Plant-Based Eating LA Style

As you may know from my last post about The Gentle Barn, I was in LA this past week. I was so excited to be there because California has a thriving plant-based food scene. Their vegetarian and vegan restaurants are so popular that non-veg people frequent them. So when I was in LA I had three missions to complete:

1. Visit The Gentle Barn.
2. Eat at all the plant-based restaurants I could find.
3. Soak up the sun.

I can happily say I completed all three 🙂 .

The restaurants there were fantastic. I loved having so many plant-based options. I wanted to give you guys the 411 on the awesome restaurants in the LA area and an idea of what I eat because people are always curious what plant-based eating really looks like. So here ya go:

The first night my dad and I checked out True Food Kitchen in Santa Monica with some of our relatives. The restaurant has multiple vegetarian options, a handful of vegan options and it’s casual, kid-friendly and the food is delicious. We liked it so much we went back a second time for dinner and ordered the same entrées!

As an appetizer we ordered the vegetable crudités that comes with a tzatziki dipping sauce and black olive dipping sauce.

For my entrée I ordered the teriyaki brown rice bowl with tofu. It comes with broccoli, green beans, onions, bok choy, snow peas, sesame seeds and avocado. Loved it!

For dessert we had pomegranate sorbet and banana coconut chia seed pudding. The chia seed pudding was to die for! I have tried chia seed pudding before and really wanted to like it but never did. This dessert was absolutely delicious. I’m glad I gave chia seed pudding another try!

The next morning after a quick breakfast at our hotel my dad and I went for a hike because we knew we had a big day of eating ahead of us.

After our hike we checked out a new Mexican restaurant named Gracias Madre in West Hollywood. This restaurant is 100% plant-based and 100% amazing.

I was lucky because as I was planning my trip to LA just a few days before I went, one of my favorite bloggers, Andee of The Honeybee, posted about eating at Gracias Madre with her friends. I have followed her blog for a while and it always seems like she eats at the best spots, so after reading her post I knew I needed to add Gracias Madre to my list. And I’m so glad I did because Gracias Madre ended up being one of my favorite meals of the trip. Plus the atmosphere is perfection.

As an appetizer we ordered the guacamole con tortillas and a side of their spicy cashew nacho cheese. For those of you that are new to a plant-based diet…did you know cheese can be made from nuts? It’s delicious, flavorful and of course always dairy free.

Gracias Madre has an awesome and refreshing housemade ginger ale.

My dad ordered the tacos. They come in corn tortillas filled with seared cauliflower, grilled zucchini and mushrooms. They are topped with pico de gallo, lettuce, cashew nacho cheese and come with a side of beans. The mushroom taco was his fav!

I ordered the sweet potato flautas. They came topped with pico de gallo, guacamole, cashew nacho cheese and a side of beans.

At this point we were stuffed but I insisted we order dessert because I have to be able to tell my readers about the dessert…right?? We ordered this mocha cheesecake (dairy-free) that comes dripping in a chocolate cinnamon sauce. It was incredible! I had never had vegan cheesecake before but it was everything I could have hoped for and more. It was lighter than regular cheesecake but still absolutely delicious.

So now I hope you are starting to see that plant-based eating isn’t so scary or so different after all! And I’m definitely not missing out on good food 😉

If you are in the SoCal area I highly suggest checking out True Food Kitchen or Gracias Madre.

Happy eating!

xo,

Tedi

P.S. There were so many great plant-based restaurants in LA that I couldn’t fit them all into one post. More to come!