Vegan Options at Science Club

Awhile back, I went to a friend's birthday celebration at Science Club on 19th Street.  While we were there, his wife pointed out to me that it wasn't just a bar, but it was a vegetarian restaurant.  I knew the Washington Post is a big fan of their veggie burger, but I didn't realize the entire menu was vegetarian.

Today, my co-worker and I had a chance to try Science Club for lunch.  I checked out the menu on-line before we went.  The website design is a little funky, but it's easy enough to see the menu as long as your computer has flash.  It's located on the bottom corner of the website.

Vegan items are clearly marked with a "V."  When we arrived at the restaurant, it was pretty empty, but I'll chalk that up to a rainy day and the fact that most people, like I did, think of it as more than a bar. 

I was pleased to see that the full restaurant menu included a number of vegan options not listed on the website.  In addition to the full menu, we were offered lunch menu pictured to the right.  There were so many vegan options that I had a hard time choosing what I wanted - a kale salad, a vegan burger that could be topped with daiya and vegan aioli, tofu skewers, a gardein "chick'n" sandwich, vegan quesdillas made with daiya, and more!




My co-worker and I opted to start out with the maison frites.

The fries came with a side of ketchup and vegan aioli.  The vegan aioli was a little bland, but since the fries were well seasoned, it worked well, especially since it had such a nice texture.

For my lunch, I opted for a vegan quesadilla - spinach, mushrooms and pepper jack daiya cheese.

The quesadilla was very good.  Normally, I'm not a fan of the pepper jack daiya, but it worked well here and was excellently melted.  I also liked the salsa they served on the side. 

I will definitely go back to Science Club - it's awesome to have a restaurant with so many vegan options so close to my office.  I can't wait to make my way through the menu!

For our vegetarian friends, what's a hidden vegan or vegetarian restaurant gem that's under the restaurant radar?  For our omnivore friends, does knowing a restaurant is "vegetarian" make you less likely to want to try it?

Vegan Options at Fuel Pizza and Red Velvet Cupcakes

Last week, I bought a Living Social Deal for Fuel Pizza.  Fuel started out with one store in Charlotte, NC, has since expanded to eight stores in that area.  Recently, they opened two locations in DC, one on K and one on F Street.

The DC locations offer daiya cheese (the NC locations' menus do not appear to have daiya as an option - let me know if you spot it there!) so the DC Fuel locations are an option for vegans.  You won't be able to get pizza by the slice, but you can easily order a custom pie and have leftovers.

On Friday, before seeing a movie, my friend and I visited the K Street location.  I opted for a 12" multigrain crust topped with daiya, spinach, mushrooms and red onions.  While Fuel isn't as generous with the daiya as Pete's, District of Pi, or Fresh Pizzeria are, the sauce was good, the toppings were fresh and I liked the multigrain crust.  Also, the staff were extremely friendly and made us feel very welcome.

My friend was able to order pizza by the slice and enjoyed two vegetarian slices - a spinach-ricotta and a mushroom.  She said that the spinach-ricotta was perfect and that she would get it again, and that the mushroom was good, but could have used more mushrooms.

For those of you who are gluten free, Fuel offers gluten free pizza, and even gluten free beer!  Note that the gluten free pizza is only available in the 12" pie, so no slices and no larger pizzas.  It would be great if more pizza places offered vegan and gluten-free pizza options by the slice.  I know you can get vegan pizza by the slice at Whole Foods and Washington Deli (where they use soy cheese rather than daiya).  Any other leads out there?  In the meantime, let's thank local pizzerias who have vegan options and let them know there is a demand out there for vegan slices.

We had some time to kill before the movie and were craving something sweet, so my friend and I hit Red Velvet, a small cupcake store in Chinatown which I knew would have at least one vegan option on the menu.  Turns out they have two vegan options on the DC menu - the black velvet, which is a chocolate cake with a vegan chocolate "buttercream," and the white velvet, which is vanilla cake with vegan vanilla "buttercream."  The vegan cupcakes are also gluten-free.

I opted for the black velvet and liked it.  The cake on its own doesn't have a strong flavor, but paired with the icing, it was very good.  I prefer my cupcakes not to be overly sweet, and these definitely fit that bill.  If you want to bring vegan cupcakes to your next staff meeting or social gathering, you can special order a dozen for $36.  You can also get vegan cupcakes at Red Velvet's Clarendon location and Reston location.

