VeGreen | Vegan Food Worth Eating

No Meat with Your Greens

I have been food writing now for over eight years and have never really found a vegan spot that I loved or even liked. That said, a friend of mine – Jose, brought up the idea of doing a meetup event at this new Vegan Restaurant, I – along with others were a bit thrown off by it.

To save face and keep from this being a total disaster, we decided to go there ahead of time and try this place out and was completely thrown off by all the things we saw and tried.

VEGAN – NOT “VEGETARIAN”

Let me go a bit into this and tell you that when a place is actaulyl Vegan, they dont go by the same standards as your usual vegetarian spot with cheeses, eggs – some fish etc. Vegan means that not only are they not eating meat but they stay away from any bi-product of animals such as honey, milk and eggs. That said, its extremely hard to make a Vegan cake but some still pull it off well. Read more about the differences here

VeGreen started out as a vegetarian establishment and used some bi product ingredients including gluten but has recently changed their whole menu to be 100% vegan with not even the use of gluten in their dishes.

Hearing all of this, I’m sure your getting excited to try it like i was (totally not really). I figured that we would go there, try some salad, and I would leave to get a burger. I was not only stuffed but totally enjoyed my experience here. That said, lets dive into the dishes we tried.

BRIGHT ATMOSPHERE

This place is well lit and all of the workers, speak great English which says a lot for Duluth restaurants. One thing that got me was that many of the people eating here were also very friendly and wouldn’t mind sharing their dishes with you to ease the nervous gazes you make at the menu (if you not a vegan like me).

An Extremely Diverse Menu

The tea menu was pretty crazy with over 15 teas sold at 3.95 per pot. The pots came out in a french press type of container which made it pretty potent especially if you give it time to steep.

the menu is broken up into veggie sushi, appetizers, veggie main courses, rice noodles, and mock meats. Seeing that there were mock meats here change my whole perspective of this place entirely. I have tried mock meat dishes in Japan and a few establishments here but they never really hit the spot for me. That said we decided to change this narrative to focus on the mock meat dishes served here. If you wish to know more about mock meats, read all about it here – otherwise, lets continue the journey:

ONE OF THE BEST EGGPLANT DISHES IVE HAD

Upon being seated and looking at the menu, I saw that the couple next to me had a certain dish that was large enough to feed all three of us as an appetizer. This was the fried eggplant appetizer. The couple didnt mind telling us their experience and offering to let us try it before ordering – cool guys they were. I usually like my eggplant in a more saucy dish rather then just fried but this was fried well.

Somehow it was extremely dry enough to almost not even have the eggplant flavor but the batter itself was seasoned in a great way – still can’t put my finger on what they did. This is a dish I am still craving to try again once I get the time.

Fish and Tofu Clay Pot

This dish was extremely tricky. To this day I have no idea how they were able to create such a realistic fish texture/flavor but they pulled it off somehow. The dish came more like a soup with a mixture of the fish and tofu. It worked out great with a bowl of rice to eat with or pour over.

Shrimp Stir Fry

Jose ventured off into tricky turf by ordering a shrimp stir fry dish. I have no idea how they were going to pull off making shrimp out of – whatever- but they did a good job visually.

This dish didnt quite make it for me to be fully a shrimp flavor. They did however, get it to resemble the texture and smell of shrimp so there was some mind tricks happening when your eating it. That because your mind sees shrimp and feels the texture but missed the flavor so something get confusing. All together I still give points on this dish because of the fact that they still got close to it without using any type of imitation fish.

Yes, There Are Steak Dishes

The peppered steak was done very well. It came out on a sizzling fajita type of intro stir -fried with mixed vegetables and frankly had a great initial smell of steak and veggies. Upon trying this dish, I would have to give them super kudos on copying the flavor of steak so well. The mock meat totally tasted like a light and tender steak seasoned with black pepper.

“You gotta bear with me here – I didn’t get to write down the true names of these dishes. So i’m just keeping the names general for now”

After eating a while, another group sat next to us and offered Jose to try their rice dish. We were a bit amazing at how large the portions are. The rice as a mountain that could easily feed the group of four by itself. All of our dishes were quite hearty but due to the lack of heavy ingredients, you can still walk out of there without feeling bloated or heavy.

WANT TO TRY? CHECK OUT OUR MEETUP EVENT HERE:

3780 Old Norcross Rd Ste 106 Duluth, GA 30096
Get Directions
Phone Number (770) 495-8828
vegreen.com