When I told my vegan buddy Stromile that I was going to come out to LA for a trip, he said “We should grab some vegan food sometime.”  However, by the time that I did go out there, he was observing some religious holiday, so he couldn’t eat out (I won’t say what holiday, because it’ll date when I actually went to LA).  While he couldn’t eat with me, he did give me a load of good food recommendations.  Most of the recommendations were places that were vegetarian/vegan friendly.  He told me to check out Real Food Daily because it was a great place to celeb watch.  And I had been in LA for a few days and hadn’t seen a single celebrity (I’m not counting a guy that looked like Colin Farrell that drove past me in a vintage Land Rover).  So, Real Food Daily I went!

Real Food Daily is a vegan restaurant that is committed to the vegan lifestyle and promoting healthy eating, balance with nature, and all that other crap that you thought died out with the hippie. Don’t believe me? Instead of salt or pepper, they have “sesame seeds” for seasoning!  This is the kind of thing that makes people hate Californians.

The first thing I noticed when looking through the menu was that everything was ridiculously expensive.  I had such sticker shock that I didn’t have any idea what to order.  The waitress recommended the RFD burger and the Supreme Burrito with ranchero sauce on the side.  I am not a fan of tempeh (which the burger was made from), so I ordered the burrito with ranchero sauce on the side and taco mix included.  I think the burrito would have been tastier without the taco mix, as the taco mix was either tempeh or some dried-out meat substitute which tasted awful.  I was intrigued by the concept of cashew cheese, but I could barely taste it with all the other flavors that were happening.  The burrito overall was actually quite underwhelming, though filling.  I have had much tastier burritos that had no fake meat or fake cheese, and were much cheaper.

Even though I was pretty full from the burrito and all that sesame seed seasoning, the waitress conned me into getting German Chocolate Cake.  Admittedly it wasn’t a hard feat to accomplish, as it’s a lethal equation: Cute Waitress + My Gluttony = Ordering Cake.  Despite being $7, I found it very underwhelming.  One of my favorite parts of German Chocolate Cake is the coconut, and you would think that vegan recipes would include a lot of coconut, but I could barely taste it!  The cake was very heavy, and the cake to icing ratio was scant, which was disappointing, because that was what the waitress recommended also.

It is possible that the waitress’ recommendations for me were just terrible, but I did not really like the food at Real Food Daily.  I think it’s great and all to cater to vegans and emphasize local food, but I would argue that all that fake meat and processed fake cheese cannot be good for you.  If you’re going to be a vegan restaurant, I would much rather have simple natural food (like just vegetables, beans, etc.) with the odd tofu or seitan dish, rather than being completely fake food with the odd natural dish.  I suppose that is the great irony of Real Food Daily, it’s pretty fake, and not very good.  And the worst part of it all (not my bill for $22!) was that I didn’t even see a celebrity.  Next time I’ll just dine at the Ivy.  I’ll give RFD three cheese sandwiches, as they cater to vegans and celiacs, but serve substandard food.

Real Food Daily
414 North La Cienega Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90048 
(310) 289-9910

If there’s one thing that Los Angeles is famous for it is hype.  Some would argue that LA is famous for movies, but really, what is a movie other than a hyped up play?  So, I figured I would explore the hype propaganda that exists in LA to try a few places that I wouldn’t normally (because I listed to Chuck D as a child).  What is the pinnacle of hype in the food industry? Cupcakes.  What is the most pretentious place in Los Angeles? Beverly Hills.  So, the logical conclusion for me was to visit Sprinkles Cupcakes on Rodeo (well, technically it’s off Rodeo, but still pretty close).

Despite peoples antipathy towards cupcakes, recent studies have shown that cupcakes are one of the few growing industries in this recession, though this may just be another bubble.  I have been to Magnolia Bakery, the source of the whole cupcake hype craze, and never actually thought that the cupcakes were very good.  My friend suggested that I go try the vegan red velvet cupcake at Sprinkles.  To my great chagrin, I actually liked that cupcake a lot! The icing was on the mark, not too sweet, and had the perfect icing to cake ratio so that every bite was amazing.  Admittedly, I wolfed it down in 3 bites, but each was quite pleasant.  My one criticism would be that the candy “V” that they put on, presumably to indicate it is vegan was completely inedible.  However, in my rush to devour the cupcake, it is highly possible that the candy “V” was in fact, not candy.  Unlike Magnolia, the cupcake I had at Sprinkles was really tasty, and despite being in Beverly Hills, there was almost no line to get a cupcake, so even the hype was not as big as in New York.  Furthermore, Sprinkles has a wide array of cupcakes, and multiple selections that are vegan, as well as a few that are gluten-free.  There are even dog-food cupcakes (which makes me like the place less).  Even though Sprinkles makes a great effort to cater to gustatory minorities, I still abhor the cupcake craze, so I won’t give it five cheese sandwiches.  But it will get four and a half, probably the best rating I’ll ever give for a cupcake bakery.

