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...