Boca Raton
Bombay Cafe
Oaks
Plaza, opposite Florida Atlantic University, 628 Glades Road Tel 561 750
5299
(Just off the Interstate Highway 95)
All
Southern Vegetarian, fresh daily and made to a high and delicate
standard, this is gently explosive, right-on cuisine. This is no swanky
date restaurant. It’s a new, spotlessly clean little Deli where you can
sit and select from Uttapams, Dosas, Bhajis, Curries, Bhel Puris, Alu
Chats, Samosas, Kachori, Pakora, Vada dishes, Idlis, Sambars, Lassis,
Chais, Papadums, and Gulab Jamun, Shikhand, and Kulfi. I guess it helps
to be near a university, especially in a spot as silly as Boca.
CHARLESTON
Joseph's
Both
restaurant and haven, Joseph’s ( 129 Meeting St.), deserves
recognition, admiration, a round of hearty huzzahs and your presence.
The room is low key restful with appropriate art, scattered about. The
real art comes from the kitchen. Apparently Executive Chef/Owner Joseph
Passarini put some time in at Commander’s Palace in New Orleans and it
was the right thing to do. He excels in simple fare with complex
flavors.
We
made Joseph’s our breakfast headquarters and were rewarded with
sautéed spinach & mushrooms with white cheddar omelets,
egg whites with plum tomatoes, fresh herbs & muenster cheese, and French
toast ooh la la thick cut french bread marinated in eggs, vanilla &
cinnamon, grilled and served with maple syrup and (upon request)
revisionist eggs benedict--poached eggs served on holland rusks with
spinach (NOT Canadian bacon) topped with hollandaise sauce. (843)
958-8500
It
serves eclectic American cuisine, and received an Award of Excellence
from The Wine Spectator.Info 843-724-3800 or or
888-486-ROSE.
more
information
a
Mobil Four Star Restaurant and winner of
Wine Spectator's
"Best of Award of Excellence."
offers
lowcountry and coastal specialties and is nestled in Charleston
Place. (10 Exchange St.) Info 843-577-4522.
more information
Vintage Restaurant
(14 North
Market St.), another restaurant smiled upon by The
Wine Spectator,
serves "new-American cuisine." (843) 577-0090
More about Charleston
here.
LITTLE ROCK
Cajun’s Wharf
2400 Cantrell Road, Little Rock (501) 375-5351
Locals
brag on Cajun’s Wharf, located in the city's Hillcrest/Heights section,
as a landmark and source of pride (and a nice place to meet someone
new). Traveler simply sees it is: an oasis for relaxation, spirits,
(loud) music and perhaps even food. Go up on the deck. which overlooks
the Arkansas River (see snap, above).
The
back-story: Landry's, a Houston-based chain, acquired this local
restaurant, a popular spot to drink up, hear live music and eat,
in the early ‘90s. The then new owner decided to make Cajun’s
Wharf more of a family destination. Didn’t work. A local group bought
the property in 1999 and there was and continues to be much joy.
It’s
mainly a seafood restaurant-bar, and as such, you can’t expect many
choices for vegetarians. What we had — salad, a cheese thing and French
fries — worked. There also is pasta. And it is one hell of bar, with 15
house varieties of wine. They serve a wicked mixed drink, “Play-de-Do”.
Loca Luna
is out and out Southern casual. It makes smart use of its wood fired
brick oven. Specialties include pastas, salads and gourmet pizzas. Good
grilled vegetables. 3519 Old Cantrell Rd. 501.663.4666
Franke's
Cafeteria
Vegetarians will find hot vegetable dishes here, but the grub’s not
nearly as nice as the Piccadilly chain. But then again, there are no
Piccadilly cafeterias in Little Rock and there are three Franke's
stops.. The candied yams were yummy, and they have some nice pies. We
like a nice pie, don't you?
