I love being vegan and I hate 10 best lists so I’m combining the two. Actually, I like 10 best lists but they’re trite. Oh well, I’m trite, so here goes.
This was my first full year being vegan. Woo-hoo, special me! I should start a blog so I can tell the whole world how great I am!
In no particular order, except that I’m starting with the tenth best and working my way in order to my favorite, here goes:
Doomie's pulled pork sandwich. (photo: toliveandeatinla.com)
10. Doomie’s pulled pork sandwich. I went into Doomie’s for the first time late one night and asked the woman at the counter what to get. She said, “Ask him,” and pointed to Doomie. Without hesitating he said, “The pulled pork sandwich” and smiled an evil smile. It was great.
9. Clementine’s cous cous with roasted squash, dried cranberries, pistachios, scallions and lemon vinaigrette AND their beluga lentils with flame raisins, mizuna and toasted pepitas. I’m a little reluctant to include Clementine on here given that it’s not only a meat-heavy place but also the Worldwide Grilled Cheese Headquarters. But they have a salad case with a bunch of really fresh salads that rotate on a seasonal basis. You can get a three-salad combo for $11.95 and usually there are at least three that are vegan. I recently had the two above-mentioned salads along with some roasted beets, and while the beets were good the two other salads were UNBELIEVABLY good. Eat a forkful and put your fork down and say to yourself was that just as good as I thought it was good. The current menu will be around until late January. Go.
The Bigger Mack. (photo credit: http://www.huggerfood.com)
8. The Bigger Mack at Madeleine Bistro. Sure I could go with their famous Red Beet Tartare, which is great. Or the chicken and waffles, which I enjoyed. But dammit if Chef Dave doesn’t 100 percent nail the Big Mac taste. Not that it’s the greatest taste in the world. But it’s a very specific taste. And he did it. And not that I ever needed to eat another Big Mac after consuming way too many of them for way too many years. But when you think you’ll never get to taste a specific taste again, and then you do, it’s weird and impressive and satisfying.
7. The Wasabi Bean Burger at Native Foods Café. Don’t drop your iPad on the floor and run out the door to get one because they’re gone. This is an item that was on their menu earlier in the year and then, much to my dismay, disappeared. How come the world doesn’t do exactly what I want at all times?
6. A Dillo. A DingDillo to be specific. A cold DingDillo to be specificer. What are these? They’re vegan Chocodiles from Salt Lake City, what else did you think they were? I got mine at the Viva La Vegan grocery store in Rancho Cucamonga. But you can get em other places, too. I’m all out right now. And Rancho Cucamonga’s an hour away with no traffic. But I want one! Runners up in the dessert competition would have to be the Apple-Cranberry Toastie at Babycakes and the Blueberry Pomegranate ice cream I had one day at Scoops (the flavors change daily, as if you didn’t know).
Mandoline Grill's tofu banh mi. (Photo credit: veggie101.com)
4. Mandoline Grill‘s tofu banh mi. This has gotten a little confusing in the past month or so. There’s some extra charges associated with it now that I can’t quite figure out. Like an extra 50 cents for Vegenaise (the spelling of which always bugs me). There’s also some confusing new thing about a “vegan baguette.” Does that mean she now has NON-vegan baguettes on the truck, too? Were there always two kinds of baguettes on the truck? Or are vegans paying a surcharge for the same baguette that everyone else gets without paying the surcharge? Like I said, I’m confused. I tried to ask about it but the conversation went nowhere. That said, I like Mong. She’s super friendly and serves great vegan food and if she needs to charge a little extra for it I don’t mind.
All must bow to the ACSB. (photo: candypenny.blogspot.com)
1. The Ancho Chili Seitan Burger from the Cinnamon Snail. Hate to do this to you LA but the ACSB from the NYNJ food truck was incredibly, incredibly good. An even more perfecter combination of flavors than Fatty’s lentils, and believe me that’s saying something. I WANT THIS TRUCK TO LIVE NEAR ME.
And that’s my list. Did you have some vegan food this year that was so good you had to shake your head in amazement? I’d love to hear about it, especially if it’s within driving distance of my driveway.
insufferablevegan 
I love the vegan tofu banh mi from Mandoline Grill. And Mong is such a super sweetheart! I actually approached her one day with a printout of a vegan condensed milk product sold on some vegan website (forgot which one now) with a plea for vegan Vietnamese iced coffee. Another day I gave her a copy of a recipe for vegan condensed milk I found online. And guess what, my plea’s been heard. They started serving vegan iced coffee with homemade vegan condensed milk at that a few weeks ago. I’m happy :).
Thanks for sharing your faves this year. I’ll need to check out some of these places next year :).
I love how accommodating Mong is. I mentioned that I wished she was in my part of town more often and she gave me her card and said, “Find me a good spot and I’ll come!”
Love this post! I’m vegan and from Southern California and have heard of all of these places but haven’t been because I’m pretty lazy when it comes to visiting restaurants. Your post has inspired me to check them out! Thanks!
And I’m pretty lazy when it comes to cooking but I’m going to try to do more next year!
I’m eating a raspberry dillo right now, and totally credit this post for the inspiration; my local vegan store was out of DingDillos, but the raspberry is also delightful.
All this good stuff you ate in 2011 makes me want to visit SoCal so badly!!
I’m jealous! I’m out of Dillos right now and have to drive an hour to get more 😦 .