September 21, 2011

The Chicago Diner

Last month, I made my first trip ever to The Chicago Diner. For vegans, this place is kind of a big deal. They've been 'Meat Free Since '83' and serving vegetarian and vegan comfort food for over two decades, way before veganism was trendy.
Four of my family members accompanied me, two vegans, a vegetarian and an omnivore. 

We started with the Vegan Teese Mozzarella Sticks. You cannot tell the difference between the Teese cheese and real mozzarella. They were so ooey gooey delicious. Luckily, you don't have to visit Chicago to experience these. You can buy them frozen online and have them anytime you please! 
My husband (the omnivore) had the Country Fried 'Steak', a breaded seitan filet, topped with country gravy, rustic mashed potatoes & pesto sautéed vegetables. He absolutely loved this.
My dad had the Radical Reuben, corned “beef” seitan, grilled onions, peppers, sauerkraut, vegan Thousand Island & cheeze, on marbled rye. 
My mom tried the Straight Up Veggie, the SUV of grilled cheese with cajunnaise, lettuce, tomato, onion, sprouts & cucumber on toasted wheat. 
My cousin from France, a newbie vegetarian, ordered the Curry Tofu Salad with mixed greens, onion & carrot tossed in a mango-berry dressing, topped with curry tofu/sweet potato strips.
And I had the BBQ 'Chicken' Ranch Salad with zesty BBQ seitan wingz topping romaine, chopped tomato, onion, carrot & sliced cucumber with vegan ranch. Oh how I loved this salad. The BBQ sauce combined with the ranch sauce just takes it over the top.

We were so full, but couldn't resist taking dessert home. We tried the Chocolate Cake...
The Carrot Cake...
And...the Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake. This was by far our favorite. The other two desserts were really good, but this completely blew them away. 
Seriously awesome food at The Chicago Diner. Well worth the hype.

4 comments:

xvavaveganx said...

Wow! Everything looks great!! I'm so used to only hearing about the Rueben I'm so glad you posted all of these other dishes! I'm not so much a Rueben girl so it was awesome to see all of these awesome dishes! The photos look delicious as always.

sarah-mai said...

When the Teese Mozzarella sticks are back in stock, I highly recommend ordering them! So so good :)

Some Whole Foods even sell their cakes and cookies in the dessert section.

Thank you - it was a bit tough taking the pics in the dim lighting, but glad they came out to at least give you an idea of what they offer ;)

POPshop & Spazz Records said...

Yay! My husband and I ate there too when we went to Chicago :)

sarah-mai said...

Seriously good food.