Vegan Brunch Review

Happy New Year!!! I hope you all had a nice holiday...as you know, I was pretty sick. But, I'm all better now, although I think I may have passed it along to my husband, S. :(

So many new vegan options have popped up lately in the New Orleans area, and I'm trying to get to them all, one by one. I've checked out both O Vegasm vegan brunch and Wandering Buddha's vegan Korean food.

Recently, Santa Fe Tapas has started serving a vegan jazz brunch on Saturdays. This is great, because it doesn't interfere with O Vegasm's Sunday brunch. Now you can eat out all weekend!! We decided to try it last Saturday. Surprisingly, the Uptown district was fairly quiet (the calm before the NYE storm!). Easy to park, no wait, etc.

They've got a few tables set up outside, but it was a bit too cold to sit outside at the time. The ambience inside was quite nice with wooden beams on the ceiling and brick walls...very cozy.

We sat by a window, looking out onto St. Charles Avenue. The waitress came right over and was very friendly. Then, the owner came over and introduced himself (Orhan) and asked how we'd heard about it, etc. Super friendly Turkish gentleman! We were off to a good start.

My husband wanted a beer, and only one of the three taps was available. Luckily, all three were local beers and the one they had was a good one (NOLA Brown). It was early (11 am) and maybe they just hadn't been re-tapped for the day yet?

You could order a prix-fixe for $21 (one from each of the three courses), or a la carte. I ordered all three (duh) and S ordered one entree.

For an appetizer, I ordered the Wild Mushroom Corn Tamale:

It was delicious! Very flavorful with just enough spiciness. The guacamole, corn, and pico de gallo were all really nice. The tamale was stuffed with mushrooms and it was nice and warm underneath the cool toppings. Very good size for an appetizer as well. (look how colorful it is!!)

Then I got the Roasted Vegetable "Wellington" for my entree:

This was served atop a bed of cooked greens (spinach?), which were very "buttery" and delicious. The crust, although made from white flour, was very good and not too thick. There's nothing worse than getting more dough than vegetables in a dish like this. They got it just right. I was expecting the usual "roasted vegetables"...like eggplant, tomatoes, squash, etc. But no....this was filled with roots like carrots and turnips, etc. Loved it. As you can see on the plate, there was a streak of some sort of sweet syrup surrounding the dish. Don't know what it was, but it was just the right amount and went spectacularly with the "wellington"! Again, good sized portion.

S ordered the Imam Bayildi: Stuffed Eggplant with an almond green onion pilaf and wilted greens:

I was a bit disappointed that they used white rice. Wished for brown rice. The greens were the same as mine and were delicious. The eggplant was filled with some sort of tomato and onion concoction. It had a really nice flavor, but was just a tad oily. Now, I'm sure it wasn't oily for a restaurant, but I rarely use oil these days and everything seems oily to me (just so you know where I'm coming from). The rice was good....the almonds were a nice touch. S thought it should be on the regular menu-he loved it!

Dessert: Horchata Ice Cream and Blackberry Sorbet:

The flavor of the horchata ice cream was absolutely amazing! So good.....I've never had horchata before. I assume this was made from rice milk? The downside....it was a bit grainy. The sorbet also had a nice flavor, but was way too icy. Flavor-wise, both were delicious. Texture-wise...they need a little work. On the menu, it listed it as Ice Cream, Cookies. Not sure where the cookies were, but....a misprint perhaps?

Overall, the food was delicious, the ambience was nice, and the staff was friendly. We will definitely be back!

There were, however, a few things that were disappointing. First, the beer taps, as I mentioned above. Second, it wasn't that busy, but it took about one hour to get our entree. The music didn't start until about 12:15. We arrived at 11 am and it would have been nice to hear the jazz when the brunch started (it was a "jazz" brunch afterall). And lastly, it was cold. It felt like they had the air conditioner on, though it was pretty cold outside (we were also sitting right under a vent).

Still....it's highly recommended if you are in New Orleans on a weekend. Thank you for a lovely brunch, Santa Fe!! You can also find them on Facebook. And they do serve their normal, non-vegan menu during the vegan brunch as well, in case your fellow diners are not vegans.

Eat smart,
T.

