One of my favorite restaurants is Spiral Diner located in Fort Worth, Texas. They closed the Dallas location unfortunately, but I really enjoy taking a trip to the Fort Worth location on special occasions. It is a vegan diner and my favorite thing to get is the Spiral burger, which is a seitan patty (seitan is wheat gluten) topped with vegan cheddar cheese, lettuce, tomato, onion, vegan mayonnaise, ketchup and mustard. I usually get it with a side of vegan potato salad or corn chips. Often when going there I would get a slice of cake or a cookie, and sometimes the vegan ice cream shakes would end up being my dessert if they were sold out of desserts. Last time I went and was adventurous and got tofu migas. As a kid I would always love to go to Eatzi’s, a European-style market, and order migas, which were scrambled eggs with tortilla strips. But I became vegan around 2009 and cut out dairy and eggs from my diet, so I ended up eating a lot more scrambled tofu. The tofu migas I think came with a vegan sausage patty.
Another great vegan place I loved was called Native Foods Café in Chicago. Before I developed a mini-intolerance to gluten (I had a breakfast burrito with a huge wheat spinach tortilla and I’m wondering if the weird nausea and stomach pains is because my body is becoming more sensitive to wheat) I would get any vegan burger on the menu. It was a seitan patty with lots of melted vegan cheese and seitan bacon strips, and I got it with French fries. No wonder I had to often take the food home because I could barely finish it, it was just that delicious. And then for dessert I had an oatmeal cream cookie sandwich, and I often had to resist the temptation to eat it all in one sitting, to no avail because it was absolutely sweet, creamy and delicious. I’m bummed that my body can’t really tolerate a lot of sugar anymore, but it’s probably a good thing because I would have probably had one of those oatmeal cookie cream sandwiches once a week. I have learned to enjoy sugar in moderation. Yesterday I had some Lotus Biscoff cookies with some tea, and I haven’t had them in a while, but then my stomach started hurting for some weird reason. I also had a couple of Oreos. Maybe it’s because I didn’t drink enough water during the day and my body was playing catch up. But I digress.
Another restaurant I enjoy is any restaurant with Indian food. A few years ago, I used to go to a South Indian buffet that was delicious. They had lentil donuts, sambar, naan, rice, and so many other vegetarian dishes. As a vegan I really loved this place, and especially the dosas with potatoes and peas was delicious. I The little lentil donuts were one of my favorites because they were so crispy on the outside and fluffy on the inside, and I often dipped them in my sambar. Back then I enjoyed eating large portion sizes, so I would often go back to eat seconds or thirds, but then my stomach’s threshold for lots of food decreased, and today I would probably be able to eat a plate of food and call it a day. Eating too much now and especially eating too quickly often gives me indigestion. I was really sad when the restaurant closed down because I used to go there a lot when I was in high school and during summer breaks from college. When I was in college, we had two really delicious Indian restaurants, and one of them was near my dorm. I would often go down the street to this place called India Palace to grab some vegetable biryani and samosas, and in my senior year of college when I permitted myself to loosen up and drink a little wine I would order a glass of red wine at the restaurant. Wine has an interesting and strong taste but somehow it went really well with the food. I learned though that I’m not super accustomed to drinking a lot of alcohol, and the few times I did have alcohol were when I was on a cruise ship in 2019 and had some Caribbean beer and some of the red wine in the mini fridge in my room. I think I just stopped drinking so much because I thought I needed alcohol to be social, but realized later I didn’t. I still enjoy the taste of wine and beer though, even though I haven’t had it in a few years. Again, I keep digressing.
I also really love any great restaurant with pho. There was a delicious banh mi place during my time in college and they had an epic tofu pho and tofu banh mi sandwich. I loved the taste of the breaded tofu swimming around amongst the noodles, carrot rounds, and scallions, and the hot steam rising from the pho in that large porcelain white bowl. Since moving back I have continued to enjoy tofu pho and banh mi. For the banh mi, I love the crispy toasted-ness of the sub sandwich bread, and the sauce and sriracha as they blend in with the breaded tofu. Delicious.
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