300 South University Avenue (University Mall) 501.666.1941
11121 North Rodney Parham 501.225.4487
400 West Capitol Avenue (First Commercial Bldg.) 501.372.1919
More
about Little Rock here.
LONDON
The India Club
Certain restaurants
distinguish themselves with timeless qualities. Up two flights of creaky
stairs, you’ll feel you’re going back into a very dear, almost lost part
of London. Those stairs have been trudged for years and years (since
1950) by people who knew that they would get a good Indian meal at a
good price in a friendly atmosphere. Every time we come here we see
people we’d love to know – writers and other verbal types, local
business people, dear friends meeting for lunch, world travelers and the
dedicated staff of nearby India House, the awesome building
Londoners go to get their visas for India.
At a time when London
restaurants are flexing their muscles and busting your wallets, it is a
pleasure to know you can order a huge meal for two vegetarian people for
£13. (If you want booze, bring your own.) The current owner of the
50-year-old establishment has been there for eight years. It is a
cozy room, but you do not feel crowded, the waiters all smile at you and
bring you a pitcher of water. Your meal may be delivered to your table
via some pretty historic grey metal trays, Do get a look at them.
Razzle dazzle and glitz have their place, but sometimes we also
like to go humble, and real, and go where we can order good solid curry
with integrity, and it tastes good too. The dishes are prepared slowly
and taste like it. Just like Rama used to make. The lemony walls are
adorned as they have been for years with pictures of Gandhi and Nehru
and Rabindrath Tagore 143 Strand, WC2.
(020) 7836 0650 7The Strand It’s open 7 days a week from noon to 2:30
and 6-10 plus.
Govinda
Govinda’s
pure vegetarian restaurant and takeaway 10 Soho StreetW1D 3DL
020 7437 5875 Okay they’re hari krishnas, but you don’t have to shave
your head to enjoy healthful, tasty , portions of a decent curry,
lasagna or other veggie treats.
more information
The Place Below
The Place Below
is in the crypt of St. Mary Below Church, street called Cheapside EC2.
tube stop is St. Paul or Bank. Open Monday to Friday only 7:30 to 2:30.
It’s actually quite cheery as crypts go. The place Below is one of those
marvelous wonders, one hopes to find. The very workaday, humdrum, normal
surroundings and buzz, crypt notwithstanding is the home of a great
variety of freshly prepared, tasty, strictly vegetarian, inexpensive
meals. There’s just enough virtue in the air to let you know you’re
doing a good thing for yourself; but not too much virtue to pale the
thrill of scarfing lunch down.
Pearl
Make no mistake. When you
dine in Pearl, you are indeed having a gem of an experience. Who ever
thought you could transform butternut squash into gold, beets into
rubies and parsnips into platinum. The restaurant is located in
the Renaissance Chancery Court Hotel, on the site of the Pearl assurance
company’s erstwhile banking floor.
Head chef Jun Tanaka has
gathered not so much of a staff as a cult. Eager to please the master.
Eager to educate and serve the diner/knowledgeable attentive staff.
Pearl strands of Pearls
wafting up to the ceiling in columns.. To heighten the magic, a circle
of light glows on each table top. The light actually radiates from
below
We were so shocked at how
delicious the first bite was we burst out laughing. Rocket, cauliflower,
pearl onion, baby carrots and mushrooms all marinated lightly, yet still
maintaining each vegetable’s own distinct flavour.
There was the passionate
beetroot tart. Different dishes had tiny little daubs of purée.
Tanaka plays with the
shape of the dishes. Even the angle at which the dish is presented to
you indicates he has a love of geometry and when the honey roasted
parsnips came standing in forest of cones, it was the blessed
marriage of food and quantum physics.
An adorable small soup
bowl looked like a Saturn cut in half, smooth and white, or perhaps an
inverted flying saucer. The chef chose all the crockery carefully.