Sprinkles Cupcakes
9635 South Santa Monica Boulevard
Beverly Hills, CA 90210 
310-274-8765

If there’s one thing the southwest is known for, it is Mexican food.  And yes, I am including LA in the “Southwest” (it is surrounded by desert, people!).  Aaron and his girlfriend, Kara, were unsure about where to take me (being fans of the blog and fearful of my iconoclasm towards their favorite restaurants).  They asked me where I wanted to go, and I said “I want Mexican food!”  They immediately came up with Hugo’s Tacos (a good sign), which fortunately was very close to where they lived in the Valley.

Hugo’s Tacos actually has two locations, one in Los Angeles, and one in the Valley in Studio City.  If you’ve never been to the Valley location it looks like parking lot attendant’s office and makes probably some of the finest vegetarian friendly Mexican food I had in LA.  Hugo’s Tacos is similar to other burritorium-style restaurants, they have your typical taco, burrito, quesadilla, torta combinations.  The cool part about Hugo’s tacos is that it is modular, where you can choose from one of seven different fillings, two of which are vegetarian.  They are: mixed vegetables with herbs, and soy chorizo, potato, and zucchini. I am a big fan of soy chorizo, So, I decided to get a torta with the soy chorizo option.  The torta was filled with organic white beans, guacamole, tomato and onions.  While it was very good, I still prefer the tortas from Tacos Lupita.  Unlike Tacos Lupita, this torta is vegan, as they use vegenaise instead of mayonnaise.  I think the deal breaker for me was the honey chipotle coating of the bread.  It made the torta unnecessarily messy, and I am not a fan of the chipotlification of food.

While I was already stuffed with the torta (it is very filling), I had to try the mixed vegetables filling to see if one was better than the other.  So, I ordered a medium spiced taco with the mixed vegetables.  This was a huge mistake as my definition of medium is completely different from Hugo’s.  Though the crispy shell and the mixed vegetables were very tasty, the “medium” sauce was so incredibly hot that I could barely eat the taco.  I should point out that I do have a tolerance of spiciness, so if you do not like spicy foods, stay as far away from medium as you can.

I was thoroughly impressed by the selection of foods at Hugo’s Tacos.  They certainly make an effort to try to cater to vegetarians as well as vegans.  Beyond just the two vegetarian options (which is way more than the standard “beans” option), they also have vegetarian burgers that look very good as well.  I would rate the food quite highly, though I would hardly say it is the best Mexican food I have ever had.  I am going to give Hugo’s Tacos five cheese sandwiches primarily because they make such a good effort to try to cater to vegetarians and vegans.  Though my food wasn’t overwhelmingly amazing for a five cheese sandwich review, I think I just ended up ordering the wrong dishes.  This is definitely a restaurant that I would want to come to again and again.

Hugo’s Tacos
4749 Coldwater Canyon Ave
Studio City, California 91423 
(818) 762-7771

There’s nothing like a good home-cooked meal, and when it comes to Indian food, I can’t help but compare any food I eat to what I would get at home cooked by my mother or previously my grandmother.  One problem with most Indian restaurants is that they try too hard to maximize profits at the expense of putting out good food (which is part of the reason most Indian restaurants serve buffets).  In North Carolina, I was informed that there was a good Indian restaurant that I should check out, called Vimala’s Curryblossom Cafe.

First of all, I will say I was initially pleased with the naming of the restaurant.  So few Indian restaurants name it after the owner or chef, which creates a level of detachment from the food.  If I were to put my name on a restaurant, I create a level of responsibility on the quality of meal that you will get.  Calling an Indian restaurant Taj Mahal or Bombay Palace is not only cliche, it doesn’t identify who’s responsible for this crap.  With Vimala’s Curryblossom Cafe, I know if I have a problem with the meal, I go straight to Vimala.  Which is great because when I went there, I saw Vimala.  She’s responsible for running the kitchen and making sure all the food is great.  So before I even got the food, I knew it would be good.  Thus ends the educational portion of this blog.

I wanted to sample the full spectrum of fare that Vimala had on store, so I ordered the Vegetarian thali, which was a little pricey by North Carolina standards (~$14), but a bargain by Boston standards.  For the thali, I get two curries, rice, yoghurt, chutney, daal, papadam, and chapati (an Indian bread, thinner than naan).  I saw that there was idly and vada sambar available as well, which I wanted to try, so I asked the cashier who was Indian where he was from.  Which in hindsight is the kind of racist questions that I usually get annoyed about, but the reason I asked was I wanted to know if the sambar was going to be any good.  North Indians have about as much clue on how to make a good sambar as Chinese people know how to make Mexican food (I’ve had Chinese-Mexican food, it’s terrible).  But I assumed because he’s Indian that he was related to Vimala (which he wasn’t), though out of a strange coincidence, they were both from Kerala (a state in southern India).  He also offered me a sample of the sambar to try out.

