Carbon Free Girl - A Race Car Driver's Journey to Be Carbon Neutral

So Long and Thanks For All the Seitan!

I am one of the estimated 12 million vegetarians living in the USA. With the drastic increase in vegetarian and meat-free items available in restaurants and mainstream grocery stores, it appears we are an ever growing part of the population. Even Burger King now carries a BK Veggie Burger and in Canada, Kentucky Fried Chicken offers vegetarian soy chicken meals. (Note to KFC - please oh please bring these items to your US locations!)

Recent studies have shown that approximately 1 in 200 kids in the United States are vegetarians, usually due to their love for animals. I hope this growing trend translates into the opening of more and more vegetarian restaurants for me to sample and review! I have never been, nor will I ever be, a brown rice kind of vegetarian. I am looking for vegetarian food with flavor! I hope that this site is helpful for other vegetarians out there in search of tasty meals!

Happy meat-free eating!

The Grit
199 Prince Avenue Athens, GA 30601 | Visit their website

I love this place - great atmosphere, great service, great food. Oh, and some great microbrew beers as well. I discovered it by using my iVegetarian app on my iPhone when I was putting my race seat in my new race car for Daytona. My race shop is located outside of Athens, Geogria and my iPhone directed me to The Grit.

Their menu download (available on their website) says "Vegetarian Food for Carnivores" because they offer Big Daddy Burger, Steaks, Tofu Reuben, Chili Cheese Dogs, Chicken Parmesan sandwich, Buffalo Chicken on Texas Toast in addition to curries, nachos, quesadillas, hummus, falafel, etc. I have been to The Grit twice now and the Tofu Reuben was so fantastic the first time, I had to order it again when I returned. I love this place and find myself looking forward to my next visit to the race shop so I can get another Tofu Reuben!

The Laughing Seed
40 Wall Street Asheville, NC 28801 | Visit their website

I was very impressed with this place. Located in the heart of Asheville, the only hippie town in the state of North Carolina. The atmosphere inside the restaurant is light and airy. The staff is friendly and you get the feeling that hippest people in town hang out at this place.

The menu is full of very tasty vegetarian food like rosemary cider braised seitan steak, curries, pastas, wild mushroom enchiladas, dumplings, burritos, soups, salads and sandwiches like the Reuben, Sloppy Joe, and Mercury Not Rising which is made with a seitan fish fillet. You must also sample their tasty organic beer! I give the Laughing Seed five tofus and will be eating there anytime I drive through the Asheville area!

Veggie Bite
1300 North Milwaukee Avenue Chicago, IL 60622 | Visit their website

On paper this place sounded great - a vegan fast food restaurant. Their menu looks like any fast food place consisting of chili cheese fries, chicken nuggets, hot dogs, cheese burgers and milk shakes. I love the idea of being able to get vegan comfort food on the go, but unfortunately, the first three items I wanted to order, they were out of: Philly Cheese Steak, Buffalo on Rye, and Chili Cheese Dog. It's not a big menu so it was quite surprising to me that they were out of three items. I ended up getting the chicken nuggets (which seemed like a really dry version of the Morning Star Farms nuggets) and the meatball sandwich, which was pretty tasty. The soy ice cream was also very good.

It wasn't very busy, and it had the atmosphere of a fast food place - in other words, it seemed like it was kind of dirty. The service was very slow for an almost empty fast food retaurant. Overall, I was disappointed. They need to clean up their restaurant a bit and make sure they have all the menu items. I am hoping I caught them on an off day and I will give them another chance next time I'm in Chicago. I give Veggie Bites two tofus, mainly for thinking outside the box and realizing not all vegetarians want super healthy food all the time, sometimes greasy and fattening food is exactly what the doctor ordered.

California Vegan
12113 Santa Monica Blvd #207 Los Angeles, CA 90025 | Visit their website

This place is wonderful. The food is absolutely fantastic. The Crispy Chicken Appetizer and the California Orange Chicken are unbelievable, you must try them! Even my meat eating friend who dined there with me said, "If I had access to this kind of vegan food on a daily basis, I would have absolutely no problem being vegan." The menu includes chicken teriyaki, soy fish fillets, curries, soy pepper steaks, and even soy shrimp. There are two locations in Los Angeles, one is in Santa Monica and another on Sunset Blvd in downtown Los Angeles. I can only hope that someday this restaurant becomes a chain so vegetarians outside of Los Angeles can enjoy their amazing vegan dishes. This place is a must try for all vegetarians - when in Southern California, put this on your list of destinations. You will not be disappointed. I give California Vegan five tofus, fantastic!

Note: The second location is downtown at 7300 West Sunset Blvd #A Los Angeles, CA 90046.