofurky? Just funny is all.” And they are funny, but they’re marketing shortcuts. I get it. I just told the guy “They can call it whatever they want to as long as there’re no animals in ‘em.” Then came the silence. I hope that meant his brain was working.

The sort-of-recipe for cole slaw:
• ½ head cabbage, shredded
• 1 shredded carrot
• some shaved onion
• a quick squirt of agave nectar
• 2 scallions
• maybe 2 T Vegenaise
• juice from a tiny lemon
• maybe ¼ t celery salt
• salt & pepper ’til you like it

Mix together. Chill for at least an hour. Mix again. Eat.

Soy Curls to the rescue! I had some leftover rice pilaf in the fridge and a quarter bag of Soy Curls in the cabinet. A little fakey chicken broth powder, minced garlic, red pepper, and parsley—and maybe 20 minutes—later, a surprisingly tasty and filling dinner. At around $4 a bag, these things are a pantry powerhouse. As we get into food bank season, I know what I’m adding to my bags, because you know damn well your monetary donation isn’t going toward these. And especially in my area, I know there are vegans at the food banks who are probably sick of beans.

I give you a subpar photo of the sandwich that almost wasn’t (and my refrigerator with a bunch of stickers and some other crap taped to it).

Whatever could have stood between me and my fakey chicken sandwich? Only myself—and my failure to clean the toast crumbs from the floor of my toaster oven. My fakey chicken was cookin’ away and I was busy at the sink rinsing my lettuce when I heard a pop. It was a couple of big toast crumbs bursting into flames. Well, it wasn’t a crazy huge fire, easily shot out with a spray bottle (after unplugging the oven, of course). Didn’t even get the fakey chicken wet. That’s probably not how you’re supposed to deal with a fire of this sort, but whatever, it happened. Honestly, I was more afraid of setting off the smoke alarm than burning down the kitchen or even killing our dear, sweet toaster oven.

The fakey chicken is a new one for us, Food for Life’s Cluckphrey Patties. They’re pretty average, stringy and light-tasting, as you’d expect from a breaded soy-gluten patty. They’re baked, not fried, lower fat than some others, so make sure you follow it up with some pie or other such fatty treat.

This is from last week, when we had our mini heatwave. I didn’t want to cook at all, but I’d not really planned ahead with no-cook meals, so this is a little-cook one. And whaddaya know? It’s super good.

I made the pesto first (takes all of two minutes), and in this nut-free household, pesto means basil, more garlic than most folk would use, olive oil, salt, and nutritional yeast. If I were in the mood, I would have thrown some hempseed or sunflower seeds in there so they could pretend they were pine nuts…but I’m really never in the mood.

Then, while the water was boiling for the pasta, I soaked the soy curls in hot water. And while the pasta is cooking, so are the soy curls, in a little olive oil and Butler soy curl chickeny-flavored seasoning. The timing’s perfect and all just gets tossed together with a pinch o’ crushed red pepper.

A super-rad dinner in 20 sweat-free minutes. Nice.

While I have you here, these are the Mexican Hot Chocolate cupcakes from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. I made them for Tom’s birthday. A little spicy, a little coconutty, a lot chocolate. The inside is super delicate, and the tops are sorta craggy and crispy, as advertised. Very interesting—definitely nothing to be afraid of. We ate them alongside a scoop of Naked Coconut Coconut Bliss. ‘Twas a happy birthday indeed.

I never crave chicken, so I’m never looking for that perfect substitute. When I buy fake meats for convenience, I’m drawn to the chicken ones because they’re the least meaty—I have never tried burger crumbles, ham-alikes, or fakey seafood. 

In my last Vegan Essentials order, I got the Butler Soy Curls and Chick-Style Seasoning, but it took me a few weeks to work up the courage to try them.

Here’s a handful of the Soy Curls right out of the bag.

And here they are after soaking in warm water for 10 minutes. At this point I was still super skeptical.

After 10 minutes in the seasoning* and just a little bit of olive oil. Still kinda rubbery. I decided to use as much onion and garlic and crushed red pepper as possible in a bunch of pasta so the soy curls could disappear if they were creepy.

*Open this for the first time over the sink or something—my container had a seal around the opening and made a bit of a mess when I removed it. That’s the kind of thing they don’t teach you in school.

Not so bad. After some more cooking they firmed up quite a bit. I could definitely handle eating this again. It would probably work great in a stir-fry or tacos/fajitas. And not only are they shelf-stable, but they’re way cheaper than the fake meats in the fridge section.