Mr Meaner’s mantra about restaurant food is “If they can make it, so can YOU!”. And the corollary is often “BETTER”. Here’s an example of creating a dish from scratch with nothing but the taste memory of some truly outstanding airport food.

On a recent trip back to LA from wine country, we happened to hang around in SFO for an hour or so while waiting to board. The post-vineyard pangs of hunger began to set in, so I was wandering between Baja Fresh, Subway and a minimalist food court in Terminal 3 when I happened upon “Tomokazu Japanese Food”. An unassuming little place with two very helpful Japanese serving ladies who were only too happy to explain that the only “non meat” thing on the menu was Curry a with a choice of Chicken, Beef or Tofu.

Moving on from the “non meat” Chicken or Beef curry, I focused on the Tofu option asking if it had anything animal-derived in it (chicken stock, cream, milk powder… The usual questions). One of the servers pulled out a flip book with the ingredients listed, and showed it to me. Indeed, it had nothing remotely animal in it, so I went ahead and ordered the dish.

Two minutes later I was eating one of the most satisfying tofu/sauce/rice bowls I’d ever come across. It was spicy, yet very flavorful and the bed of rice (which the sauce soaked into) was absolutely divine. After boarding my flight back I spent quite a while thinking about how to emulate the feast.

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There are a few chain restaurants, found in most US towns and cities that can serve vegans very well.

Sometimes we like the predictability of a known dining experience, and “the PF” certainly provides that. What you’ll find in every restaurant is a waiting line (although shorter than they used to be, and reservations can now be phoned ahead) and a nice table in a dark room usually with a spotlight in your face from a mile above your head. Although seating can be efficient, a 10 minute wait for your server to initially materialize is commonplace on busy nights – especially weekends.

Vegan appetizers include Lettuce Wraps and Steamed Dumplings (both very good).

My favorite vegan entree (in fact the only one I’ve ever had in the hundreds of times I’ve been to P.F. Chang’s – see picture above) is Ma Po Tofu, an amazing well flavored and presented interpretation of the classic Chinese dish (which usually contains pork).

Note that the kitchen is VERY efficient at preparing food (banks of microwaves?) and is usually way faster at getting it to your table than you are at eating it, or than your server is to bring your drinks. On more than one occasion I’ve ordered drinks, appetizer and entree at the same time to have the appetizer arrive first, followed shortly after by the entree and then the wine as I’m half done with the entree. I recommend ordering serially, wait for something to arrive before you order the next thing.

Also, note that the wine is horrendously marked up. A bottle of Night Harvest Cabernet that I can get for $4.75 with my Ralph’s club discount card costs a whopping $26.50. For the mathematicians out there that’s a five zillion percent mark-up.

No vegan deserts, so fill up by adding some side dishes – the Spinach Stir Fried With Garlic and Asparagus are very good, as are Buddha’s Vegetables.

I have a busy office life. There’s always some lunch meeting to sit through, usually with the requisite pizza, Quiznos, Chinese food or (horrors upon horrors) KFC being delivered to tide ‘us’ over. Compounding that, I rarely get the time to go out and pick up a healthy snack for lunch so I’m often left to my own devices. I’ve learned over the years that desk drawers can be put to much better uses than holding files and the usual crap (cell ‘phone chargers, staplers without staples, boxes of staples that don’t fit in the aforementioned stapler etc.).

MY desk drawer (real picture):

…contains a life support system for the busy office vegan. The things that meat-eaters dread (carbs and sodium) don’t really matter to us vegans as much since we tend to be less fat and have lower blood pressure through a lack of meat intake.

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