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RenoVegans Key to Local Restaurant Features
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But where can I EAT? Well, most of us vegans prefer to have our better/cheaper meals at home, fresh from the garden. A lot of us don't add much salt to things, but if you go out, the sodium levels will rise. Some of us are organic only and those options are hard to find. More vegans are reducing their processed oil intake (yes, olive) and many of us spurn soy products. What's a vegan to do? |
Billy Howard is a life-long vegan who eats mainly raw vegetables, fruits, nuts and grains, many out of his organic garden. Certificate in Plant Based Nutrition from Cornell University and the Campbell Foundation. Favorite snack: mushrooms. |
Susan Cesarini is the founder of Feline Rescue Of Northern Nevada, a non-profit feline sanctuary and owner of Cozy Cattery Boarding Resort. Plant strong since June 2011 and I'll NEVER go back! |
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Have a review of a restaurant experience? Let us know and we'll post for others to read.
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Choose a destination:
Reno/Sparks | South Reno | Tahoe
Reno/Sparks: Downtown | Midtown | Wells | West | Sparks | Manhattan
Reno/Sparks | South Reno | Tahoe
Reno/Sparks: Downtown | Midtown | Wells | West | Sparks | Manhattan
RenoVegans Recommends!
Looking for the best vegan offerings in town? While there is no full-service vegan-only restaurant in town, RenoVegans recommends these top four restaurants:
Looking for the best vegan offerings in town? While there is no full-service vegan-only restaurant in town, RenoVegans recommends these top four restaurants:
- Great Full Gardens - Vegan Faire, very fresh, healthful raw and lightly cooked meals.
- Anthony's Dandelion Deli - daytime homestyle good eats and great vegan desserts.
- Opa Cafe - Great offerings with a Mediteranean flaire!
- Rawr - Raw haute cuisine in a sushi bar atmosphere.
No exception here. Chef Gino will print a vegan menu featuring
Several Great Full Gardens **debuts**
The RenoVegans PreFixe Menu:
Cauliflower Ceviche to start
A Bountiful Harvest from Lost Girl Farms
Fresh vegetables picked just blocks away
Including lentils steeped in veggie broth
…more details coming…
Cashew Cheesecake
vegan, raw
or
Vegan Cookie ala mode with coconut bliss.
Also available and making a debut The Great Full Gardens vegan Rootbeer Float!
Or select from GFGs' many other vegan options.
- Listing of 11 Thai restaurants in Reno.
Personal favorite, Thai Lotus
in the parking lot of Home Depot on S. Virginia.
I love the pumpkin curry. I'm not a big fan of tofu so they always just add more of the vegetable to their curry sauces. The pumpkin is amazing in season. Make sure they know you are requesting vegan dishes. I always get their "brown" rice which is red and nutty. Perfect body for the rich curries. Of course sticky rice with mango for a sweet treat to share... the only time I ever eat white rice. -Billy Howard - Pneumatic Diner
TEMPORARILY CLOSED, EARLY 2015. The hipsters' spot for vegan and vegetarian faire. Up the stairway into the neon treehouse you go. You are met with vegan pies and various cookies at the front. You have to sit in a high chair, that's just how it is. Food Prep is a cockpit of a place utilizing the space ingeniously.
Lots of creative food to choose from. Favorite drink is the grape juice with peppermint tea. Who would have thought?
Many other good things including their delicious pies. There's a hummus plate that is overflowing and delicious. But always ask if a thing is vegan or not, including desserts. There's lots of cheese dishes, but the staff is at the ready to modify to vegan.
A caveat here. Their delish deserts are often made with copious amounts of palm oil. Palm oil is not vegan. The already endangered orangutan and Sumatran tiger species are losing habitat fast to oil palm plantations which see the animals as a barrier to profit. Other environmental devastation is occuring around the product, enough to make a vegan just say no. PS Most butter substitutes if not soy-based are palm oil based. So why pretend to eat butter? —Billy Howard
Pictured: Ratatouille (L), Seasonal berry and peach pie (R). - Bowl - West St. Market
A vegan dish or two on the menu of this new restaurant which also serves animals including venison. Enter street-side of West St. Market. Personally found the vegan pho to be uninspired. One of the spiciest soups ever devised, but not this version. Where's a star anise when you need it?
