Friday, October 2, 2009

VEGANMOFO 2009: Two Favorite Philly Restaurants in One Day!

My dad's in town from Connecticut, so I took him to my two favorite restaurants in Philly.

First up: Vientiane Cafe in West Philly, a small Laotian restaurant with excellent food. My dad exclaimed that the Tom Yum was the best soup he's ever had and the meal as a whole ranked among the best he's had as well. For a $9.99 three course lunch you can't complain!

My second favorite drink ever (first being chai): Thai Iced Tea with soymilk
Tom Yum
Absolutely exquisite.

Spring Rolls
(I reqested fried, DocDufresne got fresh

Pad Thai with Tofu (and extra sauce)
(whoops...I accidentally deleted the photo of DocDufresne's dish.)


For dinner we went to Bacio Italian Restaurante in Mount Airy. Bacio is also a small place and they actually know me by name ("Vegan Amanda"), which is a bonus. The food is so well-prepared and they make a real effort to cater to vegans. Just look at the Vegan Parmesan topping and Follow Your Heart!

Pasta e Fagioli.
I especially love the fresh taste of the parsley in company with the creaminess of the white beans. So delish.
Ravioli
The great thing about the ravioli at Bacio is that it changes every time. Sometimes it's stuffed with satueed veggies, and other times, like tonight, it's filled with herbed vegan ricotta. Tonight it was also quite large. Yup, that's vegan cheese on top!
Puttanesce (linguine with capers, olives, and veggies in a marinara sauce).
We finished off our meals with perfect little canolis.
I can't recommend Bacio Italian Restaurante enough. The food, atmosphere, and service are top notch and make for an excellent dining experience.

Lastly I give you Monster Apple, weighing in at a whopping 1.25 pounds, accompanied by regular apple. Both ended up in my applesauce that I'm making for a pre-Thanksgiving feast with family. This was the perfect apple: super crisp, sweet, and apple-y.

6 comments:

  1. Hey! I found your blog through the vegan mofo blog roll.
    Vientienne Cafe sounds really, really good. I need to make it out to West Philly and give it a try.

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  2. I have been looking for some good vegan pad thai as well as Italian food since I'm fairly new here. Yum!

    Are all the vegetarian dishes at Vientienne Cafe vegan or do you need to specify no fish sauce?

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  3. ms. veganorama,

    I believe all the vegetarian dishes at Vientiane are vegan, but I always specify: no fish sauce, no eggs. It's really a great restaurant, and an especially good deal for lunch on weekdays.

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