Veggie Heaven
June 22, 2009
File this under “How seriously committed Ryan is to crossing names off the list.”
For Father’s Day yesterday Sara asked where I wanted to go for lunch. My plan–hit Veggie Heaven downtown. She seemed skeptical. Me, picking a vegetarian restaurant? On Father’s Day no less? But yes, I’m dedicated to finishing the list. Plus, the place is at the end of the Drag which is usually hard to find parking around, so I figured a Sunday afternoon might be an easier time to park and eat.
So off we went. Got a great parking place in their very tiny parking lot, then proceeded in to an empty table. First impression: the place is really, really quiet. Which is odd because it’s small and a bit crowded. Maybe 20 tables in a place designed more for 10. And we got the only empty table. But it was still pindrop quiet. Maybe they’re all being respectful of the vegetable’s life energy that was given for our meal, or maybe they’re all really tired because, you know, most of the people are vegetarians. Whatever the reason, we sit down.
We order a number of things to sample. Besh got Golden Fried Rice (rice with corn, cabbage, beans, onions), Sara got a bowl of tofu and rice, and I asked the waitress what was the best item on the menu’s first page (which conveniently lists their five most popular items). We also got some edamame, pot stickers, and a sweet bun so we could make it a big sample.
The food came almost immediately. It reminded me of the diner scene in Defending Your Life–order goes in and almost immediately comes out, almost as if it was made for someone else. Amazing service. And every dish was a hit. Besh loved his rice, which was awesome since any of the individual items he may not have liked but he loved the combination. He finished half the dish by himself, a pretty big dish. Sara really liked her tofu bowl as the sauce wasn’t overpowering like other places will do with anything tofu. Edamame was, well, edamame–you can’t really screw it up, but I did find it curious that they didn’t salt theirs. Pot stickers were pretty good too, hard to tell the difference in taste between non-vegan alternatives. The sweet bun was a bit on the heavy side, but not bad.
My own dish ended up being Tropical Rainforest (I think that’s the name). It looks like beef and broccoli, but instead of beef you have these small golden brown, lightly fried tofu things. And they’re good. Really good. The texture isn’t that different from any other fried beef chunks in any asian dish, but the sauce was nowhere near as greasy as other places. Really, really good, as I find most asian places in Texas pile on the grease like they get a prize for seeing how much they can slosh on a plate. But this plate was pretty awesome, which is saying something coming from a dedicated carnivore like myself.
Overall, a great experience since we got to cross off another name and, as Sara pointed out, I went to a restaurant that if not for the list I might have avoided like the plague. Veggie Heaven clearly caters to the university crowd with almost no parking and delivery only in the campus area, but if we have the chance to visit campus again and there isn’t too much traffic, you never know…