To make up for the subpar picture I took of the cupcake, I'm sharing a picture of the cute box it came in. 

Restaurant Roundup: Fresh Pizzeria, Au Bon Pain, Black Market Bistro and Chipotle

A busy week prepping for one of my office's major events meant a lot of eating out this week.  I feel like the times when people are pressed for time and on the go are the times when it's easy to fall off the vegan wagon.  Fortunately, there are a ton of options available to make eating out as a vegan easy.

After a late work night Thursday, my husband and I decided to try Fresh Pizzeria on Rockville Pike.  I was disappointed when Z Pizza closed, since it was a reliable source of vegan pizza.  When Fresh Pizzeria took over the space, fortunately, they decided to keep the vegan pizza options open, offering daiya cheese and vegan burger crumbles, and a variety of vegan pies to choose from.

I tried the Vegan Garden Pizza. without olives.  The crust was good and the veggie toppings were fresh.  Additional vegan menu options include the Vegan Fiesta, which has black beans and guacamole, and the Vegan Burger.  You can also make your own vegan pizza.  Also, if you're gluten free, any pizza can be made with a gluten free crust.

Friday, I had to grab a quick lunch before running back to my desk, so I hit up Au Bon Pain.  There are at least five Au Bon Pain locations in walking distance to my office, so it's incredibly convenient.  They seem to have moved away from the "make your own sandwich" slips to more of a set menu, but they will still happily make an off menu sandwich for you.  I chose multigrain bread, avocado, arugula, tomato, onion and cucumbers.  The woman making my sandwich couldn't believe that I didn't want mayo, but I assured her the avocado made an excellent condiment.

I also had a chance to peruse the soups, which are clearly labeled with their ingredients, including milk, so it's easy to choose a vegan soup.  I went with the Barley & Creamy Lentil ,which I found to be hearty and flavorful.

I wish Au Bon Pain had a vegan sandwich on its set menu, but since they offer a variety of veggies, it's easy to make your own sandwich.  Most of the breads are vegan, but note that some include dairy, including the Ciabatta and the Cornbread.  The soup menu includes a plethora of vegan options, including the 12 Veggie, Black Bean, Tomato Lentil, Gazpacho, Tuscan White Bean and Vegetarian Chili.  Not all soups are available every day, but there should be at least one vegan option.


Friday night, we took my parents to Black Market Bistro in Garrett Park.  Black Market Bistro is located in a historic post office, and tucked away in a residential neighborhood, over by the Garrett Park MARC  station.  One of my favorite things about Black Market Bistro are the quality of their salads.  Last night, I had the Black Market Salad, which was a variety of lettuces, orange wedges and almonds with a citrus vinaigrette.  The salad normally comes with goat cheese, but the kitchen was happy to leave it off.

For dinner, I opted for the Black Market Vegetable Plate.  When I asked the server if it was appropriate for a vegan, she shared that the chef normally finishes the dish with butter, but that they could easily omit it.

The veggie plate changes regularly, based on what fresh vegetables are available.  My plate included eggplant, yellow squash, broad beans, cauliflower, asparagus, carrots and wax beans.  It was beautifully seasoned with a variety of fresh herbs and sea salt. As you can see, the portion is enormous, but I easily got three meals out of the plate above, which helps soften the $22 price tag.

Today, my husband and I were running a bunch of errands, and we ended up grabbing a quick lunch at Chipotle.  Chipotle is a fantastic choice for vegans.  Choosing a black bean burrito or bowl with a peppers and onions, any of a variety of salsas and guacamole will make a hearty, satisfying meal.  As it's clearly stated on the Chipotle website and on signage, the pinto beans are cooked with pork, so stick with the black beans if you want to stay vegan. 

My preferred meal is a burrito bowl with brown rice, black beans, peppers and onions, fresh tomato salsa, chili corn salsa, guacamole and lettuce.

I know living in the DC area means I have a ton of food options, but, no matter where you live, vegan options can be plentiful.  What are some of your favorite vegan menu options?

Vegetarian on the Road - East Coast City Edition

Well, so much for my editorial structure I promised to stick to last week.  One of the things about traveling often for work (I've been on two trips so far this month) is that it's hard to stick to any kind of schedule, much less an editorial one.

