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October 19th, 2011LA restaurants, long beach vegan eatery
the much anticipated long beach vegan eatery opened its doors to the public the other day, and we haven’t had a chance to get down there yet! we posted the menu yesterday, and now we’ve got a full on field report sent in by sasha. i’m hoping that because she visited on the first day, LBVE is still working out some of the kinks. i think i’ll give them some time to fix the glitches, and hit them up in a few weeks. check it out:
my boyfriend and I ordered the tots, a chicken sando, the bbq drumsticks, and a whoopie pie.
the drumsticks tasted great, but they were still cold in the middle! any they weren’t anything i couldn’t have made easily at home.
Tags: field report, long beach, quick bite -
October 18th, 2011LA restaurants, long beach vegan eatery
as we announced yesterday, LBC’s newest restaurant, long beach vegan eatery is now open! i can’t wait to check it out. reviews from QG readers have been kinda…er…mixed. here are the first shots of the menu along with much anticipated photos of the food (dinner, appetizer, and dessert!). these were sent to us via an anonymous reader w/ no comment. what do you think? keep in mind, this is the first day in business. i need to get over there and check it out for myself!
long beach vegan eatery menu page 1
Tags: field report, long beach, quick bite
long beach vegan eatery menu page 2 -
October 17th, 2011LA restaurants, long beach vegan eatery
ah, i’ve been wanting to try this place for ages. let’s go eat there!
long beach vegan eatery
Tags: long beach
2246 N. Lakewood Blvd, Long Beach, CA 90815 · Get Directions
562-986-LBVE
Mon – Sun: 11:00 am – 8:00 pm -
September 21st, 2011LA restaurants, wok n roll
hey dudes! time for a field report on vegan chinese food from a somewhat local spot, wok n roll in long beach. what?!?! how have i not eaten here? i go to LBC all the time, and this place wasn’t even on my radar until joel wrote to me about it. anyways, here’s what he said:
Wok n Roll is easily my favorite spot in Long Beach, the city is a little lacking as I know you are aware. This place does something special; it’s a little vegan chinese fast food gem. Granted this place isn’t entirely vegan, they have a whole vegan-friendly vegetarian menu including ‘meat’ fried rice or chow mein, a couple of sandwiches, soups, and seriously THE BEST vegan chicken nuggets i’ve tried thus far.
As for the main options, they pretty much can make you anything off their regular menu but vegan of course…
Tags: chinese, long beach -
September 18th, 2011LA restaurants, long beach vegan eatery
all you people who were stressin’ about the lack of vegan options in long beach when we wrote that less than flattering post about steamed can chill out—a new vegan restaurant is opening next month in the LBC!
Tags: long beach -
August 29th, 2011LA restaurants, steamed
i hate writing lukewarm reviews about meatless establishments…but after my first visit to steamed, long beach’s newest vegetarian restaurant, i wasn’t very impressed. the place is obviously making an effort, and i’m hoping they’ll improve over time, but at the moment their vegan cuisine is a bit uninspired. the menu is pretty basic—a modest selection of salads, burritos, and quesadillas—most of which are loaded with dairy cheese and/or sour cream.
we hit up steamed over the weekend and kept it simple with a salad and a burrito bowl. before the food arrived, the restaurant had already lived up to it’s name—we felt as though we were being steamed in the tiny un-airconditioned dining room!
Tags: healthy, long beach -
May 20th, 2011LA restaurants, zephyr cafe
rah rah! in the midst of all these horrible LA vegan restaurant closures, we’re happy that we finally have some good news to share: zephyr cafe in long beach has decided to dump the dairy!
Tags: long beach -
January 13th, 2011LA restaurants, red brick pizza
holy shit guys, the vegan pizza revolution is underway! the other day i was getting ready for vegan pizza day and browsing their website for pizzerias that sell vegan pie. i coudn’t believe my eyes when i clicked on the valencia tab and saw that red brick pizza (the huge chain) is now offering daiya.
in disbelief, i picked up the phone and called the red brick pizza on copper hill in santa clarita. sure enough the dude on the phone confirmed that they had just started carrying daiya, and that both the standard crust and sauce were vegan. i hung up and called the pasadena location. they had daiya as well. i hung up and called the long beach location. they were out of daiya, but would be getting more soon.
