Uh oh! I better get on to posting all my backed up restaurant reviews, recipes, etc. because now it looks like one of the downsides of getting behind on posting is that the restaurant I’m reviewing may close down before I get around to talking about it. Ooooops, this is what has happened with The Vegan Spot over here in Silver Lake. An off-shoot of everyone’s favorite Flore which specialized in vegan versions of meaty classics has sadly shuttered its doors. But wipe those tears away my vegan friends! Yesterday, during an amazing breakfast at Flore with Kirby Von Scrumptious and others, I chatted up our waiter about the closing and he said that, despite rave reviews from the food blogging community, the place just didn’t do that much business. (I find that very easy to believe because every time I went in there it was totally empty.) However, the owners are working on plans to turn the space into a vegan coffee shop complete with the much celebrated vegan twinkies and a smaller version of The Vegan Spot’s sandwich selection. The waiter added that he has seen the plans for the redesign and was excited about how great the new interior will look. So while it is sad that the short-lived Vegan Spot is now gone, we can all look forward to a new vegan coffee joint which, as far as I know, cannot be found anywhere else in LA. proper. It always seemed a little strange to me to open a vegan restaurant a few blocks down from your other vegan restaurant anyway.
So just as
Quarrygirl has reminisced about the Vegan Spot on her latest blog post, I would like to take a brief stroll down memory lane and remember a lunch I had there a while back with my dear friend Craig.
Craig ordered the club sandwich. There he is, at top, showing his excitement over this juicy plate. Craig’s club came with fake turkey, fake bacon, sprouts, tomato, avocado, and veganaise. The club is a staple of all vegan restaurants and it is pretty much impossible to make it taste anything but delicious. The Vegan Spot’s version did not disappoint.
I ordered the Chef salad which came with fake chicken, fake bacon, and fake roast beef as well as some vegan mozzarella.
I am not the biggest fan of faux meats but the Vegan Spot’s knock offs of animal goods were pretty outstanding. They were nothing like the spongy chunks you find at many Asian vegan places. Instead the chicken, turkey, and roast beef were very thinly sliced tasty treats! Note my adorable pup hanging out under our table.
The one thing Craig and I really didn’t like about our meal was the water. At Flore they infuse the water with refreshing mint, but on our visit to The Vegan Spot the water was infused with rosemary. Our dishes were pretty savory and we would have loved to have been gulping water down but the rosemary flavored water was just gross. It kind of tasted like drinking dirt. Hopefully the new coffee shop will abandon this practice. I will probably be the first in line when it opens!
