Vegan Food In Providence

[rax]

I think I may have spent more weekends in Providence than fully at home in 2010. This is awesome, as I love Providence, but as I don't have a kitchen there, I've been eating out a lot. The upside of this is that I've discovered a bunch of vegan food in Providence that I hadn't known about before, and I thought some of you might benefit from hearing about it --- they're all good restaurants for omnivores as well.

• I'd always known about the Garden Grille (warning, website contains Flash) on Hope St. in Pawtucket --- well not always of course, but for a while. They're an all-vegetarian but not all-vegan place that my mother discovered. I'd particularly recommend their amazing drinks and their seitan products; they manage to get the seitan both crispy and moist, which is actually pretty hard. (eredien  is good at it; I've been able to duplicate it, mostly, with a two-stage cooking process, but it's quite time-consuming.) One of these days I will make it to their brunch.
• Right next to the Garden Grille [0] is Rasoi, an Indian place with the same awesome hanging lamps as Namaskar (flash again) in Davis Square. I had passed it by in favor of the Garden Grille on a number of occasions, until a friend told me that they had a vegan and gluten-free brunch on Saturdays. The brunch was amazing, and recently I went back on a different day with eredien , postrodent , ab3nd , and my mother. Their menu has a lot of vegan and gluten-free options marked on it, and they even have a veganable thali. (Well, there's a little bowl of raita, but you can just give it to postrodent , it's cool. Or to whoever. It didn't touch the food.)
• Over on da Hill, there's Julian's Restaurant, which seems biker-hangoutish and has a great beer selection. There are always new things on tap, and I've been able to come in and say "Three weeks ago I was here and had something... smoky?" "Oh I bet it was *something unintelligible*, I bet you'd also like *something else unintelligible*." "Sure, I'll try that OH MY GOD IT TASTES LIKE LAPSANG I WANT IT IN MY FACE." They have great seitan, there's usually a vegan special, they make their own ketchup and it is actually good... oh and the bathroom is basically Steer Roast. [2] Last time I was there there was a Neubauten video playing in it on loop.
• And of course there's Thayer Street, which has a few places I knew I liked (Blue State Cafe, East Side Pockets, and what the hell happened to the original Spike's? Yes, their veggie dogs are vegan) but I only just discovered the delicious vegan pizza offerings of Nice Slice. They even have bike delivery if you're within a mile (and they don't cross the river). Not a sit-down place really, but a great place to go if you're short on time.

[0] And also right next to a barbecue place with a disturbing mural of a somewhat-anthro pig getting ready to eat.

[1] Being vegan usually means ending up lactose-intolerant. I thought I wouldn't have to care; I do. :/ Oh well.
[2] Linked to this and not a normal page because I was totally there when whoever wrote this article was, and I find that entertaining --- and yes, the Minibosses concert did rock that hard.

Comments

[oonh.livejournal.com]

Mulan around Emma's has the same sort of hanging lamps

[rax.livejournal.com]

Oh, and they have delicious vegan food, too! The tofu in black bean sauce is amazing.

[rax.livejournal.com]

Actually this calls for a food icon.

[krinndnz.livejournal.com]

Re your [0] note - how disturbing is this mural? (http://suicidefood.blogspot.com/)

[rax.livejournal.com]

Oh my god that blog is so twitchy. It came up, actually, but no one remembered the URL. Compared to some of those, it's not that bad (http://www.ljsbbq.com/).

[baniszew.livejournal.com]

There's this italian restaurant near where I grew up with a big mural of anthropomorphic vegetables. A group of tomatoes are sitting in a pot of tomato sauce like it's a hot tub. One tomato, standing on the counter, is sticking a wooden spoon into the pot and licking its lips. That mural always creeped me out.

[krinndnz.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I respect that blog, but it's a bit of a difficult read.

[ab3nd.livejournal.com]

If you like smoky beers, try the rauchbiers at The Sunset. They are made with some sort of smoked grains, so they taste like smoke.

[rax.livejournal.com]

I think "rauchbier" is in fact the keyword I need, thanks :)

Vegan eating in Texas

[weirdquark]

Thrud and I went to a restaurant on a friend's recommendation -- the things she told us to try you probably couldn't eat -- a really fantastic cream of asparagus soup and an "insanely additive bread pudding" which they ran out of by the time we ordered. The restaurant has recently come under new ownership, and we chatted with the owner for a bit. He's excited about adding new vegetarian dishes, and thinks it's ridiculous that you can't find good vegan food anywhere in the area, so he's going to fix that too. We'll keep you posted, and if you come visit, we'll have somewhere we can take you.

Re: Vegan eating in Texas

[rax.livejournal.com]

Oh my god that is super-rocking! I will no longer have to go to Austin every couple of days, eat a lot, and then store the food in my tail. Which is good, because I am not a lizard. ;)

[paxed.livejournal.com]

Beer facials, hmmm...

[kiya]

Unperipherally, I had brunch at the Red Lentil yesterday; they also mark their stuff for vegan and GF.

[rax.livejournal.com]

Ooh, thank you, I will check that out! The menu looks very garden-grille-esque.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

Yeah, Rik is pretty useful that way, isn't he?

[rax.livejournal.com]

It is good to be useful. :)

[eredien]

The brunch was amazing, and recently I went back on a different day with [info]eredien , [info]postrodent , [info]rathdei , and my mother.

And ab3nd.

[rax.livejournal.com]

Argh, right, sorry. And not rathdei. I was transposing two different trips. Thanks. :)

[rathdei.livejournal.com]

MAN ALL THIS STUFF IN PROVIDENCE IT SOUNDS LIKE A GREAT PLACE TO LIVE


:D

Are you an RI-based vegan?

[(Anonymous)]

Hi! I found your blog while I was looking for interview subject for an article I have due on March 1. I'm interested in doing a brief interview with a Rhode Island-based vegan on what it's like to be a vegan and why you choose to be vegan. The article is a vegan-friendly informational piece about being vegan, but I need to speak with someone who's living the lifestyle (I'm currently trying it on for size). Know anyone who might be interested? My email is moira.richardson AT gmail. www.literarytease.com. Happy to speak to you via telephone, email, or in person, your choice. (Sorry for random comment, since it looks from your info page that you are from mass, but I thought I might stumble upon an RI vegan by posting!)