Vegetarian in Orange County?

[bhojana]

Hello hounds,

I have recently moved to Irvine and am looking for good restaurants which serve good vegetarian food. I am Asian Indian and eat only vegetarian and have explored a few good Indian restaurants around Irvine, Tustin, etc.

Can someone recommend good Chinese, Greek, Persian, Italian, Mediterranean cuisines that cater to vegetarians? I can eat cheeses, dairy and am OK with some egg (only if it is invisible, such as included in a dough or cream). I would appreciate if it is a restaurant which just does not replace a chicken item with cheese and serve as vegetarian!

NYC had a lot o great options and I am struggling to find similar choices here.

Thanks folks.

[crystaw]

There's Veggie Grill near UCI which is all vegan/vegetarian which has pretty good mock meat sandwiches. I'm partial to their sides though (sweet potato fries and steamed kale). I've heard that Native Foods in Costa Mesa is good as well. I also remember there being a vegetarian Thai restaurant in Irvine too, I think it's called Wheel of Life.

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Wheel of Life
14370 Culver Dr, Irvine, CA 92604

[will47]

You will probably not find the same level of options here as in NYC. Despite the conventional wisdom about vegetarians and California, even the more liberal parts of LA are not as vegetarian friendly as NYC -- some of it has to do with things being more compact there, but that's not the only thing. Also, because it's so spread out, good ethnic restaurants tend to be segregated in specific areas.

There are lots of good Vietnamese vegetarian restaurants in Orange County, however most are a bit north of you in the Fountain Valley area. Thuyen Vien in Anaheim is probably one of my favorites. Au Lac in Fountain Valley also probably worth a visit. A few more suggestions here:
http://www.happycow.net/north_america... "S" Vietnamese Fine Dining (which is not vegetarian) is supposed to have some good vegetarian options as well. Buddhist Vietnamese and Chinese vegetarian places will generally not feature egg, and will label dishes that contain it if they do serve egg.

Chinese and Persian places with vegetarian options may be tricky down there - there are some options, but there are more in various parts of LA County. You will find a few things at 101 Noodle Express, which now has a location in Irvine.

It might be too vegan-ish, and too fake-meat heavy, but I'd also give a try to Native Foods (Costa Mesa, Tustin, Aliso Viejo), and Veggie Grill (multiple locations; fairly similar concept).

For other cuisines, hopefully folks who live down that way can fill in some more of the holes.

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Thuyen Vien
1740 S. Euclid St, Anaheim, CA 92802

[bhojana]

Thanks crystaw and will47. I will try those. Really helpful.

[will47]

btw, here's a long list of Persian places, though I can't speak to which ones are good or feature vegetarian dishes. http://www.parstimes.com/cuisine/persian_restaurants_oc.html
I would also have a look through the archives, see what places are recommended, and then see if they have good vegetarian stuff.
http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/379373 is a bit old, but is one such topic.

Vegetarian options at Persian places will often depend very much on whether the stews are pre-cooked with the meat, oir whether they're made separately (without meat stock) and the meat added in later. Butter will be common at a lot of Persian places, but doesn't sound like that will be a problem for you.