But, one benefit of a crazy travel schedule is the opportunity to sample vegetarian fare beyond my home base of DC.  To that end, here's a round-up of some of my recent dining adventures:

New York City
Let's start with an amazing fine dining vegetarian experience I had tonight at Blossom, a cozy restaurant in Chelsea.  All of the menu items are organic and vegan.  I spoke to the server about my soy allergy, and she noted that a number of the dishes were finished with a soy butter, but she made some recommendations that she thought I would enjoy.  I ended up having a black-eyed pea cake, a "crispy cake of yukon gold potatoes, black eyed peas and chipotle aioli."  The seasoning on the pea cake was impeccable, and I loved the smooth texture of the veganaise aioli.  I followed the starter with the evening's special, pan-seared seitan cutlets with a rosemary tomato sauce, yukon gold potatoes and hairicot verts that was so good I kept taking smaller and smaller bites so it would last longer.  I've never had handmade seitan before and I am not sure I can go back to the boxed stuff from Whole Foods now, which means you can look forward to a blog about my attempts to make seitan from scratch in the future.   But anyway, Washington, DC NEEDS a fine dining vegan restaurant like this.  Or maybe it doesn't, because I could eat at Blossom every day if I lived near enough!

Philadelphia
I was in my hometown for a quick conference last week, which meant I got to take a side trip to one of my favorite places, Reading Terminal Market, a historic building with a variety of food stalls - produce, candy, pastries, you name it.  There are a number of places vegetarians can happily dine at Reading Terminal.  For nostalgia's sake, I hit Spataros, which makes a mean vegetarian hoagie.  Some other good vegetarian options include Kamal's, Mezze and Basic Four Vegetarian Snack Bar.

I also had the chance to experiment with the salad bar at Fogo de Chao, a Brazilian style steakhouse with locations around the US.  Some fellow conference attendees who I enjoy catching up with every year really wanted to go there, so I decided to give it a shot as a vegetarian.  In my meat eating days, I had happily eaten the unlimited meat and I remembered that Fogo has a wonderful salad bar.  So, while my colleagues enjoyed their meat meals, I feasted on marinated mushrooms, hearts of palm, tomatoes and bufala mozzarella, yellow peppers and more.  It is a little off-putting to be around so much meat, but it's good to know that if I have to attend a work function at Fogo, I'll have plenty of options.

Baltimore
My life hasn't been all work and no play this month - my husband and I spent Saturday evening in Baltimore, where we took in a Buddy Guy concert in Baltimore's Inner Harbor.  We originally planned to go to Little Italy, which has some amazing restaurants, but since we were running late, we instead opted to try a restaurant in Power Plant Live, which is the complex that housed our concert venue.  We decided to try Joe Squared, which had a sign outside that said they were "Named the Best Pizza in Maryland."  I tried the veggie pizza, which had "pink sauce, arugula, zucchini, eggplant, fennel, mozzarella and Boursin cheeses."  I was actually a little disappointed with it - the crust was meh and the veggies would have benefited from either being roasted at a higher temp or being sauteed first.  Overall, the whole thing was very bland.  However, my husband enjoyed his sandwich, they had a mushroom "cheesesteak" that looked good, and the servers were super nice, so I would be willing to give them another shot.

Washington, DC
It was my birthday recently, and my husband took me out to dinner at Poste, which is located in the Hotel Monaco in Gallery Place.  There isn't a wealth of veggie options, but the ones that are available are exceptionally good.  I started with an arugula salad with basil, mint, figs and sherry vinaigrette.  For my entree, I had the Autumn Vegetable Crepes, which included four individual crepes - one with beets & goat cheese, one with cauliflower, one with farro and chanterelle mushrooms and one with polenta and roasted red pepper sauce.  The presentation was gorgeous and the results were super tasty.   Via, twitter, I confirmed that there are different seasonal versions of the crepes available throughout the year, which means I have an excuse to pop in every few months or so to sample them anew.

Fast Casual Assembly Line Eating: Vegetarian Edition

As a vegetarian who loves to eat, I am loving the increasing availability of "The Chipotle Concept": Now, I'm no expert on restaurants, so I can't say for certain that Chipotle pioneered the fast-casual assembly line.  But, I can say from a consumer perspective that most people I know think of Chipotle first for this sort of set-up.  Regardless of who did it first, I am really enjoying seeing the assembly line concept applied to other cuisines.  You get a quick, fairly healthy meal with lots of variety, and, odds are, you're going to get a vegetarian option.