Had the Acorn Squash Risotto, mushrooms, snap peas, kale. Was a lot better than the pho. Friend had Zucchini "Meatballs", spaghetti squash, marinara sauce (vegan) and loved it. —Billy Howard [Yelp review] - Rawr - West St. Market
Love this place. Sometimes raw food can be heavy, dense and quite filling. I had the beet ravioli (left), the mushroom avocado roll with pea shoots (right) plus chocolate pistacio cake and chocolate sorbet with bergamot/lavender tea, all vegan. Amazingly delicious and creative and I never felt full or had the sense of having rich food. Left feeling light, nourished and ready to go home and get some work done.
Chef makes his own rice out of various plant-based materials that are scrumptious. Boxes of dehydrated fruits and veggies and jars of good things are at his fingertips, including the thin dehydrated eggplant strips he uses for his napolean "tower."
Meals are served at a bar sushi style, with patrons checking off their choices on a menu sheet. Quite busy weekend nights. If there's space in the larger room, Chef Brett can server you there, too.
Brett changes his menu weekly but the beet ravioli will be a staple and highly recommended. Next time will try another staple, Ratatouille Napolean Tower. Looking forward to returning often.—Billy Howard [Yelp review] - Da Vinci's at Siena
Formerly Lexi's on the River, this top-tier restaurant is now billed as a steak house. As such there is one item on the menu for a vegan, the house salad. I mentioned to our waitress my plight and she said "Chef" made a vegetarian dish of noodles and veggies sautéd in butter. I asked for olive oil instead. Halfway through eating the dish it occured to me the flat noodles were fettuccine which is a pasta made with egg; thus, this "vegetarian" dish is lacto-ovo vegetarian, a fail for you and me. I'm afraid there is nothing in this restaurant for a vegan except the unequaled view of the river and the lovely new design of the room. —Billy Howard [Yelp review.] - ROXY at the El Dorado
THIS RESTAURANT SERVES FOIE GRAS.
I had a delicious dinner at the Roxy inside the Eldorado thanks to the Master Chef Jakon! Five courses of Vegan greatness, started with Beet Bruschetta topped with Watermelon Radish and Micro Greens, Avocado salad drizzled with a Citrus dressing and crispy Onions, Kale Pine Nut salad with a Blood Orange Vinaigrette, Quinoa Polenta cakes, Crispy Seasoned Tofu cubes with a tangy Teriyaki dipping sauce, and ended with a refreshingly light Pineapple sorbet!! Mind was Blown!!! These are not on the menu but if you tell them you are Vegan Jakon will take care of you! —Aquila
Downtown
Midtown
Reno's only fully vegan kitchen which means this is RenoVegans' only 5 eggplant-rated eatery. Offering the healthiest food in town in a peaceful setting. All raw, all vegan and organic, local, the creations from this inspired and creative chef are top-notch. San Francisco style vegan faire at small town prices.
Great atmosphere whether inside in the dining area, bar or on the small patio in front of a balmy summer evening.
Choose from a number of tapas. They don't tell you this on the menu, but all dishes printed in green are verified vegan. The online menu doesn't have the vegan dishes marked.
Shown are some of my favorites off the three tapas menu:
Someday I'll have to try the vegetarian paella, I kid you not.
Named for the snowboarders' way to give each other props ("That pipe run was too soul, sister"), Too Soul is in the cottage the CoOp used to over-occupy. The intererior is lovely, the mother-daughter ownership is inspiring, the teas formidable (personal fav is the Maya Soother).
Vegan faire includes Gino's vegetable wraps that are alwasy hella good. Vegan cupcakes usually available. When I need to wind down I head to this little slice of heaven. —Billy
Freeman's Hot Dogs
Lots of vegan offerings of the many "hotdogs" on the menu including vegan chorizo, vegan buns, vegan bratwurst (yes, you heard me).
Organic animal products served so this is a great option when going out with the carnies. Kids' menu. Hey, and WiFi. And locally owned. Place is too hip for school. —Billy Howard
SoDo - South Of Downtown Restaurant
The nice thing about SoDo is if you can't find what you want on the menu, the chef will come out and talk to you about what s/he can make for you. Most of their salads won't work as printed, but they're happy to modify or create something fresh. They didn't have a vegan dessert but we saw berries and fruit on the menu for other items and asked for a bowl and four spoons and out it came, though not dressed with anything for flaire, like a nice sprig of mint. Just a plain old bowl of berries. For a nice place with a supposedly friendly chef, you'd expect a bit more penaché.
