Vegan Chicago: Restaurant Review of Soul Vegetarian East

Like many other Groupon users, I waited until the last night to use my Groupon to Soul Vegetarian East Restaurant over on the south side of Chicago. There are a number of soul vegetarian type restaurants on the south side, but this one is the most talked about and the oldest. Other restaurants include: Sistah's Vegan Restaurant, Brother Tim's Vegetarian Fast Food, and Yah's Cuisine. 

Both times I've been to Soul Veg the wait has been awfully long. I will admit the first time was also with a Groupon within a week of it expiring and this last time was the night it expired, so my wait time may have been altered due to that. From reading Yelp reviews, though, it seems like the service is always pretty slow and the servers are rather scatter-brained. 

Aside from the restaurant, there is a juice bar and a take out bar. The take out bar has various kinds of salads, seitan, greens, etc. The juice bar is pretty much your standard juice bar with carrot juices, green juices, and additives of wheatgrass and spirulina.

Before I begin, let me just say that this is southern cooking. It isn't healthy, even if it is vegetarian. A lot of it is fried or it is made of seitan. They do have salads which are pretty awesome. More on that later.

To start, my friends and I split the battered cauliflower. Pretty much most vegetables battered and fried are tasty and the cauliflower didn't disappoint in this aspect. It is definitely something to be split among 3-4 people, though, because it would be too much fried food for just two people. Other appetizers on the menu are more battered things like mushrooms, onion rings, fries, and tidbits (seitan).

We got a side of carrot supreme salad which was absolutely amazing. If you get anything at this restaurant, get this salad. For $4.50, it could have been a meal! It was gigantic and packed full of awesome veggies. We got the creamy garlic dressing with it and I'm thinking they use fresh garlic because it was super garlicky, but the creaminess balanced it out.

For sandwiches, we had the East Coast BBQ Roast Sandwich and the Hand Burger. The BBQ sandwich was as to be expected: messy. They use their signature seitan tidbits and coat them in their own bbq sauce. Overall, it's a good kind of messy sandwich. I'd get this again for sure. My friend had the Hand Burger and he said it's the best veggie burger he's ever had (and he's an omnivore)! It is made out of lentils and various spices. My only problem with the sandwiches are that they come with no sides. It feels a bit like an incomplete meal to just have a sandwich. Of course, you can order a side, but you get what I mean. The last time I was at Soul Veg, I got the gyros and I didn't care for them too much. It was too dry for my taste. They sell their Jerusalem Steak sandwich and Tofu Salad Sandwich at the local Whole Foods here and those are pretty good even pre-packaged. I imagine having them fresh at the restaurant is even better. 

My other friend had the dinner special. This dinner was something like $12 and for that price, there was SO much food. All three of us could have eaten this for dinner and been stuffed. It came with greens, steamed broccoli, breaded tofu (think catfish fillet style), a whopping piece of lasagna, and a choice of soup or salad (he got the soup, bean curd veggie, with fresh cornbread). I've had the greens from Soul Veg before and I always find them a bit too musky from the liquid smoke they use. I only use a pinch of it when I make greens and that may be why (if I even use it). Otherwise, they are perfect. The steamed broccoli was pretty standard, tender and healthy. Now, this breaded tofu business. Wow, you would think it was real breaded catfish strips the way they have it done up. I've never had breaded fish like that in my life (what? I grew up in San Francisco. Fresh fish from the ocean... who breads that?!). One of my friends who was with me is from the south and the other grew up eating breaded catfish and both of them were as impressed as I was with the breaded tofu. They have a breaded tofu sandwich and I bet that thing is amazing. The lasagna was alright. I didn't love it or hate it, but I wouldn't order it again. Just wasn't my thing - something about the taste of it. My friends liked it though. Lastly, the soup and cornbread were really tasty. I've never had bean curd soup before (I've had bean curd in Chinese dishes at restaurants before, though) and this was a great introduction. The cornbread passed the Southerners test from my friend meaning it was pretty damn good.

We had tons of food and took a lot of it home so we couldn't possibly have dessert. I had a Beta Green juice drink from the juice bar, so I suppose that was my dessert (carrot and spirulina juice). They do have soy ice cream and a variety of cakes and pies for dessert, though.

Our fair city of Chicago is blessed with the Vegan Food Truck. It is run by the people over at Ste Martaen (one of the best vegan cheese companies out there, trust!) and Soul Veg. You can get a number of Soul Veg's sandwiches and entree's on the food truck. Also on the truck are goodies from Canary Confectionery, a local vegan baking team. It is run during lunch and dinner hours and their menu changes daily. Find them in the city or request they come to your area through their Twitter account or Facebook account. They also sometimes make Saturday day trips up to Milwaukee. Check their Twitter and Facebook to find out when.

One last note: the Soul Veg mac 'n cheese. Aside from their carrot salad, this stuff is addictive. It is, hands down, the best vegan mac 'n cheese I have ever had. I challenge someone to find a better one. Seriously, this stuff will change your life.