Another example: A long ovoid plate which the waiter took care to place
in front of Traveler at an 150° angle. The main course was some kind of
roasted vegetable and butternut squash enrobed in glazed pastry case, so
delicate and delicious it sends shivers down the spine. To this day we
do not know what was in it but it was incredible. And for dessert, there
was cranberry granita atop vanilla yogurt.
For he hath taken the
most humble and placed it on a seat next to him in heaven. For
these are the most humble of all the vegetables and he has made
them the most heavenly. Perhaps it is true that the meek shall
inherit.
Pearl Restaurant and bar
252 High Holborn ST. London WC1V 7E
More
about London here.
MIAMI
Shalimar
South
Miami: Just off the Florida Turnpike, there was a wonder called
Shalimar, and a proper sit-down little restaurant it was too, with a
full traditional menu. Sometimes we drive there all the way from the
Keys just to stock up on take-aways. It’s conveniently just off the
off-ramp and the food....the food is delicious, just like Rama used to
make. Is it still there? We’ll find out soon, and get right back to you.
NEW YORK
Curry in a Hurry
119
Lexington Avenue
NY NY 10016
tel 212 683 0900 and 683 0904 and 683 5856 and 683 5944
fax 212 685 6385
This world famous
pit stop (since 1976) for taxi drivers, film stars, Indian families,
homesick diplomats and obsessed nutcases like your reviewers who once in
awhile wake up and must have the full smorgasbord of
Indian dishes for breakfast at 10 o'clock in the morning
is not to be missed. In you come, look at the Big Board above,
and point to all you want. They load it all onto a tray and then you
teeter up the narrow stairs, where, waiting for you is a room full of
tables and another buffet. We're not talking high gourmet dining here,
but the pakoras are stunning and the dishes are the real thing, home
cooking, perhaps, just like Rama used to make.
Travel tip: Get
take-away samosas for a picnic on the plane, or to stash in your mini
bar for a jet-lag snack.
Bombay Palace
You
can always count on Bombay Palace to serve you a delicious, superior
excellent meal...it almost guarantees excellence in every dish. If you
need to take someone to a special lunch at a moment's notice, the
cooking will never let you down .The rooms are constantly being
renovated and glitzed up and convey a casual sense of occasion. People
feel flattered to be asked to join you here. Bombay Palace is an
international chain. The up side to this is it has extremely high
standards.
Nice stop for
Fifth Avenue shoppers or midtown execs. I like to "test" Indian
restuarants by ordering difficult, variable dishes: Mattar Paneer is a
case in point. The peas should be bright green, not army coloured. The
paneer should be large, plump, rectangular, soft and taste of rosewater.
Bombay Palace's always passes the paneer test, where hardly anyone else
does. They sell their own cookbook: a must have.
Unlike Madjhur
Jaffery's and other 'earth toned' flavours,
the Bombay Palace's approach has a brightness and confidence and
gourmet swagger, a genuine polish that makes you want to eat these foods
every day. We've got three copies, and whenever we go into the
hinterlands, the book goes with us. (Want to buy the book?) Go
here.
Pricey a la carte
and at night, your best bet
is the glorious (but
limited, compared to Diwan's sumptuous lunchtime spread) seven days a
week lunch buffet. The good old BP has been in business for ever, and
perhaps the only complaints we might have about it are the ever-changing
three selections of vegetarian dishes on the daily buffet. They don't
always think about how it must feel having a choice of three dishes that
are lentils, peas and potatoes, and chick peas: beans, bean, beans! To
be fair, they will offer to bring you another dish, but this always
embarrasses us. We don’t like to make a fuss. Phone before you go and
ask what's on today. If you're lucky it might be mattar or sag paneer,
cauliflower, and black dhal, or kofta, or veg jalfrezi.
30 West 52nd Street (between Fifth and Sixth Avenues)
NY NY 10019
BP on the Web
SAN FRANCISCO
The
Stinking Rose---Garlic Holy of Holies
Among what
Ruth Reichl calls theme park restaurants (Hard Rock Cafe, Planet
Hollywood, Fashion Cafe, Jekyll and Hyde), it's so nice to go to a
restaurant where the theme is food. The Stinking Rose is on Columbus
Avenue in the North Beach area; and it feels (and smells) like a
neighborhood fixture. Its name refers, of course, to garlic, and The
Stinking Rose is a garlic restaurant.