Every item on the thali was as good as my grandmother’s cooking, so I will have to credit Vimala for that.  In fact it is much better than my mother’s cooking, though my mother is limited by having ulcers and high blood pressure, so she never cooks salty, sour, or spicy.  The rice and daal were delicious enough to eat on their own, just enough spice and flavor.

The beans curry and raita were both very fresh and tasty (you could tell that if they were batch-made, they were batch made recently).

The sambar was a home run!  Probably the best sambar I’ve had since I left India (sorry mom).  As they were Keralan, everything was chock full of coconut, which is bad if you eat it a lot, but deliciously amazing if you go out to eat it every once in a while.  And the sambar had legit vegetables in it like squash and okra in it, unlike even Indian sambars (which are usually just onions and maybe a rare carrot).

I’m not a fan of chapati or papadams, so I won’t make a comment about them, outside of the fact that they too were tasty.

Spicy chutney was offered in case you don’t find the food spicy enough.  I thought the food was just spicy enough, so I just ate it with the papadam.

Finally, my friend ordered a thali as well, but did not opt for the sambar (mistake).  He got aloo mattar as well, and even that was amazing!

I was thoroughly impressed with Vimala’s on multiple levels.  First, the food was all uniformly amazing, and vegetarian/vegan options are clearly delineated from non-vegetarian options.  It would be nice if she could make a pure vegetarian restaurant (just in case there is any meat contamination, though I don’t think there is), but I don’t think that’s sustainable in North Carolina.  What is even more impressive is her versatility to make delicious North Indian as well as South Indian dishes.  Also, the restaurant is very casual and friendly and not as ostentatious as most Indian restaurants attempt to be.  It is delicious fare somewhere of unparallel quality with an atmosphere somewhere between a roadside hotel and fancy restaurant.  Finally, I must give some credit for being very involved in the local community, including sourcing most ingredients locally (I presume the tamarind, fenugreek, asafoetida and other spices aren’t grown in North Carolina).  It’s rare to find an Indian restaurant that makes that kind of effort to make delicious food and ingratiate itself with the community.  Because of these reasons, I have to give Vimala’s Curryblossom Cafe five cheese sandwiches.

Vimala’s Curryblossom Cafe
431 West Franklin Street
Chapel Hill, NC 27516 
(919) 929-3833

People always ask me, “Hey Cheese Sandwich Guy!  What’s you’re favorite veggie burger?”  That’s actually a difficult question, as different veggie burgers are good for different reasons.  For instance, you may like a veggie burger because it has a texture similar to a real burger.  I don’t personally, as I think those “fake” burgers taste like eating a rubber tire.  My personal favorite veggie burger is really a burger that uses portobello mushroom instead of a burger.  Simple, “meaty”, and works really well if you get a fancy burger with cheese and other fixins.  For those of you who like the vegetable patty style burger, there are different styles and ingredients which are good for different reasons. Probably my favorite vegetable patty would have to be from the Druid (though they have nothing else vegetarian on the menu there).  A strong second would have to be Four Burgers in Central Square.

Four Burgers has a really ingenious concept, serve four really delicious variants of burger, that are very high end and charge exorbitant amounts of money for it!  A typical burger costs about 7 dollars, and with fries and a shake you pay around $16 for a meal!  And it is designed to look like a nicer McDonalds.  The premise of Four Burgers is that there are four burgers: a regular burger, turkey burger, salmon burger, and veggie burger (which is vegan).

The problem with this format is while it is simple, you can’t really play around with toppings and ingredients, and the servers scowl at you if you try to make things too complicated.  But if you want a simple burger and fries and no fuss, this is the place for you!  For my liking the black bean burger is pretty tasty, and is served with salsa and guacamole (i.e. western style), but the combination of flavors is pretty simplistic, and I feel like something is missing flavor-wise.  The food is all quite mushy and salty and buttery, but it would be nice to have a contrasting flavor/texture, though I still am not sure what exactly that would be.  Perhaps tortilla strips mixed in with the salsa, and/or fried jalapeno slices?  I think this would provide a little bit of heat to make the burger more flavorful (the salsa, guacamole and burger are all a little bland, and adding Cholula just makes it taste like Cholula).  The sweet potato and regular fries are pretty average and nothing to write home about.  And I can’t get ranch dressing to dip my fries into, which is not a good thing for a quasi-obese Southerner like me.

Overall, Four Burgers is a simple tasty, yet expensive restaurant.  I have eaten here a few times and have enjoyed it every time (though my wallet did not).  Considering the concept is so simple, you’d think there would be a way to make the food cheaper.  But I think that’s the price you pay for quality food, and local ingredients.  My one critique is that I think I could make a tastier veggie burger by modifying the toppings, and Four Burgers doesn’t let me have it my way (the one thing Burger King got right).  So, I’ll give Four Burgers four cheese sandwiches, as that feels appropriate.

*This has been asked once to me, but I prefer hyperbole. And they did call me “Cheese Sandwich Guy” despite knowing my real name.

Four Burgers
704 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02139 
(617) 441-5444