Austin food and drink
With a schedule full of film watching in Austin, I didn’t expect to do a ton of restaurant sampling. Shawn, on the other hand, plotted out the best places to go based on everyone’s recommendations. Thank goodness for a husband that balances out my movie madness, since some of the meals were not to be missed.
Possibly my favorite of the restaurants was Bouldin Creek where I had two of the most delicious breakfasts. The first, a vegan benedict, was so good I insisted we go back another day. I’m not sure exactly how they prepare their tofu, but it is amazing: seasoned and lightly coated in nutritional yeast. Their potato cakes are also worth a mention as they’re far beyond any hash brown I’ve ever had.
I was also a big fan of Veggie Heaven. In particular the tangerine mushrooms were the kind of thing I crave often. It is the sort of dish I see on a menu in many places but never lives up to what I’m imagining in my head. Yet, these saucy & perfectly breaded mushrooms were everything I hoped they would be. The steamed buns were also very good. Let’s not forget the bubble tea, it was the best.
We also happened upon this adorable place that had just opened called Hillside Farmacy. There were only a couple of vegan options on the menu, like the soup of the day, which happened to be carrot cardamom, but the interior is lovely and they have Stumptown coffee and a bar. It’s definitely worth a visit just to check out the beautiful renovation they’ve done of the space, and of course, have some coffee. I wanted to live inside this shop.
Not only does Austin have some lovely vegan friendly restaurants, there are also some very nice bars with mixed drinks I love. The drink menu and atmosphere at the East Side Show Room was by far my favorite. And of course, as I mentioned before, Austin will now be known to me as the first place I ever tried boba and subsequently fell in love with it.
Even though we’d visited Austin before, it was great to go to a completely new set of restaurants and food trucks. Can’t wait to go back and try some more.
Vegan Road Trip: Part 3
The East Coast and more
We made it to the East Coast just in time for Christmas Eve with Shawn’s family. We relaxed for awhile, ate some home cooked meals, went to the movies, had a vegan taco night and played lots of Little Big Planet. While there was snow on the ground when we arrived, it rained all of Christmas day, so no snowmen were made as I had hoped. Though we had planned to head in to NYC from the New Jersey suburb where we were staying, we opted to stay home and stay dry.
Luckily this meant we got to try out a (new to us) vegan Chinese restaurant, Veggie Heaven. Oh and it was heaven. I have enjoyed some fabulous vegetarian Chinese restaurants but there was just something about this place that has me dreaming about it. Maybe it was the sushi. Okay, so that’s not Chinese specifically but I’ve never had such amazing vegan sushi. I love sushi. Hey, I’m from Los Angeles, I’ve been eating sushi since I was two. As soon as I saw the fireball roll on the menu, faux spicy tuna with avocado and a signature spicy sauce, I knew it was the one thing I had to have. My goodness, it was divine. But it wasn’t just the sushi, we also had a great wonton soup and some fantastic crispy duck. So good, I can’t wait to go back…
Soon enough we were on the road again, heading to Asheville to pick up our backseat companions. I should mention that this is probably around the point where I was far enough from home and a computer that I forgot about taking photos of much. We went to some really neat restaurants and it just never even occurred to me to take photos. These things happen when you just enjoy your trip and forget about blogging for a bit.
After getting stuck in traffic on the horror that is the I-95, we were ecstatic to find the Blue Nile in Harrisonburg, Virginia with a bar that was open late (we drove through at about 11pm) and yummy vegan sandwiches. Also, I should mention I now have a deep affection for Hampton Inns. After staying in the creepiest Motel 6 ever, and after one of our more stressful driving days, it was so nice to fall asleep in a clean room (and watch Animal Planet). Not to mention, their complimentary breakfast actually has a few vegan options.
Asheville ended up being one of the surprisingly awesome stops on our trip. We spent most of our time exploring the amazing Biltmore House, but also had the opportunity to try a couple restaurants including Green Sage, where the reuben you see above is from, a cafe with a bunch of vegan options clearly listed on their menu. We had an amazing pizza with a super thin crust made from beer mash at Barley’s Taproom. And get this, Mellow Mushroom in Asheville has Cheezly vegan cheese! This isn’t true for all Mellow Mushroom locations either. As far as I know, it’s only Asheville. Did I mention that Asheville has the most craft breweries per capita in the US? Oh I didn’t? Well it does.
I’ll have one more episode of our road trip tour, featuring my favorite stop: Austin, Texas. In the mean time, I recommend you check out Shawn’s beautiful photo sets from our trip here and here. You can see much more of the places we stopped, some of our crazy antics and not just food.
