Taking a vegan friend to dinner downtown

[klorraine]

Hello Everyone,

My friend and I will be in downtown LA for a conference, and would like to go out to dinner. I'll eat almost anything and he is a vegan. We won't have much time, so we can't really stray from downtown. Shojin sounds interesting, but I'd prefer a place that sells alcohol. What other places are vegan-friendly?

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Shojin
333 S Alameda St Ste 310, Los Angeles, CA 90013

[ipsedixit]

Nickel Diner and Mendocino Farms are both vegan friendly.

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Nickel Diner
524 S Main St, Los Angeles, CA 90013

Mendocino Farms
300 S Grand Ave Ste Lp40, Los Angeles, CA 90071

[sushigirlie]

I would recommend against Shojin, sadly.

Wurstkuche is a good option. They have three varieties of vegan sausages (and dozens of varieties of other sausages), great fries, and fantastic beer. Listed on Jonathan Gold's 99 Essential Restaurants to boot.

If that sounds too limited, I would suggest a short excursion to Silver Lake. The best vegetarian/vegan restaurants there, IMO, are Elf and Cru.

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Shojin
333 S Alameda St Ste 310, Los Angeles, CA 90013

Wurstkuche
800 E 3rd St, Los Angeles, CA 90013

[will47]

I don't think Wurstkuche has any vegan buns, though, so the vegan sausages are kind of useless for vegans.

Shojin is Ok if you get the right stuff, but a little expensive for the quality of the food. I still like to go there occasionally.

Spitz in Little Tokyo has better food than the Eagle Rock one, and they have some vegan options. It's more casual; European influenced Middle Eastern food. They serve beer and maybe wine.

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Shojin
333 S Alameda St Ste 310, Los Angeles, CA 90013

Wurstkuche
800 E 3rd St, Los Angeles, CA 90013

[Servorg]

As to Wurstkuche and their vegan offerings, they say: http://www.wurstkucherestaurant.com/F...

[sushigirlie]

Sounds like the buns have honey. (More likely than eggs) Do vegans really not eat honey? That's pretty asinine.

[will47]

I don't have any specific knowledge of the ingredients in Wurstkuche's buns, but while traditionally speaking, bread doesn't usually have milk or eggs, white bread and buns quite often have one or both, either in the dough or in the form of an egg, butter, or milk wash on the top. In the case of buns from large bakeries, they may contain dough conditioners or other ingredients which may be non-vegan. Either way, I would think that asking would be a better way to find out what's in their buns than making a wild guess, but I've always heard that the buns there are non-vegan.

Many vegans do avoid honey; it's an animal product, so it's technically non-vegan.