The sole vegan item is only on the lunch menu, a "Vegan Wrap, warm pita / hummus/ cucumber / quinoa / tomato / spring greens." Was trés delicious and you can never go wrong if you offer me sweet potato fries. The dinner menu is rife with animals and no vegan options, so you definitely have to ask for the Chef to come out. Word is he can whip up a mighty delicious plate for you. Couldn't hurt to call ahead the day before and let them there will be a vegan in the house. —Billy
Wells
Lots of homecooked vegan fair (amazing desserts, especially vegan cupcakes). Some non-vegan food is served. Monthly dinner features vegan/vegetarian only menu.
In December our group headed over and were treated to Tofu Pot Pie, Sweet Potato Tamales, Chile and Root Vegetable Stew. All were exceedingly pleased. Dessert included black forest cake with vanilla ice cream and a bread pudding. Lots of happy faces with all looking forward to the next time. Check our calendar as some of us go every month. —Billy Howard
Don't even take the link to their website if you are the slightest squeemish about dead animals. Nothing much more to say…
Near Wells…
On the spur of the moment, we decided to drop by Opa Cafe for dinner after being enticed by their photo of Vegan Baklava on the RenoVegans Facebook page. It was our first time there and I was quite surprised at the variety of vegan options. My entree of choice was the Coconut Tofu Anana. The hint of coconut was quite tasty, but the pineapple chunks in nearly every bite added a lot of flavor. Not only was it delicious, it was a very generous portion priced reasonably at $12.95. I could have easily saved half of it for lunch the next day but I decided to eat the whole thing.
I paired my dish with a nice glass of Nemea Boutari for $6.50. Chef Alexi Dimitriadis served our entrees right from the kitchen and said they will be rotating a variety of vegan dishes each week. The eclectic dinner plates were quite nice to see, different from being at a chain restaurant where everything is boring and the same. This really added to cozy, family feel, I thought.
Of course, I finished the evening with some freshly made and very tasty vegan baklava. Regretfully, I didn't order a piece to take home. As this business grows, I would love to see a patio dining area to meet friends for coffee and vegan dessert when the weather is nice. This locally owned family business is definitely worth a visit! —Susan Shinn Cesarini
Vegan baklava to die for. The herb garden.
WEST
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mThai, McCarran and Caughlin Ranch Pkwy. Formerly the Green Papaya
Sophisticated interior design comes as a surprise in this strip mall. Lunch special included a lot of vegan options on the menu including an unusual salad with nuts and a delightful and refreshing coconut milk salad dressing. Soup came along, too, and though I was suspicious of the floating fried wanton, it, too, turned out to be harmless to we vegans. I asked for fresh ginger to be added to the basil garlic stir-friend vegetables and, as always, brown rice. Great meal, nice place, one of the lowest lunch bills yet. —Billy
SPARKS
- Black Rock Pizza, McCarran and Pyramid Way.
I have never been to a more Vegan friendly place! Black Rock Pizza in Sparks is definitely the place to be if you're a vegan. They are rolling out an awesome Vegan menu and will be adding Vegan desserts within the next couple weeks. I ordered the Portabella Flats Pizza that had leaf spinach, portabella mushrooms, roasted red pepper topped with Daiya cheese on a multi grain crust. I customized my pizza and they will tailor any menu item to be Vegan if possible. If you like the Vegan pizza at Whole Foods, this is way, way better. For those who need it, they also have a gluten free crust but it contains eggs. We were impressed that our waiter, Charlie and the manager, Sara were very interested in what we had to say about the needs of Vegans. In the kitchen, each Vegan order is only started once they completely sanitize the entire area to avoid cross contamination. Sara, the manager in charge, has been working on the this for quite some time and finally decided it was time to cater to Vegans. There were 3 Vegan tables just during the time we were there. The house wine is Stone Cellars priced at a very reasonable $4.50 for a generous pour. We need to support our local Vegan restaurants so please give them a try. During the month of March, bring in the ad from the Reno News & Review for a special price of only $15 for a 12" pizza. We will definitely go back! —Susan Shinn Cesarini
- Simply Thai. Map: Eagle Canyon & Pyramid Hiway.
I live quite a ways from this delightful restaurant, but whenever out this way it's a sure stop. The moment you walk in you are transported by the classic, simple, plant-filled, darkwooded interior. Sai, the owner, is a gem. Love talking with him about his home country of Burma.
The food is extrememly good. Pictured, the eggplant in a light and very tasty sauce. We loved the food so much we got the mango red curry to go. Another amazing dish in season. —Billy Howard
Manhattan - Just in case.
- The Cinnamon Snail Vegan Organic Food Truck.
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