Vegan Chicago: Restaurant Review of Urban Vegan Chicago

Before I being my review of Urban Vegan Chicago, I'd like to let you all know that they have a benefit going on throughout the entire month of December. If you order take-out or dine-in and mention Mercy For Animals, 20% of the proceeds go to MFA. This is a great opportunity for vegans (and non-vegans a like) to try out this newer restaurant in Chicago! It also helps with MFA's life-saving work in farm animal protection. Plus, it is nom.

I've heard many great things about this Thai vegan restaurant since it opened. I've been to and seen a few mock meat Asian restaurants before like ChuChai in Montreal (which I blogged about here), Golden Lotus in Oakland (there are a number of Asian restaurants in the Bay Area that specialize in faux meats), and Red Bamboo in NYC. Based off my previous dining experiences, I figured the place would be either fancier (like ChuChai and Red Bamboo) or sort of just a hole in the wall. It's the latter. That doesn't mean it is bad, it just means it is a small establishment and more reasonably priced! I would recommend making reservations because from how I counted, there are only 8 tables in the whole restaurant. It is also BYOB.

As far as having an Asian restaurant with an extensive mock meat menu, I'm glad Chicago now has one! It is definitely an interesting dining experience. If I wanted to get a veggie cashew stir-fry, I would just go to any Thai restaurant and tell them to hold the fish/oyster sauce and add in some tofu. I think the primary reason to go to Urban Vegan (or any of the other places I mentioned, really) is to eat the faux meat with vegan pride. It just isn't worth it to go for Buddha's Delight (other than to support a vegan restaurant). That being said, I'm curious as to what vegan meat company they use. There is always the ever popular May Wah based out of NYC. I'm pretty sure this is what Red Bamboo uses. The "fish" in the Tom Yum I had at Urban Vegan tasted a lot like the fillets they sell on May Wah. If anyone knows where Urban Vegan gets their mock meat, I'd love to know. I'm curious!

Grilled Veggie Dumplings

This isn't the best starting line for a review, but the food was cold which was really disheartening. I was looking forward to this dining adventure. I will go again to see if I receive a better experience as when I went, it was on a Sunday night and every table in the restaurant was taken. I'm assuming this had something to do with it.


The menu is very extensive. They have all the usual Thai foods gone vegan as well as veggie sushi, wrap, burgers, and smoothies. There is also a lunch and dinner combination menu. They include steamed brown rice, a spring roll, salad, and a choice of an entree with either tofu, soy chicken, seitan, pepper steak, or soy fish ($9.95/lunch and $11.95/dinner). Addition of bacon, shrimp, or chicken nuggets is extra ($11.95/lunch and $13.95/dinner). For those of you with gluten allergies, there is a wheat-free menu available.

Seafood Tom Yum Soup

For starters, my friend and I had the grilled veggie dumplings, the house salad, and seafood tom yum soup. The portions are big! The dumplings were about what we expected - your everyday vegan frozen dumpling that was grilled. I think next time, I'd like to try the crispy chicken or chicken satay instead. They sound interesting! The house salad was filled with lots of veggies and I went with peanut sauce for the dressing. There is also tahini and Italian dressing. I've never had a Larb salad before since they aren't vegan, but that's the next salad I'm going to try here. The tom yum soup with seafood was interesting, to say the least. I've had vegan fish fillets before and vegan shrimp... but never the fish in a broth. Personally, the best preparation I've ever seen of vegan fish was in a light sauce and the fillet slightly seared. The seaweed wrapped around it to be the "skin" gives it that fishy taste quality. Vegan shrimp, for me, isn't really worth it. It's chewy and doesn't add much to the mix.

Garlic Pepper Steak

Our dinner entree's were the garlic pepper entree with pepper steak and the pad won zen with soy chicken. The pepper steak was pretty good and it came with rice, though I would have appreciated a few more veggies tossed in there. I liked the pad won zen very much (it has more veggies), but it was cold which kind of ruined the appeal (was looking forward to hot noodles!). Next time, I think I'd like to try the P.E.T. (pumpkin, eggplant, tofu) and the wonton noodle soup (I've missed wonton soup since being vegan - it was my staple at Chinese restaurants since I was a wee one). 

Pad Won Zen (w/ Soy Chicken)

Overall, I think Urban Vegan is a nice change from the normal Thai vegan dining experience (no fish sauce! no oyster sauce! no egg! tofu!). I'm definitely going to come back and try it again. It seems to be doing great thus far and the Chicago vegan community loves it.

If you want to pick up mock meat in Chicago and make your own food, there are a couple of grocery stores in the city. I personally like the Uptown neighborhood stores to get this stuff. Broadway Supermarket is my favorite. If you go to the very back corner near the produce, you'll find all the veggie meats in the freezer. Golden Pacific Market has faux meats too. Lastly, Tai Nam Food Market seems to carry a lot of products as well, though I've never been (and now I must!).

Urban Vegan Chicago's Facebook Page here.