YES. YESSSSSSS. Thank you Native Foods Cafe.

Ok, so here's the punchline: Native Foods Cafe is bloody amazing. They have multiple branches in CA, and they are opening branches in the Loop and Lakeview in August and October. Their Wicker Park location just opened, and based on the queue at 3 PM on a Sunday afternoon, they are going to be doing some excellent business in Chicago. The important point here is that everything on their menu is completely vegan. So here's the lowdown on what we got.

My friend got the Rockin' Moroccan Bowl ($9.95): two big pieces of tofu and a pile of grilled veggies with quinoa, currents and toasted almonds.

I got the pizza ($7.95) : pesto, grilled vegetables and kale, pumpkin seeds and balsamic dressing on a thick focaccia bread.

They have a range of vegan desserts, here I got the Rose Cardamom cupcake, which had a very sweet pile of frosting on a cake garnished with rose petals. The frosting was good, however the cake was the best vegan cake I've had: more moist than at the Chicago Diner, and a very unique flavor. In addition to the cupcake, my friend was quite excited at the prospect of having a vegan parfait, especially since they had a peanut butter parfait, which ended up being quite tasty. We also got their watermelon agua fresca and their lavender lemonade (for free with their rewards card.. !). This place is a solid 5/5. Great addition to the Wicker Park neighborhood, especially given the recent closing of Earwax Cafe, one of the other places to get a vegan meal and dessert around here. Native foods might not have non-vegan offerings like Earwax did, but it has enough range in the menu that omnivorous friends would probably enjoy this place too. 

Joy Yee!!

After a particularly tiring workout at the gym, me and my friend Alissa were craving a seriously delicious dinner. Not wanting to stray too far from the south side, we thought Chinese food would hit the spot, and Alissa recommended Joy Yee. There are multiple locations in Chicago, including in Evanston and Naperville, though we went to the original Chinatown location. The place was pretty swagged out, and it was brighter than the surface of the sun in there - CFLs every 30 cm on the ceiling. Anyway, they seem to be quite popular for their smoothies and bubble teas. Huge selection, and all but three of their fruit flavors are vegan (we asked). I got the mango and passionfruit smoothie with tapioca pearls, and it was one of the best smoothies I've had yet - and for only $3.50. 

Look at those freaky tapioca pearls. 

However, the best part of this meal was hands down the Vietnamese spring rolls ($4.50). Tofu and vegetables wrapped and dipped in a delicious peanut sauce. We also got the Korean spicy fried vegetable dumpings ($4.95), but we weren't overly impressed. I liked them because they were fried and I basically like all fried foods, but they weren't spicy and didn't have a great deal of veggies inside. The dipping sauce was great however.

Our main course was red curry with vegetables and tofu. This came with white rice and was actually quite good, nice and creamy from the coconut milk. It was also a massive portion - we split the one entree between the two of us and were totally stuffed.

I will say that the service was very good, we had many questions about the vegan-ness of various items, as well as wanted to add tofu to our main course, and they were very chill about everything. They also have a nice mix of Asian foods: some Vietnamese, some Thai, some Korean. Verdict? 4/5. Pretty damn good. Definitely recommend.

Arugula & Andiamo!

Hey, all! I'm Jen and I've recently decided to begin a food blog, inspired by my friend Mai, who runs the awesome Flavor Boulevard. I'm a longtime vegetarian (10+ years) and have been vegan for four years or so, and I choose to be vegetarian/vegan for environmental and ethical reasons. Vegan food has a reputation as being weird or just generally not good, but I've had some of the best food in my life since becoming vegan. I'm fortunate enough to live in Chicago, a great city for vegans and vegetarians, and I want to document my culinary experiences in the city and on my travels.

First up: Andiamo! A small neighborhood restaurant near Guadalupe Street in downtown Santa Fe (322 Garfield Street). I'm in New Mexico for a science conference, and after the day's activities, me and some friends decided to grab some dinner (one can only take so much cafeteria food) downtown before we headed to play some pool and do a little blues dancing at the local watering hole a couple blocks away. Our group spanned a range of dietary restrictions from lactose intolerant to vegetarian to vegan so Andiamo had quite the challenge.

I was happy to see that the menu had several vegetarian options listed as variants of meat dishes, with a lower price for ordering without the meat. For example, they had a pasta puttanesca that you could get cheaper if you ordered it vegetarian - sans anchovies. It's always nice when restaurants give a discount if you order a dish without meat. They should show off their vegetarian options more on their website menu, as well as show the prices. While we looked over the menu, they brought us some white and sourdough breads to the table, which we dipped in some very delicious olive oil.

We decided on sharing a couple of appetizers, first up: roasted beets on a bed of arugula with foccacia and an olive tapenade. This was my favorite of the appetizers. Beets and arugula never cease to disappoint, especially when combined. It came with some goat's cheese, though we got that on the side so that those who eat cheese could enjoy it.

Next up was an eggplant bruschetta. Unfortunately they sprinkled parmesan cheese on most of it, so I ate only a small square without cheese. This was good, but paled in comparison to the other appetizer.

For my main course, I decided to ask if they could make me a custom vegan pizza. They were cool with this, and I chose to go all out, with toppings of mushrooms, roasted zucchini, roasted garlic, basil, and arugula. Generally when I get vegan pizza, I get arugula and olive oil on it. I'm not sure why, but this combination seems almost as good as cheese. The crust was excellently done, a perfect combination of soft and crunchy. I really want to learn how to make pizza dough as good as this. I ate the entire pizza, and couldn't face dessert. It should be noted that there didn't appear to be any vegan desserts on the dessert menu, which for an Italian place is rather odd. C'mon people, sorbet.

 

Other good options included a (vegan) Gazpacho soup as an appetizer, several vegetarian pizzas (margarita pizza, white pizza, mushroom pizza), as well as two vegan pasta dishes (spaghetti puttanesca, or a spicy red pepper penne pasta). This meal was reasonably priced, as we each paid about $20 (we didn't order alcohol). Overall, I would give this place 4/5, noting that I'm normalizing here to Santa Fe. Meaning that this place was pretty good - one of the better meals I've had here. For Santa Fe, where there appears to be an overabundance of high priced (for a graduate student) restaurants with fewer vegan options, this was a welcome change.