This is not a subtle place. The flavors are strong, direct, and honest.
And full of garlic--- smoky, sweet, passionate. The Penne #30, with
garlic and a cracked red pepper that you couldn't see but you definitely
could feel is sensational. The gnocchi was a little soft, but it came
with hearty marinara. And yes--- you'll have to make a decision. Should
you be a blatant tourist and have the garlic ice cream? Yes. As Phil the
waiter explained. By the time you reach the meal's end, you're kind of
used to the garlic.
Moreover, it's basically a vanilla ice cream with a caramelised
chocolate syrup, and very nice it is too. Stinking Rose is obvious,
rewarding fun and a noble, successful experiment, the only garlic
restaurant so far’s we know. Food’s good. The Rose stays open late, and
locals (we learned later) go there a lot.
325 Columbus Avenue San Francisco, CA. 94133
Tel. 415-781-7673 Fax. 415-403-0665
Curly's
Coffee Shop
Turn
right out of the Boheme on Columbus Avenue and walk up to Green Street
and you'll see it, jammed with locals. Grab your two sunnysides here and
avoid the rip-off six-buck omelettes on Columbus. But do get your coffee
opposite Hotel Boheme, at Cafe Puccini, where Lawrence Ferlinghetti, the
poet owner of the famed City Lights Bookshop, likes his java.
Kowloon
Vegetarian Chinese Restaurant
Dumplings and tea form an delicious, heart-healthy breakfast in a
peaceful, simple room filled with marvellous, mysterious fresh dim
sum...The racks swell with the puzzling packets of savoury delights in
unending varieties. Traveller's USA Notebook filled up on nut and
vegetable castles that look like rooks in a chess set and feel like
mashed potatoes going down, and a steaming platter of hot and crispy
lemon (mock) chicken, made from soy, not meat. The dumplings with water
chestnuts are especially stunning, fetching you back again and again to
lope up and down the hill of Grant Avenue, yearning for more, to this
humble spot where happy/sad, timeless Chinese songs suffuse your soul
with wistful suchness.
909 Grant Avenue,
San Francisco, CA. 94108
Tel. 415-362-9888 Open 9:00 am to 10:00 pm
More
about San Francisco here.
Scottsdale
Deseo
Deseo’s fresh and innovative Latin menu was created by chef Douglas
Rodriguez of New York’s Patria fame. The soothing, modern restaurant has
an open kitchen, where, if you like such things, you can see it all
happen, seated sushi bar style, or join the majority of diners who plump
for the banquettes and white table-cloths, with a view of the greens
outside. South and Central American food isn't what vegetarians think of
first when going out on the razzle for a little ‘sport dining’ — these
are meat and fish loving peoples. What a serendipitous opportunity, we
thought, to have master Chef de Cuisine Mark Dow cook up something
cruelty-free, ‘off-menu’.
The Drinks
For wine, we chose a red, a a soft but serious Chilean Cabernet
Sauvignon Errazuriz Reserve 1998. The wine selection is nicely rounded,
with wines from Chile, Italy and even France, and includes a large
selection of California wines, which seem to be getting better (and
pricier) by the year.
For cocktails, there was a curiously refreshing Cuban mint julep, the
Mojito Cubano, made with Appleton rum, lime-mint, white cane sugar and
soda. The fresh, crushed
dark green mint rises up to meet one’s lips, fragrant and perfectly
.balanced, one’s own private and secret garden. Hey, greens are good for
you. Also, there was the Deseo Colada, a siren of a drink, made with
Myers dark rum, passion fruit juice, and coconut. This one is pure
Martin Denny: you are in the tropics, and soon you will be supplying
your own birdcalls. This lovely libation, a layered, custard-coloured
flan of a drink, is draped with looping lines of coconut; it is
sweet, delicious, and deadly.
