[Tesseract]

So what 5 restaurants would you recommend to a veg*n friend visiting your hometown? (OK, so assuming you even have 5 restaurants you want to recommend might be a bit of a stretch for some people... but tell me however many you can come up with.)

My hometown is Houston, Texas and right now I think my list would be:

Madras Pavilion (Indian, all veggie, wonderful samosas)
Houston's (omni, best non-meaty veggie burger, great veggie plate, awesome couscous and coleslaw)
La Vista (Italian, omni, awesome bread, pizzas, salads and veggie plate)
The Hobbit Cafe (omni, delicious monster sandwiches with massive amounts of guac)
Southwell's Hamburger Grill (omni, best meaty veggie burger)

Honorable mention to Americas, an upscale South American grill. I've never been there, but I hear they have an awesome grilled veggie plate, so for a nice dinner out, I bet it would be a great place.

(I tried to stay way from major chains in my recommendations, but if chain restaurants are all you have, by all means list 'em. If we're talking chains, Pei Wei, Cafe Express, and PF Chang's would also be good choices in Houston. Not sure if they'd make my top 5, though.)

[Tofu-N-Sprouts]

Here in the Seattle area?

Cafe Flora
Teapot/or Bamboo Garden I like them equally
Carmelita
Hillside Quickie (yes, that's really a place!)
Arayas
Zaina

Elsewhere?

ReBar (Victoria BC)
Lotus Pond (Victoria, BC)
Nicholas' Restaurant (Portland, Oregon)
Blue Mango (San Jose, CA)
Annapurna (Albuquerque, NM)
Green Light Bistro (Albuquerque, NM)

Obviously I can't count to five.

[Tesseract]

I definitely agree with the rec for Cafe Flora, Carmelita, and Teapot. I ate at all of them a few weeks ago and they were great! I didn't eat at any of the others.

[Trueveggie14]

There's none in the town where I currently live. Seriously there are absolutely no sit down restaurants in my town at all.

Are we allowed to name from other towns? Do they all have to be in one town?

[Tesseract]

Trueveggie14 said:

Are we allowed to name from other towns? Do they all have to be in one town?

Whatever you consider your sphere of dining out. Wherever you would take/send someone who came to visit you. If that's an area ten towns wide, that's cool.

[remilard]

Vegetarian Person
1. Andina (nuovo peruvian)
2. Fratelli (italian)
3. Red Star Tavern (northwest)
4. Bombay Cricket Club (indian)
5. Rogue Public House and Distillery (beer)

Vegan Person
1. Veggie Thai
2. Nicholas (lebanese)

and 1 and 4 from above which have at least one vegan entree

[Cissy]

we don't particularly have a great selection of veg friendly restaurants in town. The restaurant I work at isn't too bad... we have a HUGE soup, salad, bread, and dessert bar. None of the soups are veg, as far as I know, but we have quite a few kinds of homemade breads, fresh fruit, veggies, chickpeas, and a great dessert bar. Plus there's a really good vegetarian stir fry. And breakfast foods too. It's a meat/seafood heavy restaurant overall though.

Other than that, one of the local pizza places is awesome.

[Poppy]

Here's a few for Richmond, Virginia -

Mom's Siam - Thai with a wonderful deck and extensive veg*n options.

Carytown Burgers & Fries - a great little joint, with several different veggie burgers and vegan tater tots

Baja Bean Company - another great deck and the "Build your own Quesadillas" is a veg*n delight!

Ellwood Thompson - a grocery store/HFS/wine shop with a great little lunch deli, hot food bar, salad bar and bakery. Lots of veg*n options (vegan cookies and cakes!).

Stick Rice - sushi and Asian style noodle bowls. Very yummy and vegan options clearly marked.

Please come and visit me!!!

[Trueveggie14]

Thanks for the clarification:

Yuan Fu (Rockville, MD) Chinese
The Orchard (Frederick, MD) vegan stir fry
The Vegetable Garden (Rockville, MD) Chinese
Lebanese Taverna (Washington, DC) Lebanese
The Tortilla Factory (Herndon, VA) Mexican

Champion Billiards (Leesburg, VA) very large pool hall w/ vegan pizza dough able to make "to order"

one place that is actually in my town, but is carry out only makes vegan items for me.

King's NY Pizza (WV)

[Tesseract]

Come to think of it, I'm kind of shocked and appalled that I live in Houston, where Tex-Mex is a major dining market, right behind steak and BBQ, but I can't think of one Tex-Mex restaurant that would come anywhere near my top 5. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, though. Tex-Mex places are awful about putting lard in everything. :tired: My two former favorite Tex-Mex places turned out to be among the worst offenders, and one of them even misled me about lard and chicken broth in about 23584 of their menu items. :grr:

PS: OK, so I'm over 5 recommendations, but I did think of a sort-of Tex-Mex place that's great and pretty veg-friendly, and that's Mission Burrito, with made-to-order burritos, quesadillas, and tacos, lots of veggies to put on them, and veggie safe tortilla soup. They even have "BEV: Big Excellent Veggie" as one of their regular menu items, and when you order that, you get all the premium veggies, which normally cost extra, included at no charge.