More local goodies

There's been a lot of vegan happenings lately in New Orleans. Yesterday, I decided to go try out one of the new vegan restaurants. I mean...100% VEGAN!

The Wandering Buddha:

It's a 100% vegan Korean restaurant, located in a bar in the Marigny (or is it St Roch?) area of New Orleans. I'm not so familiar with that area. It seems a lot of the vegan food options are popping up in dive bars around town. We arrived at 5 pm, when the bar was supposed to open. The doors were chained closed, though we didn't have to wait forever out in the cold rain. They opened up about 10 minutes late. It IS New Orleans after all. We were the first ones in there and so there was no smoke lurking in the air (yay!). We brought a friend, who happens to be Korean-American. We sat down and the waiter, Christion, brought us out some menus. He was very friendly. He specified that everything was vegan on the menu, though I wonder why they opted to put "vegetarian and vegan" on the menu itself. It makes it seem as if only some of the items are vegan. <shrug>

I ordered the same thing as my friend, the bibimbap (rice and vegetables) with the brown rice option (for $1 more). S ordered the japchae (glass noodles with vegetables). His came out, and they brought out the bibimbap both with white rice instead of the brown. My friend mentioned that and the waiter quickly brought it back to exchange it for brown rice. S's food was getting cold, so he started and I liked his a lot (so did he!):

The waiter eventually brought out our orders with the brown rice. It was a bit on the cold-ish side. My friend says, traditionally, bibimbap should come out steaming hot. And it would have been nice, since it was freezing cold outside, and not that warm inside. It was fine for me...warm enough.

It looked so pretty! I haven't eaten much Korean food, I must admit. And after my dad always said how he couldn't stand kimchi or the smell of it in the air on the streets.....I was dreading it. And to be honest, it was too salty for me. But that's pretty traditionally Korean, I guess. My friend thought it was good, but she was used to kimchi that has fish in it, which is more authentic. Anyway, S liked the kimchi. I typically don't like really salty foods, so it wasn't the restaurant, it was me! The sauce that came on the side (luckily) was pretty darn spicy. Too spicy for me, though I did use some of it. The spicy cucumbers were also quite spicy, but I ate most of them. The rest was really good.....I only left the kimchi....for S :)

Outside of the salty kimchi for me and the spiciness, I thought it was really good! I might order what S had next time, or perhaps the cold buckwheat noodles. On another note, it was a lot of food! I'm glad we didn't order appetizers, although I'd like to try some of them...maybe next time. The bar is separate, so if you want alcohol, you have to go up to the bar and order/pay separately. (they had two Abita beers on tap, which is suprising for this type of bar!)

It was a good experience and I'm glad we went. I definitely want to go back and try perhaps some of the less spicy options :) And thanks for the great hospitality, Christion!

And these were really good too (not sure what they were), which were given to us at the end, on our check:

 (you can find them on Facebook too)

After dinner, we went over to the brand new New Orleans Food Co-Op, which was just a few blocks away. I wanted to check it out and see what kinds of cool stuff they had in there. It's in a really nice building and it's a pretty good sized store. Prices seemed to be on par with other smallish natural food stores. They had bulk seeds, grains, and flours, as well as coffee beans. They also had a pretty good selection of organic fruits and vegetables, priced perhaps a bit higher than normal. They did have the vegan staples: vegan mayo, vegan cheese (Daiya included-yes I found the pepperjack flavor there!), vegan cream cheese, nondairy milks, etc. There was a small selection of prepared foods like sushi and vegan chicken salad, but not a ton. And surprisingly, I didn't see any alcohol! Usually you can find good craft beers at these kinds of stores, but alas, not here. I would pay into the store and become a member if I lived closer. But I live out in the suburbs and it's not a very convenient place for me to shop.

Definitely check it out if you're in the area! This was the stash I got last night:

Daiya, Soy yogurt, pasta sauce, black apples, brown rice noodles, and organic swiss chard.

So if you're in NOLA, check these guys out! Next time I'm going to try the new vegan dinners at the St. Roch Tavern in the same area. Yay for vegan options in NOLA, finally. Anybody deliver out to the burbs yet?? ;)

Eat smart,
T.