Vita Cafe Food Porn

The Vita Cafe has some kick-ass eats. Want some examples?

Mac and Cheese with tempeh:

 

Holy crap. Best vegan mac and cheese (other than *cough* my own) I've had. Big portion, excellently flavored "cheese", and big fat noodles. You can also get broccoli as an option, which I'd recommend.

What happens when the Aardvark Sauce lid isn't screwed on tightly:

Yikes! This looks like something The Spicy Vegan would like.

And I know the Vita has all this deep-fried, buffalo-style, gravy-intense wonders of vegan food, but their SUPERGRAIN SALAD is so freakin' good I have a hard time getting anything else.

Black and white quinoa, tempeh bacon crumbles, red peppers, currants, pumpkin seeds and guacamole with carrot ginger or lemon tahini dressing. (I always choose the lemon tahini.)

 

I know, right?! YUM!

This one was missing the tempeh bacon (I had one tiny little delicious morsel in the whole salad) but it's so good! In fact, I don't think the dressing is even necessary with the gaucamole, but hey, it adds a nice tang.

And their daily soups come with the most amazing sweet onion bread:

 

The only thing I keep forgetting is they don't have a Bur Mixer. A bur mixer is like a hand-held blender--restaurants commonly use them to puree their soups. I got the tortilla soup, which I expect to be smooth and creamy, but it just had big chunks of random veggies in a spicy tomato broth. I'll pass on the soup next time and just go for their bread.

Shortened Version of My Weekend

I haven't written in a week. Some of you may have noticed?

I was in the process of making up for that by posting a really jam-packed, saturated, juicy blog, with pictures and funny stories and goodness. Having spent the last hour and a half on it, I was about 15 minutes from being finished. It was, I can safely say, a work of Art.
Granted, even if it wasn't, you'll never know, because...

I hit a wrong key. The whole thing--deleted. Dummy. Don't you hate that? So frustrating. So audios to the old, and welcome to the Reader's Digest condensed version. Here's a smattering of the pictures.
Recap: Hit up Liberty Glass, Vita Cafe, the Destory Store, Blue Gardenia Coffee Shop, Paddy's downtown for a Yelp Elite Event (my first!) and The White Eagle; rode by bike over to Joette's party; saw a train go by while I was riding home from work; ate a lot of good food like: Buffalo Chicken Wrap (vegan of course!), pasta with cremini mushrooms, broccoli, spinach, garlic, and red sauce, tofu fries with spicy peanut sauce, plantain chips (my new absolute favorite snack! They're like a buck sixty at Trader Joe's); went grocery shopping; drank too much of everything--especially white wine and martinis-- got rained on a bunch; got invited to a wine tasting; went to a movie; spent time with Joette, Luke, Rob, Abby, Ingrid and Laura; and really just had an action-packed weekend.

Blah.

Last Thursday

Today I've been feeling very cantankerous and grouchy, so will instead focus on yesterday.


Yesterday was the last Thursday of the month. Here in Portland, that means Alberta Street turns into a big hippy/art/drink/fire dancing/food/etc party. This happens every last Thursday during the good months, folks.

It's awesome.

I met my brother and sister-in-law for a bite to eat before we were to venture down. My friend Shelley joined us. We ate at the Vita Cafe on 30th and Alberta. This place is one of the oldest, that I know of, vegan/vegetarian restaurants in Portland. It's the first one I ever went to, at any rate.

As a snack, my brother and Michelle and I decided to share the Spicy Tempeh Sticks with a peanut dipping sauce:I think it's their "chicken-fried steak" tempeh, just cut up into strips, but it was pretty good. The peanut sauce was a little thick and not very peanut-y, and the whole thing could have used more of the hot sauce, but honestly, any time I get a plate of fried tempeh I will probably be pretty happy.

Shelley showed up and the two of us split a Supergrain Salad--black and white quinoa, currants, pumpkin seeds, some other stuff I don't remember, and a carrot ginger dressing. Nice and lite. Great meal to split after deep fried tempeh.

After dinner, we meandered over to Tour de Crepes a few blocks down. My friend Marcy and her husband John own this adorable little shop. You've got to go out back to this food cart thing, order, and then take a seat at their tables-half of which have old awesome doors as the table top.
We shared a vegan crepe (!) that had hazelnut liquor and dark chocolate. Mmmmm. Marcy, you're a genius.
Michelle, Shelley and I also had a champagne cocktail. I had a belini--peach puree, a slice of peach, and champagne. They both had the raspberry lime belini. I definitely recommend stopping by here (closed Mondays and Tuesdays I think.)


We wandered a bit after that, every single bar was at capacity, and it seemed the streets and sidewalks were as well. After Shelley and I stopped by a party for a minute to say hi to our friend Maryanne, (and have a pint of IPA), we headed down to the Bye and Bye on 10th and Alberta.
All vegan bar, all the time. This place is AWESOME--it's always so packed, and is frequented by meat-eaters and veggies alike. They have a killer meatball sub, and make some delicious braised greens and tofu.

I had a perfectly tart and sweet margarita, and was ready for bed.

Also, this really awesome thing happened to me yesterday: My review of Alu Wine Bar on Yelp was the Review of the Day! That made me pretty dang happy all day. Go check it out!