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.