What I Ate This Week #5

Carrying on our Californian roadtrip, we struggled to find small meals to eat at lunchtime and ended up at Subway twice which I felt bad about because it's a chain that's all over the world and I wanted to eat in local places. I didn't take photographs of everything as usual, no-one wants to see my Subway sandwich or my Chipotle buritto! (Even though they did fried tofu as an option for the filling which was nice).

An unusual combo at Ceder Lodge restaurant but the vegetarian options were very limited (two). Mushroom ravioli, broccoli, courgettes, carrots and fried bread! This was a half portion as we decided to split the plate. We got used to huge meals so even half a portion filled us up.

I actually laughed out loud when I saw this meal (we split the plate again) as it was a veggie stir fry with fried bread again! I don't know what their obsession with fried bread was but it seemed to come with everything. The stir fry did have a nice spicy sauce and even the rice had a kick.

We got this margarita takeaway pizza after a long day of driving (don't judge). We were in Death Valley so not a lot of choice on where to eat either. The tomato sauce base tasted like proper tomatoes. The little green peppers were very hot, I only had one bite of them and they burnt my mouth off.

We ate lunch at a Denny's in a town called Pahrump (great name). I had a Loaded Veggie Omelette which had spinach, mushrooms, courgette, squash and tomatoes in it. It was a bit watery for my liking and the potato hash brown didn't taste of much.

I had a fajita salad at La Salsa Cantina in Las Vegas. I ate quite a bit of brown rice on the trip which was nice, you get huge servings in the US so I was stuffed after this.

We decided to buy a voucher for a half price meal at the Monte Carlo Buffet in Las Vegas. After buying it I was worried that there wouldn't be a lot of veggie choice as I've had bad experiences concerning buffets in the UK! My brother and I were pleasantly surprised again at the choice of veggie food and the quality! This is my second plate from the buffet. I had macaroni cheese, green beans, orzo with feta and baby tomatoes, pizza, sauteed mushrooms, veg spring roll, pitta bread and hummus.  

This was another one of my favorite meals from the trip. We ate at LuLu California Bistro in Palm Springs. Angel hair pomodoro with a tomato and garlic sauce. They served us freshly baked bread rolls too and it was just lovely. It's worth mentioning that my brother had a pear and Gorgonzola pizza and the waiter said it was his favourite item on the menu!

What I Ate This Week #4

What a tasty week! This week my brother and I jetted off to California for a two week roadtrip so our meals were going to be a little different that usual. As a vegetarian I've found you get served your meal before everyone else on a flight which is good. I was pleasantly surprised to find so much vegetarian choice in Santa Barbara and a vegan place in San Francisco. It is such a luxury to be able to choose anything from a menu!

Mezze at Topaz Cafe. Wholegrain pitta, veg stew, falafal, hummus, stuffed vine leaf, leafy salad, ricotta and mint pastry and I don't know what the green rice looking thing is but it's YUMMY.

Smoked paprika risotto with peppers and mushrooms.

American Airlines vegan meal. Couscous with sultanas and a roasted veg stew. A little wholewheat loaf, A salad with lemon dressing (yuck) and orange segments. 

American pancakes with berries and maple syrup. LOOK AT THE SIZE OF THOSE BLACKBERRIES. 

It was very difficult to find vegetarian food at Universal Studios Hollywood. There were no sandwiches or salads that were vegetarian! We ended up getting a margarita pizza and a weird vegetable wrap from The Hollywood Grill that had a strange sauce. Lots of courgettes in there.

We ate at The Cheesecake Factory at The Grove in Los Angeles. Mushroom burger with Swiss and Fontina cheese and side salad. This burger was so big I couldn't finish it.

I had a Buddha Buritto and my brother had a Veggie Stir Fry at The Natural Cafe in Santa Barbara. It was really good and had tonnes of vegetarian options.

Vegetarian paella at The Beachside Bar Cafe in Goleta. A huge portobello mushroom plonked on top. This was one of my favourite meals of the trip as we had a beautiful view of the beach and ocean right next to us!

Hands down the best grilled cheese toastie I've ever eaten. It was awesome. We had the nine grain cheese melt at Coopers Pub in Monterey. The blue cheese salad dressing was great too.

Found a vegan Chinese place to eat in San Francisco called Loving Hut. I had Garden Vermicelli and veg fried rice. My brother had the same noodles and sweet and sour stir fry.

Finding the V - Restaurants.

I like eating out, I consider it a treat and I really look forward to it. Chain restaurants, cafes, pubs etc, I love browsing menus. Sometimes I can scan up and down a menu all I want, only to find a very limited choice of vegetarian options.

Sometimes there will be a helpful, obvious 'V' by a meal description which makes a world of difference as a vegetarian diner. It means I can be sure what i'm eating is suitable for my diet and makes me much happier. 

In this day and age it's really a poor show to have barely any vegetarian options. Much as I like pasta and as much as I like mushrooms, I AM TIRED OF MUSHROOM PASTA. Someone who is a normal meat eater surely wants a bit of choice too, they might not always want a meal including meat. As I've touched on in a previous post, some people seem to think vegetarians only eat salad so perhaps restaurant chains are just playing it safe with offering a pasta choice, or a veggie burger. There is so much you can do to make amazing vegetarian friendly meals, just look at the Bistro 1847 menus for an insight into some well thought out, super tasty meat-free food.

Obviously I know there are more people in the world that eat meat, that don't. So I would never expect a menu to be half meat free, half including meat but there could be more choice for veggies.

I recently saw a menu where nearly every dish had a gluten free option too so it seems restaurants don't mind making the effort to prepare food slightly differently yet still they seem to think vegetarians only eat mushrooms. If you were a vegetarian who wasn't keen on mushrooms you'd be pretty stuck sometimes when eating out!

I just did a quick browse of the menus in some popular restaurants - Frankie and Benny's, Chiquito, Nando's, Pizza Hut and Harvester. I was looking at the main meal options, I know these restaurants offer different styles of food - Mexican, Italian, gastro pub etc. So their veggie options will reflect that. Frankie and Benny's didn't fare too badly with 2 pasta options, 4 pizzas, 1 burger and 1 wrap to choose from, however strangely, they didn't offer a vegetarian salad main meal! Chiquito offers one veggie option in nearly every category such a a veggie burger, wrap, fajita, salad, 2 quesadillas. Not the worst but some of the options are lacking in imagination. 

If you don't like halloumi you're stuck. I like Nando's and despite halloumi and mushroom not being a groundbreaking combination, it is tasty and I do really like it. Nando's has this to say on preparing vegetarian dishes. It also offers a beanie and mixed veg option. Pizza Hut doesn't have anything big and fancy vegetarian wise but pizza is always good so to have 4 to choose from isn't too bad, the pasta dishes leave a lot to be desired though from when I've eaten them. Harvester stays very safe with their veggie options, they even do a veggie sausage and mash. A cauliflower tart, veggie burger and stuffed peppers. You don't expect anything amazing from basically a pub but at least there are a few choices.

Of course there is choice out there for none meat eaters, some restaurants are better than others at providing good vegetarian food but i'm sure it's a lot better now than it was 20 years ago. I will talk about some of my fave vegetarian places to eat out at on the blog soon. Let me know what your experiences are eating out as a vegetarian, do you think there is enough choice or have you been stuck with barely any options?