Good Karma

ananimalfriendlylife.com - Aug 23 06

Had lunch here on August 22nd with my wife and a friend of ours. The food's quite good, though we had blender issues when I went, so the shakes were probably not up to par.

But the lack of seating is a real problem. I didn't really enjoy eating messy food out in the hot sun while sitting on a bench and watching guys work out at Muscle Beach.

The food itself worked out much better, though. I've had fast vegan food before, at Pasadena's Orean, which has a more extensive menu but is perhaps a little less reliably vegan (at least they have seating). I ordered a bacon cheeseburger, which used tempeh bacon, so that was scoring pretty huge for me. The burger also included a white vegan cheese (FYH?) that was fairly tasteless, but added some nice gooiness to the Vegenaise, lettuce and tomato. I held the pickles and ketchup, but added avocado (they were out of guacamole, offered to make some, but apparently forget and just sliced up the avocado). I think there was onion, too, though I'm blanking on that now. The patty itself was one of the meatier types of veg substitutes, probably an all-soy protein isolate, which is not my favorite for frequent meals, but made for a hearty burger I feel pretty safe recommending to non-veg friends. In fact, my omni friend got the same burger, and he seemed to like it quite a bit, along with the regular french fries.

My wife seemed to like her mushroom burger well enough, though I forgot she had ketchup on hers, so I did not enjoy my bite. Mushrooms looked canned, though, not fresh. We shared the sweet potato fries, which were excellent, and a killer deal at $1.95. We were wishing for an apple-type compote like they serve with the sweet potato fries at Tacone, but ketchup was okay for her, and plain was fine for me. As a testament to value, we couldn't even finish the large order.

Our peanut butter chocolate shake with vanilla rice protein was okay, but clumpy and a bit runny. Again, I think they were having issues with the blender or something. The person behind the counter (Layla) was very friendly from the get-go, including her handling of that issue. Because it took 'til after we'd finished our food for the shakes to be corrected (improved, but not quite up to standard, really), she was kind enough to toss in some coupons. I'm looking forward to some 1/2 off vegan soft serve. Gotta love that.

While the prices all seemed reasonable enough individually, three sandwiches, two shakes, an order of regular fries, and an order of sweet potato fries came out to about $34, which is a lot for fast food with no seating. Also, their credit card machine does not print out a tip line, BTW, so be prepared to tip with cash, if you're so inclined.

I'll definitely be back when I'm in the area, but I might take chances with a to-go order next time, and I'll probably skip the shakes, which were $5 each.