Tags: chain dining, long beach, pasadena, pizza, santa clarita, vegan pizza day -
December 23rd, 2010LA restaurants, zephyr cafe
long beach is only about 25 miles away from us here in los angeles, and still, i just don’t go there enough.
a recent visit to the LBC turned into a marathon session of fun that included vegan food, good beer, and awesome music. i need to get out of LA more often.
Tags: bands, beer, long beach -
September 7th, 2010LA restaurants, zephyr cafe
hi everyone, time for another vegan field report! this post is written by the talented Aj aka QueerVeganRunner, and comes to us all the way from the LBC. so sit back and enjoy her awesome review and drool-worthy burger pix…
We have new friends who live in Long Beach and so we ventured down there for the first time a month or two ago and keep going back. It seems that vegan restaurants are not plentiful in the LBC and Zephyr Café it one of the only options. That’s fine by me, because it’s great…except for the hours (only open until 4 pm on Sundays, wha-what?).
Tags: burger, field report, long beach, queerveganrunner, sandwich -
May 30th, 2010LA restaurants, zephyr cafe
long beach has got nothin’ on LA when it comes to vegan food. it’s actually quite shocking after having been spoiled in this vegan mecca to drive just 20 miles south and be met with so few dining options. lucky for us herbivores, the LBC does have one entirely meatless restaurant and while it isn’t worth a special trip, it definitely fills the void. i’m talkin’ about zephyr cafe.
zephyr cafe is a spacious comfy eatery with lots of hippie vibes and a completely vegetarian menu. i raved about the place two years ago, but looking back on my review i feel like must have not gotten out much back then. now i eat at vegan restaurants like it’s my job, and the zephyr praise just doesn’t hold up. don’t get me wrong, the food is decent and good…but it just hits the spot, without going the extra mile.
Tags: burger, long beach, seitan -
January 27th, 2010long beach, more restaurants (not LA)
hey everyone, time for another field report from vegankitten. this one comes all the way from long beach, and reviews some vegan pho at number nine noodles! here you go:
When Number Nine opened on Retro Row in Long Beach a few years ago, I couldn’t help myself from stopping in to see if there were any vegan options. The Vietnamese restaurant is housed in a narrow building with white walls, modern, minimalist decor and big sign advertising NOODLES & BEER, all of which is very appealing to me. I was so excited to see the tiny menu was teaming with vegan options, including one of my all time favorites – PHO!
Let’s start with drinks: They offer 6 beers, 5 white wines, 4 red wines and 4 cocktails. Their menu is like their decor – minimalist. Our waitress was about as far from friendly as they come. She was awkward, uncomfortable and seemed suspicious of me and my camera. She asked for our drink orders and I asked her for a red wine recommendation. Keep in mind, they have FOUR RED WINES and she really gave me a hard time. If I ask for a recommendation, just give me your personal opinion, I’m not going to send it back! After asking a bunch of questions about my wine preferences, I settled on the Red Rock Merlot. If I would have taken a few seconds to check Barnivore I would have known it was not vegan-friendly. Sad. My dining companion ordered the Tiger Beer, which is vegan and only $4.00!
We had a few choices for our appetizer, but we chose the vegetarian spring rolls and Russian root vegetable salad. The spring rolls were amazing! The delicate rice paper was packed with tofu, mushrooms, lettuce, vermicelli and carrots. They were crispy, fresh and perfectly chilled. They were served with the sweetest, most delicious peanut sauce and Sriracha sauce, which I avoided. The peanut sauce was so delicious that, if I hadn’t been on a date, I would have eaten it with a spoon.
