vegansaurus!

Souley Vegan canceling brunch, starting 6 a.m. breakfast!  »

So, bummer news! Souley Vegan has a sign in their window that reads:

Souley Vegan will no longer be open for brunch on Sundays starting August 28, 2011. We will be offering Breakfast from 6 to 9 a.m. Fridays and Saturdays… BEGIN date to be announced soon. Thank you!

And that’s almost 100 percent verbatim because the fantastic Rick went to check it out for us. So—6 a.m. breakfast on Friday and Saturday and no brunch FOR NOW. They’re supposed to move the brunch to weekdays, but I’m not sure when that’ll happen. I don’t know what kind of business plan this is! I am a little worried! I don’t think I’ve ever been up at 6 a.m.! Like, not once in my life! However, for all you earlier birds and club kids, have at that breakfast and let me know how it is. If it’s amazing, which I’m guessing it might be, I need you to bring some elephant-grade No-Doz and come at me. 

Now, let’s all stare at the Toasty Crispy and relax.

Souley Vegan IS DOING BRUNCH IT IS OFFICIAL OH HELL YES  »

Well, we’re not sure for how long but for at least the next couple of Sundays SOULEY VEGAN IS SERVING BRUNCH. It goes from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and the menu includes:

*scrambled tofu with tomatoes, onions and spices
*pancakes—choice of maple, blueberry, or banana nut
*smothered potatoes
*biscuits & gravy (!!!!!!!!!!)
*grits
*vegan sausage made from scratch
*fresh OJ
*AND MORE!

They’ll also be open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Thanksgiving with their regular menu, plus some special holiday treats! YES! The cost for either Sunday brunch or Thanksgiving are the usual prices (2 items for $8, 3 items for $10, etc.).  

We’ll see your hot fat asses there! Or not! More for us!! Also, if you want to call and double-check to make sure they are serving on the Sunday you want to go, holler at 510/922.1615! Ow!

Gussie’s Chicken and Waffles!  »

I won’t get into the whole long boring story, but I’ve been staying in a company apartment on Fillmore for what feels like forever due to delays in processing my visa so I can go move to Australia. ANYWAY. I’ve found myself in an unfamiliar neighborhood, having to eat out every meal and thought I’d exhausted my vegan options.

Last night it was late so I thought, oh I’ll order a vegan pizza from Amici’s, but apparently I fall within their racist map of delivery intolerance.  UGH. So after a little Yelp sleuthing I discover some vegan options in a most unexpected nearby place on Eddy and Fillmore Streets: Gussie’s Chicken and Waffles! [Ed.: this is a place Vegansaurus has been meaning to try for a long-ass time but we are lazy and the Fillmore is so far away]

WHAT? No seriously, they have vegan waffles! And they are good—the buckwheat kind, and they serve them with Earth Balance. (Aww, the menu calls it “Earth’s Balance.” Adorable.) There’s also a vegetarian plate; everything on it is vegan and it is MASSIVE.

We’re talking collard greens, black-eyed peas, spicy potatoes, red beans and rice, and corn bread. Good grief, my left arm is going a little numb just remembering it. They were out of the red beans when I went so I got extra greens, which may have been my favorite part.

Also, the employees there were so friendly and nice and kept trying to bring us free coffee. Oh, and they will serve black people there, which is always a bonus, AMICI’S. Those plates were clean by the end of the meal. Gotta get it in now, since I’m about to move to a country where soul food doesn’t really exist and they still find blackface amusing, apparently.

We’ll miss Sharon A LOT while she’s living it up down under. Was that gross? I can’t even tell anymore. Anyway, we look forward to visiting her (preferably during a 50-year storm!) and eating the entire continent out of its vegan food, dino-style!

Souley Vegan re-opens!  »

MAC N CHEESE AND BBQ TOFU AND POTATO SALAD AND HOLY SHIT SHOOT ME IN THE FACE THANK YOU JESUS.

It’s at 301 Broadway at 3rd Street in Oakland. Open Tuesday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.

Check out our Souley Vegan review and go go go go go GO!

Gussie’s Chicken and Waffles  »

Thrillist points us to a new chicken and waffles restaurant opening Monday in the Fillmore. Surprise, surprise: scouring the menu revealed that they do, in fact, serve vegan buckwheat waffles, complete with Earth Balance! Vegan waffles are near-impossible to come by in the city—not even Herbivore serves them—so it might actually be worth a trip when the waffle craving hits.

It looks like this and a “vegetarian plate” (a sampler of all the veggie sides—with vegan cornbread!) are Gussie’s only concessions to veganism, though. I guess you have to bring your own fried chicken.

Vegansaurus’s sexy Valentine’s Day vegan dining guide!  »

Giving you the gift of game, part 1.

Millenium
It’s a vegan cliché to go here for a special event, but take it up a notch by booking a table at the Aphrodisiac Dinner (next month’s is February 15), along with a room at the adjoining Hotel California.

Greens
While Greens is guilty of a more old-school, covered-in-butter, ’70s-style of vegetarian cooking, it’s so gorgeous you may just have to put up with it. Greens is offering an $88 prix fixe menu on V-Day (double the price of their normal prix fixe menu) but if you want to drop the cash while admiring the ocean (and the good looks of your date), be sure to call ahead to make sure you can actually eat something.

Saha
Another restaurant that you can also parlay into an overnight hotel rendez-vous (it’s inside the Hotel Carlton ), Saha is a small plates, Middle Eastern restaurant that’s vegan-friendly. They even feature that holy grail: a vegan dessert at a non-vegan restaurant.

Dosa
Yes, you can eat the same genre of food cheaper at Udupi Palace paces away but it’s Valentine’s Day, not Tuesday night takeout. It’s time to have some class with your potato-stuffed pancake and array of chutneys. Expect a long wait. Remove some of the class you just earned by going to the liquor store across the street and drinking on the sidewalk.

