Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Vegan House - Silver Lake

By JULIE APELACIO

Today was considered one of our more productive Sundays. After a treacherous 4 hour hike up Brand Park with Mustafa, Reza, and Ena, we were starving! 25% of the hike consisted of figuring out where to eat. We concluded with a mom and pop Thai restaurant called, Vegan House. Yes, vegan, why? Because Ena says so. I've only sampled vegan food once (a cupcake from Yummy Cupcakes) and I must say, I was disappointed. So, let's just say I was less than excited about the decision, but I kept an open mind.

A simple, modest sign. Advocating healthy eating. Not much pizazz.

This restaurant is located in the Echo Park/Silverlake area, in a fairly small plaza. As stated before, this is a mom and pop shop, so nothing fancy is expected. The walls and table cloths are a calming honeydew color; the floors are varnished terracotta tiles, very casual (maybe post a picture of the place? it's up to you). With only two other people in the vicinity, one can only conclude that the food isn't all that great. Maybe the odd time we arrived on Sunday had something to do with the lack of customers. 

I wouldn't say the service was slow, but there weren't a lot of servers waiting on people. With only two parties, only one server was needed. She was the sweetest and friendliest server I've ever experienced. We luckily arrived during their "Happy Hour", everything listed is priced at $4.99. SCORE! I always get the Panang, but sadly it wasn't part of the happy hour menu. The challenging part was picking out which soy based meat to accompany the curry goodness. Being the meat loving carnivore that I am, you can understand the lack of enthusiasm coming from my end of the table. In regular Thai restaurants I prefer getting the chicken over beef, but Ena being more experienced, suggested I order mine with the soy pepper steak. 


We ordered our Thai iced teas and french fries first. Reza and Ena highly recommended them, so naturally I expected an explosion of awesomeness in my mouth. As for the Thai iced tea it tasted much like all the other Thai iced teas I've had, but the fries were very nicely cooked. They had just enough crunch and weren't greasy.

There was a bit of a wait, but that's to be expected with freshly cooked food. The orders came in as listed;
French Fries (Ena)
Yellow Curry (Reza)
Spicy eggplant & pumpkin (Ena)
Red curry (Mustafa)
Pad Kee Mao (Reza)
Pad Thai (Mustafa)
Panang (Me)
*All served with brown rice, for all the health conscious eaters.

That's a lot of food, no? Having ordered from the happy hour menu, the guys expected small portions. WRONG! By the time everyone's food came in, there was no table space left. The happy hour portions are the same as the regular, I assume. Our table was overflowing with food. 

I tried a piece of  the soy pepper steak and I expected nothing short of squishy, bland tofu, but this soy meat felt like real meat and dare I say, it even tasted better!  

The Panang was creamy, sweet, and mildly spiced, with green peas, bell peppers, carrots, and basil. SO AWESOME!


Pad Kee Mao with Pepper steak. The noodles were soft and coated with a gravy like sauce. Also pretty sweet and spicy.


The Spicy Eggplant was definitely spicy, but it didn't interfere with the taste of the dish itself. The eggplant still had the firm yet spongy consistency that I love. The pumpkin was cooked to perfection, not much chewing was required. It practically melted in my mouth. Drool.


I didn't get to taste the yellow curry because Reza scarfed it down faster than you can say "BLAHAKOH", which means it was pretty awesome I guess.


The Pad Thai with pepper steak was amazing!  It had the rich tamarind taste that many restaurants, for some reason or another, overly sweeten, but not this place. This Pad Thai was the perfect combination of sweet and sour. It was garnished with fresh mung bean sprouts, sliced carrots, and crushed peanuts. Mustafa claims that it's the best Pad Thai he's ever had.


Unlike the peanut sauce used in the Panang, Red Curry is based with coconut milk, which I'm not a fan of. With that said, this curry was pretty good. It wasn't as sweet as the Panang, but I doubt it's supposed to be. 

With only one visit, I fell in love. The food was top notch and our server was awesome. Vegan House is the perfect place for all types of eaters. PLEASE!

Info: 2703 W. Sunset Blvd.
        Los Angeles, CA 90026
        (213) 483-2105

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