But health food was and is always first on our minds, and parked in a
champagne bucket near our table a bottle of Sole stood guard, a
sparkling mineral water imported from Italia. This apparently is the
Westin chain’s house brand
of water. In a place like Arizona, where the temperature in July can
reach 125 degrees Fahrenheit, this is big business.
And then there was Food
First came the Vegetable Arepas, scrumptious corn cakes topped with
spinach, fresh bits of tomato, and huge green capers, garlanded with
crème fraiche, accompanied by a basket of plantain chips and
a typical Colombian bread, pandebono, bland, round little rolls
made from a little mozzarella and a biscuit like batter.
Next, Gloria's Black Bean Soup (Gloria is Douglas Rodriguez's
mama), served up
with a deeply satisfying croquette plopped into its middle, soaking up
the soup, crisp on the outside and soft in the middle, made of asagio
cheese and cilantro.
And then a pretty, crisp white hearts of palm salad arrived, in a
shallot and thyme vinaigrette with bleu cheese sauce and (oh well) goat
cheese, dates stuffed with almonds, a stack of jicama strips, egg white
strips, endive. Its textures –crunchy and soft and slidey – and
sensations – sweet and tangy –made one feel one was on an adventure.
The entree was a proud Vegetable Napoleon, complete with a huge rosemary
feather in his Portobello mushroom cap. This is a stacked dish, with
layers of mushrooms, both red and yellow heirloom tomatoes, spinach,
mozzarella, roasted peppers and a grilled purple onion. It comes with a
heavenly quinoa. Quinoa (pronounced "keen-wa" is actually a Peruvian
berry, but it feels and comforts like a starch.
Anyone for Dessert?
A word about high end desserts. American restaurants seem to operate
under the belief that the more huge and disgusting, gross, layered,
recombinant, X-treme and in your face the dessert is, the more the
public will go for it. How else to justify the $9 price tag? Most of the
dessert lists we saw in Scottsdale were completely unappealing. Deseo's
was the scariest, the over the toppiest in this category. Fortunately
Deseo’s desserts are far better than they sound. See what you think.
Here is the dessert menu:
· Guava Goat Cheese Cake with crème fraiche ice cream and
poached prunes
· Cafe Y Tabaco white chocolate mousse cigar dipped in dark
chocolate with dulce de leche, coffee ice cream, and chocolate espuma.
· Churros cinnamon dusted donut sticks with dulce de leche
and chocolate dipping sauce
· Tres Leches de Chocolate served with orange sorbet and a
strawberry gaspacho Almond Flan with ice wine gelle, white grapes and
almond cookies
Okay. After much deliberation and trepidation, we had churros a happy
surprise. The dippin’ donut sauce chocolate was deep` like blood,
and like wine. This is voodoo chocolate, aphrodisiacal like you
see in the film Like Water for Chocolate.
Traveller asked if it was a special chocolate, but they didn't
want to say. And who can blame them?
The flan? It came, crowned and speared by a little lacy cookie. Let us
just say it was unremarkable. Call me a peasant, but I like a flan that
wiggles and shakes.
But wait — there's more.
The flan came in a clear, eerie jelly, with thin translucent slices of
grapes, suspended like eavesdropping eyeballs looking back at you with
gelid glaze...this odd liquid landscape called out to my inner octopus,
or perhaps the little kid who loves rubbery toys, inner tubes, squishy
squeezy gooey yo-yos, and the like. Not for the squeamish, and my
colleagues at Taller would probably pass or scream, "Eeeauwwwwh!" but
hey, they ain't eyeballs, we do not consume sentient beings with
eyeballs, so forgive Traveller for revelling in a plate that returns
one’s affectionate gaze unflinchingly.....it was lovely to be looked at
by something that was not two over easy or tapioca. And after those
mojitos, I could swear it winked.
open evening hours,480.585.4848
La Hacienda
La Hacienda is not just another Mexican restaurant. It is the
Mexican restaurant.
