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Ethos Vegan Kitchen
By jen | April 14, 2009
I’m in Orlando, Florida with my partner, Jesse, who is here to attend a conference. I’ve only been here for a day but have started to hate this place because we’re cooped up at a frou frou, country club-esque hotel that’s far away from the rest of the city. While I’m thankful for the opportunity to experience such opulence on someone else’s dime, the culture here — golf courses, enforced dress code, “nonsurgical facelift” treatments at the spa – does not fit my style at all. I don’t think I was meant to be wealthy, or at least, live a wealthy lifestyle. I don’t want to be waited on hand and foot. And paying $15 for a veggie burger and $4 for water (the only vegan food in the whole place, unless you count an $11 iceburg lettuce salad) is plain absurd.
To avoid going crazy at the compound, as I like to call it, we took a cab into the main part of town. Located downtown on a street with lots of cute shops, Ethos Vegan Kitchen was just the kind of escape we needed. I’ll spare you on the details of the decor and such except to say that the place has great atmosphere: clean, comfortable, chill environment, nice art and relaxing music. The staff is friendly and though you order at the counter, they bring your food to you, follow up with you to see if you need anything and how you like your food and clear your table for you. But now on to the best part…the food!
Like the name suggests, everything at the cafe is 100% vegan. I was very excited to see their selection of sweets, which are baked from scratch on site. We tried the chocolate chip and coconut cookies. The chocolate chip cookie was one of the better vegan chocolate chip cookies I’ve tried, but still a little dry. The coconut cookie, however, was perfect! Crisp on the outside, chewy and moist on the inside and just the right amount of coconut in it.
For an appetizer (the cookies were a “pre-appetizer” appetizer), we shared a spinach salad, which came with raisins, walnuts, red onion and apples, and was served with an orange-ginger vinaigrette. Pretty standard salad.
The spinach salad we ate to offset the two cookies we'd eaten beforehand.
One of the main courses we ordered was What’s the Dilly, Philly?, a seitan sandwich with vegan mozzarella and sautéed onions and red and green bell peppers, on ciabatta bread with a side of fresh fruit. Delish! The seitan was very tender and the “cheese” was very creamy. I breathed a sigh of relief that the fruit wasn’t some mushy fruit salad but some very fresh, sweet pineapple chunks.
Philly cheesesteak, minus the cheese and the steak.
The other main course we ordered was the pecan-encrusted eggplant. Wow, this was soooo good. I’ve had many a mushy eggplant dish, and this wasn’t one of them. The crust was crunchy and had a sweet, plum sauce-like sauce drizzled on top. The eggplant came with grilled vegetables and mashed potatoes and gravy. When I get vegetables at restaurants, even ones specializing in vegetarian or vegan food, I often find that they overcook them so I was very pleased to find that these veggies were nice and crisp (but not at all raw). The mashed potatoes were buttery and creamy and served with a thin, brown gravy. The potatoes were great, the gravy was just okay.
Foodgasm-inducing eggplant. Wow...
Overall, we were extremely pleased with the food. Not only were the dishes flavorful and very reasonably priced, but wholesome and healthy as well. Why oh why don’t they have an Ethos Vegan Kitchen in the Bay Area!? I’m sure we’ll be going back before we leave.
Topics: Restaurants |