Vegan at Papa Vino's?

Well, it can be done, at least.  It's no better than what you get when you eat omni at Papa Vino's...but you can eat a couple reasonably substantive meals at this midwestern Italian chain.  I go to the one on Hilltop in St. Joseph, Michigan. 

You can have pasta: the fettucine and spaghetti are vegan, though not the ravioli dough (but then again, none of the ravioli filling is vegan, either) or the spinach fettucine, which both have egg.  The pizza crust is also vegan.  Then you have your choice of toppings: the primavera veggies or the mixed mushroom (as comes on the Mushroom Fettucine dish).  But if you're going to have a sauce, you're going to have to make it marinara--it's the only vegan sauce.

I had the Mushroom Fettucine with marinara instead of the garlic cream sauce.  It was decent, if a little oily.  And it could have used some Veggie Italian Sausage...I've been taking these to all the barbeques to eat with hot dog fixings (I made them a little thick for this purpose--they're very filling--next time I'll make them more hot-dog-sized) and dicing them up and frying them to add to pizza and pasta, and last night to an excellent lentil salad.

Vegan in St. Joseph, Michigan

Well, it's been a long time since I posted, huh...?  I guess my excuse is that I'm a new vegan--I'm experimenting, figuring out what I'm doing.  I'll tell you, though, I have been eating really, really well.  As in, delicious food, and lots of it.  And spending too much money to do it.  I want to try everything out there.  The vegan pizza, cheeze, fauxsage, Vegenaise (which is basically the greatest food ever found in a jar)--everything I can find in this small town.  Thank god for Apple Valley.

I wanted to write, though, about my experiences eating out.  I am starting to leave behind my initial crutch of relaxing my cheese avoidance at restaurants, and I've had a couple good vegan meals, right here in the middle of meat-and-potatoes Berrien County, Michigan.

Cassava is a new Latin American restaurant in the old Elks Club building in downtown St. Joseph.  Unfortunately, the ambiance is still pretty Elks-Club-ish...but they're just getting started, I'm sure.  I had the Vegetarian Paella, which I confirmed was also vegan.  It was shockingly rich and full of nicely cooked veggies.  I had it with a very good mojito--it was Thursday, $4 mojito night!  I took half the paella home and ate it two mornings in a row for breakfast, and it lived up to my memory both times.

The other meal I'd highly recommend is a sandwich at Clancey's Deli on Niles, also in St. Joseph.  I ordered the Turkey Tabbouleh with "no turkey, salami, provolone or mayo."  The server looked at me like I'd asked her to poke me in the eye with a fork, but shrugged her shoulders and made an excellent sandwich, anyway.  I asked for extra tabbouleh and some other veggies they don't usually add.  I can't wait to eat that again.  I should mention that I don't know the ingredients in the bread.  It was a french bread roll.  I haven't really found a guaranteed, no-question-about-it vegan bread in the supermarkets here, though, either...

The other restaurant at which I've tried to eat vegan is Silver Beach Pizza.  I tried the Margherita Pizza, no cheese, and it was pretty boring--it comes with fresh tomatoes instead of sauce, so it was sort of just tomatoes on bread.  God, I miss Silver Beach Pizza.  I'm pretty sure the crust is vegan (I plan to ask one more time), though, and the marinara sauce is vegan, so next time I will try to come up with something else.  They even serve a "Vegan Lentil Sauce" as a pasta option--now that's a word you don't see often on a menu around here.  I'm sure they can do better than a cheese-less Margherita.

Happy eating.  I'll post again, hopefully sooner than four months from now...