The only Mex to win four stars and
four diamonds from Mobil and AAA respectively isn't in L.A.,
Texas, or New York....it is here, in Scottsdale, and it's probably the
best Mexican restaurant in the USA right now.
Oh,
we've slurped sangrias over many a silly afternoon at Marix in West
Hollywood, sneaked into
that dear, beloved Mexican deli, Gallegos in Santa Monica for organic
vegetarian corn tamales,
gone into swoons over organic guacamole in Agoura, and not once, but
twice been crushed, bewildered and deeply disappointed at Rosa Mexicano
in New York, where you'd think they'd
know better...or maybe they just don't care.
No, if you could only have one Mexican meal in America, or you're
passing through and can only eat only one grand dinner in Arizona, have
it here. Or fly here. And bring somebody. It's cozy and dark inside.
Start with cocktails. Be brave. They’re unlike anything anywhere else.
They may not turn out to be your favourite flavours, but
that's the thrill. You won't get
these in London, Paris or Rome, or even the moon, where soon you
will be after several sips.
We tried the Prickly
Pear Margarita, pink and
very sweet, Hindu sweet, to set off the prickly bits, we suppose, and
oddly pleasant. Too pleasant. Of all the Hacienda's special libations,
this one slips down nice and easy, and before you know it, you'll be
ready to buy a round for the whole stinkin', sorry, poor old world.
Caramba!
Then there is the specialite de la maison, er, casa,
the Hacienda Margarita. With this drink, you are in a deep earth tone
groove, as your baffled tongue sorts through the greenness and the
cactus flavours, and the citrus, lemon and lime, sweet and sour and
salt, yin and yang, love and death and one part dirty sneaker, an
acquired taste and one worth hurrying to acquire.
Sangria at La Hacienda is a deep ruby in a huge goblet. Was there
perhaps a hint of pomegranate?
This should have been the pinnacle slurp of a lifetime, but it was
distressingly sharp. Had its edges been even a little more rounded , we
might have ordered a pitcher or two. Que lastima! Every sangria
is different. every time you make it We'll try again, manana
By now it was showtime, the moment when you tell the staff no meat, fish
or anything with a face, please. No chicken or beef stock, either.
Vegetarians do this before ordering. We have to, or suffer unimaginable
bouts of the Aztec one-step later.
And it's fun to see what the kitchen comes up with, put them
through their paces/ Accordingly, vegetarian gourmets read menus rather
differently from the way carnivores do. The eye darts to the side dishes
and garnishes, noting unusual possibilities. But ultimately, one must
give up the menu and put oneself in the hands of the gods. And that is
the chef.
Out came chef Andrew Macdonald. We asked for vegetarian tasting plates.
No problem. How were we to know that he would be our spirit guide to a
gourmet's divine Valhalla? Roses to him! So off you shall
go, on a halcyon Hacienda culinary adventure. Here's what appeared, in
no particular order. A basket of fresh little rolls and
perfect warm tortillas with the best salsa we’ve ever had, a medium dark
brown and smoothed, we
suspect , by a bit of chocolate. The butter: a heavenly blend of roasted
garlic, cilantro and poblano chiles.
Then: A vegetable flan. Horchata crepes. A salad of organic
greens ,fine strings of jicama and panella cheese, which is a Mexican
mozzarella, dressed in a
perfect pumpkin seed
vinagrette with lime and cilantro. Wild mushroom tart Snap peas. Haricot
verts. Calabacitas, a little baby kind of squash.Bulgar wheat pilaf with
chilis and a spicy flash-grilled tequila cornpote. (not sure about this
last - the cocktails were
doing what cocktails are supposed to do, and while forks were flying,
our notes became alarmingly like Aztec symbols), (Must go
back to La Hacienda soon for more fact-finding), pickled carrots,
Mexican white sweet potato casserole with breacs, a Mexican chili and
tomato sweet jam, and caramelized onions.