Two I've tried recently in the DC area are Cava Meze Grill and Merzi. 

Cava Meze Grill, located on Bethesda Avenue in downtown Bethesda, is Mediterranean style assembly line fast casual.  You start with a rice bowl, pitas or mini pitas or salad, and can layer on sauces, meat or falafel and a variety of fresh veggies.  My vegetarian version was the rice bowl with falafel, crazy feta and harissa spreads and all the veggies - tomatoes, onions, cucumbers, cabbage, feta and lettuce.  I also had some pita chips on the side to scoop up the sauce.  It had a nice kick and was a satisfying meal.  Bonus points for their sustainable serveware, which is all compostable!

Cava Mezze Grill has a nutrition calculator if you're keeping an eye on calories, fat, carbs, etc.   You can also consult their allergens list to see which items are gluten free, dairy free, vegetarian and vegan.

Merzi, located at 7th & D Streets in Gallery Place/Penn Quarter, is Indian style assembly line fast casual.  Similar to Cava, you start with a base.  The options at Merzi are naan (Indian flatbread), basmati rice, salad or chaat (at Merzi, beans and other vegetables topped off with yogurt and a tamarind-date chutney).  You then have the option of adding different kinds of meat, chicken or shrimp, or skipping it if you prefer a vegetarian option.  You then can choose from a variety of fresh vegetables, chutneys and hot sauces to finish off your meal.

My dinner last night consisted of a basmati rice bowl with chaat, garbanzo beans, all of the fresh veggies available and the medium sauce, which was a Tikka Masala.  All of the veggies were delicious, and the sauce had a good amount of heat.  If this was medium, I'm downright terrified of the hot!

Merzi has an allergens list that is helpful to vegans, as it lists milk and dairy.

I think we'll be seeing even more fast casual assembly line food concepts soon, especially with DC set to be the first location of Shophouse, Chipotle's new Southeast Asian Concept.  It's set to open in Dupont Circle this summer, and will surely have options for vegans and vegetarians alike!

A Vegetarian on the Road

The Grilled Vegetable Plate at Muriel's Jackson Square

I spent this past week in New Orleans, aka, one of the major culinary destinations of the world.  When you think of New Orleans, you think of things like crawfish etoufee, shrimp gumbo, oyster po-boys, red beans and rice with sausage, muffaletta, etc.  None of these dishes are vegetarian, of course.  But, vegetarians aren't limited to salads and side dishes in New Orleans by any means!

Some of my highlights included:

Drago's: Our first stop for lunch off the plane.  Drago's is known for its grilled oysters, but I delighted in a portabello mushroom and spinach po'boy with sweet potato fries.  Whatever the restaurant marinated the mushrooms in is addictive.

Commander's Palace: I was here for a group dinner.  While most of my dining companions feasted on steak and seafood, I had a delightful grilled vegetable platter with portabello mushrooms, white and green asparagus, eggplant and tomatoes.

Oceana Grill: My colleagues and I grabbed dinner here after a long day of events.  Mainly known for its seafood platters, I was able to enjoy an appetizer of fried eggplant, and then a delicious cajun vegetable stir fry with one of the best red sauces I've ever tasted.

Muriel's Jackson Square: I was here for another group dinner.  My colleagues had the choice of shrimp, pork chops or filet.  When the waiter delivered my grilled vegetable platter, the entire table gasped.  It was literally a work of art.  The chef took a portabello mushroom and layered it with grilled vegetables, arugula and goat cheese.  Scattered around it were chunks of grilled beets, eggplant and squash.

In conclusion, here are some tips for vegetarians traveling for business or pleasure:

Plan Ahead: When you're traveling for business, you may not always be able to select the menu or where you're eating.  Check in with event organizers in advance to see if a vegetarian option will be available.  If you give organizers enough notice, they are bound to be able to help you out.  This goes for folks with any special diets as well.  And make sure to say thank you!

Use the Web: If you are going to be able to pick where you eat, do some googling before you go.  You're bound to turn up a few places with vegetarian options that you might not have otherwise found.  Zagat's online database allows you to search cities for various types of cuisines.

Get Advice from Experts: If you're staying in a hotel with a concierge, ask for their help.  Not only will they know the restaurants in the area, but they can help you get reservations at popular destinations.