Beretta
In the erstwhile Last Supper Club space, Beretta has only recently started catering to vegans in a real way by offering vegan cheese (we think it’s Teese) and vegan sausage on their tasty thin-crust pizzas. They also have an excellent drink menu. This would be a nice V-Day option for a “special friend” or someone you just started dating who you don’t want to freak out. It’s nice, but it’s still casual.

The Front Porch
A Vegansaurus Favorite, the sexy Front Porch rarely disappoints (and if they do, they are very nice about it and will continue to push French fries on you). They have a daily rotating vegan special and wine in a box! No prix fixe, but they say they’ll have some special treats on the menu. As with Dosa, expect to wait for your table.

Restaurants With Explicitly Labeled Vegetarian Options for V-Day That We Haven’t Been To:
Cafe Majestic: ($70 prix fixe vegetarian menu)
Citizen Cake
Maharani ($42 vegetarian menu)
Mission Beach Cafe ($75 five-course dinner with champagne toast. OpenTable also says there will be vegan options, but no menu on the website yet!)

Know of any other restaurants offering veg options on Valentine’s Day? Any other nice restaurants that you’d recommend? Leave it in the comments!

Review: Hard Knox Cafe!  »

I’m all super-bummed that Souley Vegan is closed. Like, really fucking bummed. It was the only place in the Bay Area where a vegan could go for some delicious Soul Food. In observance of their closing, I will review a lesser Soul Food restaurant that can fill your need for Southern fried goodness—KINDA SORTA. Hard Knox Cafe is a meaty-meat Soul Food restaurant with two locations, one in Dog Patch and the other in the Outer Richmond. They have a few vegan items on the menu: the red beans and rice, black-eyed peas and rice, French fries, string beans, and the side salad are all vegan and all very tasty. They have an outstanding veggie burger that they make there with fresh veggies and it’s vegan. I mean, it has nothing on the mac n’ cheese or mashed potatoes of Souley Vegan. OR THE YAMS. The yams. I’d write those yams a sonnet. They tasted like Christmas. Or what I imagine Christmas tastes like in a family whose mother didn’t cancel Christmas every other year because she was having a psychotic breakdown. Alas, some things are better meant for therapy than they are for Vegansaurus. Lucky you, I don’t distinguish between the two so hey: I had a difficult childhood.

MOVING ON.

If you are a vegetarian or vegan or prefer to not die of animal-fat heart attack then you can get a big-ass plate of three vegan sides for only $7! Combine that with a jug of fruit punch (I usually have Diet Coke but whatever, I am not from the dirty dirty) and maybe some white sandwich bread and you, sir, have yourself a meal deal cheaper than Mickey D’s! And you’re not supporting the devil, you are supporting an adorable Vietnamese-owned Soul Food restaurant! That is not as good as Souley Vegan but it’s ALL WE HAVE. Ugh. So depressed.

ONE SUGGESTION FOR HOW THEY COULD BE MORE AWESOME: add a vegan po’ boy to the menu. Yes. Excellent idea.

[photos via yelp]

Review: The Front Porch!  »

The Front Porch has got to be the cutest restaurant I’ve ever been in. It’s like a puppy wrapped in a kitten and then sauteed in baby koala oil and served on a blanket of rainbows to a family of Care Bears. In addition to being the cutest, It has a down-home sorta sexy feel to it and you always leave kinda wanting to do it with whoever you came with. So don’t bring an ex-boyfriend you really want to have sex with again to this place because you will end up making a huge mistake. Or having a lot of fun. I guess that depends on your personal code of ethics and how much you hate yourself. Either way, mazel tov! What!

This place is always packed so be prepared to wait on their delightful front porch with one of their amazing, inventive cocktails or some delicious wine in a box (!!!). However, if you get there before 7 p.m., you might not have to wait. I’d say 6:45 is the perfect time to arrive because everyone else is coming at 7. If you do that, you won’t have to wait for a primo booth right in the front room. Sweet!

There are lots of vegetarian and vegan items on the menu and the wait staff is knowledgeable about what things are made with what. They always have a vegan special of the day, which might be a coconut okra stew or a sweet potato medley. Most of the time it is very delicious, except this one time when it was THE FUNK and we sent it back and the waitress took it off the bill and brought us about nine orders of their amazing thick-cut French fries with homemade ketchup as a replacement. Man, their fries are RIDICULOUS. A must-try. Must try nine orders. You also must get a side of the plantain fries if they’re on the menu along with the black bean soup with avocado. The sides are always changing but they make sure to have plenty of vegan-friendly options. If the coconut rice and beans are available, try them. If you’re not into the vegan special, you can easily make a dinner of the sides. A delicious dinner. That and their awesome cocktails and wine-in-a-box selection; this place is the shit.

One complaint: no vegan desserts. This has been known to SEND ME OVER THE EDGE in the past but this last time, the waitress did offer to bring me out the pickled pears sans ice cream. I was a little enticed but decided to head up the hill to Maggie Mudd instead. Hey! Million-dollar Idea: OFFER DELICIOUS MAGGIE MUDD VEGAN ICE CREAM AS AN OPTION! Because it’s not like they are making their own ice cream (it’s Mitchell’s!) and they are already serving lots of vegan options, so it would totally help draw in a larger vegan crowd. I mean, if they want our hot (read: fat) asses in there then they are going to have to put out (read: give me my soy cream, assholes!!!)

So, in conclusion, eat here on a date with someone you want to have sex with. Or just with a friend. Who you want to have sex with. Maybe not your brother or sister. Unless you are from Kentucky. Then whatever, that’s God’s Country, who am I to judge??

[photos via yelp]