No one - there were four of us - can remember dessert. But my notes say
that the fffzswrquerrr was very, very good.
I want to live here, right under this table, for ever.
More
about Scottsdale here.
TAMPA
The Columbia Restaurant
The
old historic Ybor City Cuban restaurant serves the best food, including
many delights suitable for vegetarians, in Tampa/Ybor City. Don’t miss
this. Of course it’s a chain now. Thank heavens we’ll have another
reliably good meal to look forward to elsewhere. Click
here
2117 East 7th Ave (813) 248-4961.
For cheaper (and blander) Cuban eats, there's nearby Carmine's. 1802
East 7th Ave (813) 248-3834
La Terrazza Ristorante
In
Ybor City, a wonderful treasure of a Northern Italian restaurant. Not
surprisingly, the Weekly Planet rated it Tampa Bay’s “Best Italian
restaurant” in 2002. (Luigi, the owner, is from Ricione.). In addition
to its luscious cooking (primo pesto, and a must-have, ethereal eggplant
appetizer), its super-soft ambience, candles and low lights will
melt you like mozzarella.. 1727 E. 7th Ave. 813.248-1326 Click
here,
Tampa:
NS Foods and Gifts
in
Cacciatore Plaza, on Hanley Road, just off Hillsborough Ave. (between
Hillsborough and Waters Ave. Cross Street is Paula.) 5522 Hanley Road,
Tampa Tel. 813 243 1522
Nobody
knows about this place. Nobody but the happy people--- mostly Indians
and Pakistanis---who pop in and out of this grocery store garnished with
a few picnic tables.It isn’t even listed in the local hip Weekly Planet
newspaper, or anywhere. But man, can they cook! The owner is rumoured to
be a brilliant mathematician...the elegance and complexity of the
flavours is definitely a winning formula. This one is worth a special
trip.
The
menu changes daily, and is ‘purely vegetarian’, they will proudly tell
you, when you ring up to check the hours. (Happily, they are open 7 days
a week.) We paid just five bucks for a surprisingly subtle all you can
eat buffet, set up in crockpots on a small picnic table; this included
three desserts, millions of papadums, one chapati, a sensationally
succulent mango rice, curries, sambars, delicate, succulent, thin
crusted samosas and a generous selection of fruits. They also make
superb dosas.
Udipi Cafe
They're all raving about this joint. We haven't checked it out yet, but
it's another vegetarian Southern Indian restaurant in Florida, so why
fool around? There's a lunch buffet Tuesday-Friday, chomp, chomp, chomp.
14422 North Dale Mabry Hwy (813) 962-7300 or
click
Viva La Frida
If
you’re looking for the throbbing heart of the art/activism axis of
Tampa’s creative community, rush directly to Viva La Frida, restaurant
and much, much, much, much more. The eccentric, whimsical clientele come
here two, three even four times a week for poetry, plays, save-the-world
activities or just a good laugh over a pitcher or two of sangria with
friends.
As we
approached the restaurant's doorway we heard voices. Looking to
the right, we saw an outdoor stage (complete with actors) and an
audience. It was a performance of David Mamet’s “Sexual Perversity
in Chicago.” inside posters and fliers describe opportunities for
community activism and significant events.
With
so many vegetarian-friendly dishes on the menu, the starving
artist/University student/crunchy Granola crowds feel instantly at home
here. And the sangria’s good. The food's well, Mexicanesque,
as Mexican food is merely the jumping-off point for the eccentric,
generous cook who just can’t resist tweaking everything on the
menu, down to the beans and rice, until it’s something else again.
Big portions, though. (Skip the guacamole, though - was that
cheese in it? Aiye!)
5901 Florida Ave. 813-231-9199 or
click aqui
More
about Tampa here.