Friday, August 17, 2012

Vegan in Virginia

Last weekend we had our "family trip" to Williamsburg, Virginia. It was great to have a weekend just with the family to enjoy some quality time together. It started out meeting my brother in Richmond, Virginia for the night on Thursday. We all left after work and did not arrive until late but we still had a great time. There were a couple fun hole in the wall pubs nearby the hotel we stayed at in downtown Richmond that were great to grab a couple drinks and chat. One being Empire (totally fit in with the mohawks and studded belts of the other guests!) and also Capital Ale House. For breakfast on Friday morning, I was excited to see how many cafes had vegan brunch options! We settled on Harrison Street Cafe It is located on 402 N Harrison Street, very close to the college campuses there. good eats, no meats! Although not completely vegan - they are all vegetarian. My brother & jason were happy that they had eggs though. I was happy they had a tofu scramble!
I had the tofu scramble over spinach, with tomatoes, salsa and the vegan sausage. Delicious! Pretty sure the sausage was Gimme Lean but it didn't specify on the menu.
A blurry picture of the menu, I would love to go back one day to try the vegan french toast! After leaving Richmond, we met my parents & sister and her boyfriend in Williamsburg. Our plan for the day was to walk around Colonial Williamsburg which we have not done since we were much younger. It was great, and fun to experience since we had not been in so long. After doing some research for food near our hotel for dinner, I found one of the only vegan friendly restaurants, Food For Thought. They are located at 1647 Richmond Road in Williamsburg, which was right down the street from our hotel!
This was a GREAT find! Everyone in our party left saying how great the food was! They serve meat, but have a lot of vegan options (they use Gardein chikn patties!) so it was perfect for my omnivore family and myself to enjoy a great meal together. One of the two appetizers we ordered was the Hummus Plate:
The hummus was delicious and I was glad they offered more options to dip than just pita! My entree:
I chose the Thai One on with the Gardein Chickn Pattie. This was awesome and I was so happy to see a restaurant have the Gardein options available. Any restaurant should have them available, since they are freezable and would appeal to the Vegan/Vegetarian community. The waitress knew exactly what the vegan diet was and ensured me that it would be vegan. We loved Food For Though so much, that we went back the next morning for breakfast!
I had the tofu scramble with whole wheat toaste and fruit cup. This was awesome, maybe even more so than the Harrison Cafe's scramble. They had a great selection of different options and I loved the atmosphere of Food for thought. My entire family really enjoyed going there, and the manager remembered us from the night before and gave us some coupons to use as well. It definitely was a great experience and I would recommend it to anyone in the Williamsburg area as a vegan or just a hungry person! After breakfast we were ready to hit up Busch Gardens, where I went on the new roller coaster and lost my voice from screaming SO loud. I do enjoy coasters so much as they do not have a huge drop, the new Verbolten had huge drops the entire time, so I screamed my face off. Other than that, the trip was a great time with my family and showed there ARE vegan options even in Williamsburg!