The Veggie Grill

The Veggie Grill is an entirely vegetarian restaurant that opened in the student center next to Trader Joe's last year. Since it's opening it has remained a popular place for both vegetarian and non-vegetarians alike. I think it has remained a place that people like to go to because it is good food but it is also quite good for you, which can often be a hard thing to find. Most of the meat substitutes are made out of beans and grains, which are healthy replacements full of protein and fiber. Although the Veggie Grill does not have the largest menu, it still has a large variety of food, including starters, entrée salads, soups, burgers & sandwiches, and dessert. The first time I went to the Veggie grill shortly after its opening, I was recommended to try the Veggie-Mite, which is similar to a hamburger but with substitutes for the meat part, along with pickles, lettuce, and chipotle ranch. I have yet to get anything else because I enjoyed it so much, but I always look at everyone else's plates when I am at the restaurant and everything always looks really good. Also, I always get the Sweetheart Fries, which are the incredibly amazing sweet potato fries that I believe to be the best I have ever tasted, and one of the best things this restaurant offers. I have never heard a bad complaint about them, and everyone else I know who has tried them once, would feel wrong if they did not have them again.
The Veggie Grill is also an especially nice place to go for students because it is so close to campus, which makes it very convenient.
When you go to the Veggie Grill, whether for lunch or dinner, you will probably spent around $10.00 for the meal. If you get a dessert and entrée it will be a bit more.

Website: http://www.veggiegrill.com/index.html
Location: UTC (Across from UCI)

Thanksgiving

I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving this year!! Thanksgiving is always a fun holiday for me. Mainly because it always centers around lots and lots of food. The main dish on Thanksgiving however, is of course turkey. This is not a bad thing at all... but it is a thing that I cannot eat. There are of course other vegetarian substitutions for the turkey such as Tofurkey or Unturkey, but many vegetarians are perfectly happy to just eat the many sides provided with the dinner. This is how I am. If there are multiple vegetarians in a family then it may make more sense to get a non- turkey main dish, but as I am the only one, I don't want to make my mom do any more work. Some of the sides do have meat in them, so for those my mom will normally make some changes so that I can have it. The stuffing, for instance, generally is made with the turkey, but there are many other kinds that are not. Other than that, typical sides for my family include yams, fruit salad, mashed potatoes, salad, and cranberry sauce. Another difficulty for vegetarians is the gravy. Many people like to put gravy on their mashed potatoes, and some people seem to like it on everything... but often gravy is meat based and so if it is something you want to have with you during your meal, you will probably need to make a special request. I do not need the gravy with my mashed potatoes, but I have had a vegetarian kind before and I found it to still be quite tasty so there are other things you could do. Other than that, you probably had dessert, but I am sure that that all remained meat free and I hope you enjoyed it!!

Panera Bread

The first time I went to Panera Bread, I thought it was just a bakery with things such as muffins and cookies and bread. I got a bagel. And it was really good. So I went back and discovered that Panera has an entire menu of food for breakfast, lunch, and dinner as well. Everything I have had at Panera I have loved. At the moment I am in a sandwich phase and every time I go I get the Mediterranean Veggie which is a sandwich with piquant peppers, feta cheese, cucumbers, lettuce, tomatoes, onions and cilantro hummus on tomato basil bread. I have also gotten various salads and tried many more of their bakery items and enjoyed it all! Panera is a good place for vegetarians because they have quite a few options to choose from. It is also just a really good place in general however, so I recommend it to everyone. Another great thing about Panera is they have free wireless there so it is an excellent place to do homework or study. And coffee is free refills so you could literally spend a whole day there without spending too much money, as I have done on more than one occasion :) Anyway I think everyone should try this place. I had never heard of Panera Bread until I came to Irvine, but just within a 50-mile radius around Irvine there are 25 Panera Breads so it is obviously a popular place! Enjoy!

http://www.panerabread.com/

Dakota's Steakhouse

So tonight I took on the ultimate vegetarian tackle... going to a steakhouse. Dakota's is not a place I had ever heard of before, but it is a chain that is growing in the northern section of southern California. Even though this specific steakhouse has yet to reach Orange County, in my opinion all steak houses are the same and so even if you go to a larger chain such as Outback or Wood Ranch, the choices will be similar. One thing I always get at a steakhouse is a salad. It seems like a guarantee that places like this always have amazing salads. At Dakota's I got the Glazed Pecan Pear Salad, which I enjoyed quite a lot. If a salad is enough for you, then you are set!
If you want more than that, or you don't like salad, you can always have fun with the sides!
Steakhouse's have fantastic sides. You can get mashed potato's, onion rings, nicely cooked vegetables,cole slaw, baked beans, etc. And of course, the ultimate side that you get for free...rolls. Most places serve rolls before the meal, and they are always really warm and good. At many places there is some vegetarian meal that you can get. At Dakota's they had a pasta option that was probably quite tasty. I have more fun making a meal out out of the sides however, so if you are vegetarian and go to a steakhouse, I recommend you do that! I hope this was somewhat helpful! Next time I will be talking about a more vegetarian related place :)


http://www.thegreatsteakhouse.com/

If you like this blog you also may like...