Not surprisingly, we did not receive our russian root vegetable salad. The waitress didn’t write down our order and it was quite obvious to me from the get-go she wasn’t capable enough to take an order without writing it down. Unfortunately, we were in a bit of a rush trying to make a movie at The Art Theatre across the street and didn’t have time to ask for it.
My dining companion and I both ordered the vegetarian pho as our main course. Pho is a Vietnamese noodle soup, generally with a beef broth. I’ve rarely seen vegan versions of this delicious dish and have only had the pleasure of eating it at one other place – Gingergrass in Silverlake. I like interactive food, so I think that may have something to do with my attraction to pho. Along with your soup, you are brought a plate of garnishes to add to your soup at your discretion. As I’ve mentioned in previous reviews, I usually find garnishes odd and the pho garnishes are no exception. They are intimidating, but I’ve eaten this dish enough times that I now embrace them. Number Nine offers the traditional pho garnishes: basil, lime wedges, bean sprouts, chili peppers, one sweet paste (Hoisin) and one spicy paste (Sriracha).
Although almost impossible to eat, Number Nine’s pho is delicious. The rice noodles at the bottom of the bowl are tied in a knot. Armed with only a pair of chop sticks and an asian soup spoon, breaking them apart is like solving a Rubik’s Cube. I recommend bringing a hair tie, as well! The ingredients included mushrooms, cilantro, onions, huge chunks of carrot and radish and the same amazingly seasoned firm tofu found in the spring rolls. From our garnish plate, I added the juice of one lime wedge, a bunch of bean sprouts and all of the Hoisin Sause. It was so tasty and the perfect meal for a blustery Southern California day. And would you believe it’s only $8.00? I can’t…just look at the huge bowl!
This is the third time I have been to Number Nine and I’m definitely going back. The service has always left something to be desired, and this time was the worst, but the food truly makes up for it. Plus it’s located on the coolest street in Long Beach. Number Nine is located in the heart of Retro Row and a block away from the beginning of Alcohol Alley. What more could you ask for 🙂
Number Nine
Tags: field report, long beach, noodles, pho, vegankitten
2118 East 4th Street
Long Beach, CA 90814
(562) 434-2009
Open Sun-Thu 12:00pm-9:30pm; Fri + Sat 12:00pm-10:00pm -
June 1st, 2009LA restaurants, yard house
UPDATE 06/07/10: this post is waaaay out of date. not all this stuff is even on the menu anymore! there is good news though, yard house is adding gardein to the menu. read about it here.
UPDATE 06/02/09: the ‘vegan’ lettuce wraps at yardhouse, which the staff told me were vegan as did the veganxpress iphone application, turned out to be almost entirely vegan, but with a sheen of oyster sauce sprayed on them to preserve them. special thanks to commenter kate, who alerted me to this. they use non-vegan fish sauce in their lettuce/tofu/mushroom wraps. i don’t trust anything at this place now, except the beer. the food can go fuck itself.
it’s always interesting to see what vegan options can be found at large chain restaurants, and it turns out the yard house has some pretty good selections. i usually visit yard house not to eat, but to drink vast quantities of alcohol. the place claims to have the largest selection of draft beer in the world, and serves the drinks in your choice of a standard pint glass, a huge half yard glass, or an enormous glass that’s a yard long and almost impossible to drink. after too many pints of strong beer on our recent visit, my husband and i decided we should order some food to help soak up the booze. i pulled out my iphone and launched the veganxpress application, a $1.99 app that lists vegan options at chain and fast food restaurants. thankfully, the yard house was one of the restaurants covered in the application, so we went about ordering up what was vegan on the menu.
we started with the edamame which was obviously vegan, and it was pretty tasty. not much to really say about it, but all of it was fresh and i really enjoyed the kosher salt. we also ordered the lettuce wraps with the mushroom option, and they were surprisingly good. these were actually some of the best lettuce wraps i’ve ever had, with lightly fried smoked tofu and 2 kinds of mushrooms. the chunky pine nuts also added a great texture, and the green onion a delicious but subtle flavor. i highly recommend these. be sure to specify you want the mushroom option though, because these also come with the choice of shrimp or chicken. blech.
for our main course, we shared the portobella burger which was made vegan by omitting the cheese and mayo. i also told them to leave off the bell peppers, which left us with a huge mushroom, a slice of eggplant and tomato, and some basil. this thing was pretty dry and boring, but we livened it up with some hot sauce and were good to go. it definitely hit the spot, but i don’t think i’d ever order it again. my advice would be to stick to the lettuce wraps.
so next time you are at the yard house getting your drink on with some omnivores, rest assured, they have food for you too. and if you have an iphone, you may wanna drop $1.99 on the veganxpress app. i have used it a few times, and in my mind, it has already paid for itself.
Tags: bars, chain dining, edamame, long beach, portabello, veganxpress -
May 26th, 2008urban living
On occasion, I spend the night on the Queen Mary in Long Beach. It is the only ‘thing’ in the USA that actually truly evokes Great Britain. Yeah, there are edifices like London Bridge in Lake Havasu and fake English Pubs in every city but Queen Mary is the only thing built in Great Britain, storied with direct history from Great Britain (Winston Churchill, Laurel and Hardy, several monarchs, movie stars etc.), and sold to the oil-rich Long Beach Americans by Britain in 1969. Hell, it’s even had 75 people croak on it since it was launched back in 1933.
In 2003, the ship had actually spent more time crippled and mummified in Long Beach harbor than it did sailing to and fro across the Atlantic for decades before. One of the most special places on the ship is the Observation Bar on the promenade deck, which is surprisingly well preserved from the original 1920s construction, and is one of the very few parts of the ship which retains its original function intact, as well as most of its interior fixtures and fittings.
The Observation Bar, 1934
Sitting at one of the tables, it’s possible to imagine the bar just as it would have been 40, 50 or even 60 years ago with tuxedoed barmen (always men in those days) polishing silver Martini olive spoons (500 gallons of gin were loaded up before each transatlantic sailing), before serving the perfectly shaken and stirred cocktails to the elite of America and Europe as they travelled on this five-day long party.
The Observation Bar, 2008
You can see from the pictures above just how well the physical presentation of the bar has survived through nearly 3/4 of a century, but the clientele have changed somewhat over the last 70 years….
Tags: long beach, observation bar, queen mary -
May 13th, 2008tofutti, urban living, zephyr cafe
long beach is great place to hang out in the spring. it’s got pleasant weather, tons of cool bars, a historic transatlantic relic, and now (i’ve finally found) the zephyr vegetarian cafe.
mf burger: homemade patty, tofutti cheese, sprouts, tomato, onion, romaine, mushrooms, avocado & vegan mayo
grilled tofu sandwich: tofu, grilled onion & mushrooms on toasted bread with vegan mayo $5zephyr cafe is a funky little vegan paradise tucked in between the busy streets of downtown long beach.
the inexpensive fare, serene atmosphere, and all together tastyness of the food make zephyr a must on the list of places for vegans to hit-up when visiting the LBC.
i, myself, was very reticent to even try out the zephyr cafe. the immediate association with a red hot chili peppers song was enough to turn me off…not to mention the hippie vibes and lack of burritos on the menu. however, being in long beach overnight surrounded by chain restaurants and fish joints was enough to make me swallow my pride and give zephyr a chance…and boy, i’m sure glad i did!
i’ve heard a lot of complaints on reviewy type websites about the parking difficulties at zephyr cafe. well, i know from personal experience that those problems can be avoided by parking in the lot next to the rock bottom brewery just a short walk away. not only will you be able to park in downtown long beach for free, you’ll have time for a nice pint of cask ale before heading over to the organic-bottled-beer-only zephyr cafe. (i prefer to get my drinking done at a real bar and letting the nice vegan food soak up my drunkenness…rather than eating tons of lovely food with tasteless “healthy” beer—but suit yourself!)
now, more about the amazing food.
Tags: burger, long beach, queen mary, tofu -