These are some other blogs that deal with vegetarian friendly places and things. If you are really interested in this then you should check them out!

This blog talks about not only vegetarianism, but also staying Green and the environment:
http://www.savvyvegetarian.com/cgi-bin/svblog.cgi

This blog comes from a long time vegetarian who has many useful links and places to eat that are not strictly aroundIirvine (for those who live elsewhere) :
http://demented-pixie.com/vegetarian_blog/

This blog seems to do a good job in helping us vegetarian/vegan eaters deal with the negativity we sometimes may recieve from non understanding meat eaters. It also has good food suggestions:
http://vegweb.com/veglinks/15_Blogs_and_Home_Pages.shtml

This blog keeps up to date with the latest vegetarian/vegan news and is a good source for those interested in more than just eating vegetarian but living the lifesyle as well:
http://www.vegblogs.com/


I hope these links help!

Native Foods

Native Foods has come to be a favorite place of mine. It is an entirely vegan restaurant located in a shopping center called The Camp, but you would never know it was vegan by how good the food is! A favorite dish of mine is the Soul Bowl with brown rice. It is very filling and good for you! Also when you go you should get the Native Iced Tea to drink. It is tea with apple juice, which I had never heard of before going there, but it is actually a really good combination. And it is free refills!
If you are into the vegan/vegetarian thing, then you should also check out the surrounding stores as well. Across from Native Foods is a clothing store call Blank Style which has animal friendly clothes and shoes and wallets.



Address- 2937 Bristol St, Costa Mesa
Phone- 714.751. 2151
Web- www.nativefoods.com

Intro

I am in my last year at UC Irvine, and throughout my college career I have been a vegetarian. Often times when someone finds out I am a vegetarian, they put me through a series of similar questions such as:
What made me decide to become vegetarian?
How long have I been vegetarian?
What do I eat?
Do I miss eating meat?
Am I ever going to eat meat again?
So I have decided that I will first and foremost answer these in order to clear the air.
I have been a vegetarian since August 2004, which makes it just over three years now. My becoming vegetarian was not something that I planned out or had even really thought about before hand, it just sort of happened…my best friend in high school had been vegetarian since her freshman year, and although I never paid much attention to this fact, another mutual friend of ours found it to be quite interesting. So interesting in fact that shortly after we graduated from high school she decided that she herself wanted to try being a vegetarian. I was with her this day and we were talking about it and about all the different pros and cons that we could think of, although at this time we really had no clue about anything. We had heard that it was a healthier way to live and that it was nice for animals. Based on these two facts, she stated that she really wanted to do it but was not really sure if she could without any sort of support system or anything since it was such a drastic change.
After we had been talking about it, I began to think that maybe being vegetarian would be a good change for me too..I had never been a very healthy eater and perhaps this would help change my bad habbits..so I volunteered to go vegetarian with her and we could support each other. And so it began. I remember going home and telling my mother and she thought I was being ridiculous and that it would never last. But now, even though she herself is not vegetarian, she will always make sure that I have something to eat when I go home and she will even get me vegetarian magazines from time to time so that I may try knew recipes.
Do I miss meat? Yes I do sometimes, although at this point in my life meat is not even thought of as food to me anymore. It is hard to explain but it is as if I have been a herbivore all my life and the thought if eating meet seems very out of place to me. I do miss it however because I know there were certain things that I used to enjoy very much, even though I do not remember what those things taste like anymore, but I know that I did like it once.
Despite this, I do not believe that I will ever eat meat again. I do know that many people who are vegetarian or even vegan for years will convert back to meat eating, but I personally do not think it is for me. As I mentioned before, the idea of eating meat seems very out of place to me now, and maybe this does not happen to everyone that stops eating meat, but I do not think that I could get myself in the mindset to eat meat again.
Soo, what do I eat? This is a question I have been asked countless times, and I still have yet to come up with a good answer because really I never know what to say. Not because I cannot think of things that I eat, but because I do not know what they expect me to say. I guess it is just a confusing question to me because there are so many things besides meat that I do not really understand how they expect me to answer that question simply. So for now I will say I eat everything except for meat, which is a hell of a lot of food.
And I guess everything I have to say after this will further explain that question…as I write about different places that I like to eat as a vegetarian. Although I do not find it hard to eat at restaurants, it can still be nice to go to places that target vegetarians or vegans specifically, so that for once you can choose from anything on the menu. Weather you are vegetarian, vegan, or a hard-core meet eater; I will be searching for places that, as a vegetarian, I found to have good meals. Hopefully no matter what your specialty is, you will be able to enjoy some of these paces and meals that I discover.