if you go to san francisco, i highly recommend you eat at herbivore as many times as you can, ’cause that’s what i did. the menu is massive, the food is all vegan and everything tastes amazing. we made two stops at herbivore on the quarrygirl road trip, once for breakfast and once for the most delicious lunch. we dropped in to the valencia location on a sunday at 11am and the place was already in full swing. the service was a bit slow, but the meal more than made up for it.

grilled tempeh sandwich: lettuce, tomatoes, onions & pickles on french bread w/ garlic-lemon sauce. $9.50

a tempeh sandwich has the potential to be pretty boring, but in this case it definitely wasn’t. first off, the tempeh was juicy and perfectly flavored, and there was slice after thick, luscious slice of it piled high atop the bread. the french bread itself was fresh and baked just right: fluffy and pillowy on the inside, crisp and chalky on the outside. not to mention the crisp vegetables and the runny garlicky sauce. dude! it was great.

did i mention it came with a light and tasty side salad, as well as some ridiculously good potatoes? they served ours with breakfast potatoes that were so much better than the ones we had previously at the other herbivore location. they didn’t even need hot sauce to make them flavorful…which means a lot coming from me!

next up, and definitely the eating highlight of the entire road trip, we ordered the grilled seitan shawarma. now, i’d read about this before and knew i’d love it, but nothing could prepare me for the delicious repletion it provided.

grilled seitan shawarma: with seasoned onions, tomatoes, hummus, hot sauce, pickles & tahini in a wrap, with a green salad. $7.75

i got my wrap without pickles of course, and i gotta say it’s the best meal i’ve had in a long time. each bite was a flavor explosion, oozing creamy hummus and oily hot sauce. it was so freakin’ scrumptious. the seitan was also top notch—peppery, thick and juicy.

in this case, the picture really doesn’t do the food justice. but i guess a photograph can never really capture the most savory wrap i’ve ever eaten. you will just have to take my word for it!

i’m hoping herbivore opens a location someday in los angeles. did i mention they also have a dessert menu, a full bar and tap beer? it’s about time someone gave pure luck a run for their money.

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i knew when i visited san francisco that i’d have the chance to sample some lovely vegan restaurants. what i didn’t know is that i’d find a place as great as herbivore. herbivore rocked so much, in fact, that i visited it twice in a row. while i may have missed out on other fine SF vegan establishments in my brief gustatory endeavors, at least i managed to hit up 2 different herbivore locations…and i will bring you reports from both. (special thanks to foodeater for the recommendation.)

after miles driving from santa rosa, we pulled up at the herbivore on divisadero street for a morning meal. i was totally craving some items from the lunch menu, but because it was around 10:30 am, i was forced into eating breakfast. poor me.

breakfast burrito: black beans scrambled tofu or tempeh, guacamole, vegan sour cream, and potatoes. $9.25

i opted for the tempeh burrito and by any standards, it was bloody amazing. but even though the waiter assured me it didn’t contain bell peppers, it came completely filled with the motherfuckers (which i hate). maybe i should have known better after seeing the logo for the restaurant that hung on the sign out front. next time i will ask twice.

i had to sheepishly return the burrito because i just couldn’t eat around the pungent bell peppers. fortunately upon realizing their mistake, not only did herbivore immediately give me a replacement pepper-free meal, but they gave us a complementary slice of the most delectable banana nut bread.

i don’t have pix of the bread or my pepperless burrito because they were both consumed in record time. (hey, driving through nor-cal works up a voracious appetite!) take my word for it though, the food was fantastic. what herbivore lacked in accuracy, they made up for in free shit and quality eats. despite the fact they nearly poisoned me with gross bell peppers, they redeemed themselves so much that i returned the next day for lunch.

when in SF, go there. if you don’t, you are missing out!

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way back in march when i started this modest blog and was still posting pix taken with my cell phone, my first post wasn’t really about vegan food, but instead a super hoppy and wonderful beer: pliny the elder. now 4 months and 87 posts later, i’m returning to pliny. while in santa rosa, i had the fortunate opportunity to visit the place where the magical beer is actually brewed, the russian river brewing company.

now, unfortunately there isn’t much vegetarian stuff on the menu. but honestly, who needs food with beer like this?

with an abv of 8%, pliny is too strong to legally be sold in a pitcher. that didn’t stop me from ordering 3 pints of the hoppiest beer i’ve ever tasted!

so if you are a beer lover in santa rosa, drink up at russian river. you won’t regret it! and hungry vegans can be satisfied at the sushi restaurant down the street.

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next stop on the quarrygirl roadtrip, crazy hippie sushi from santa rosa at tex wasabi’s! what makes these sushi rolls hippie, you ask? is it organic ingredients? creed of the establishment? psychotropic drug references? nooooooooo. it’s just the names of the dishes, of course—what more could you ask for as a tourist? if the menu makes me think i’m eating hippie food, then i’m gonna buy into it.

morgan’s earthy crunchy roll: tapioca rice paper roll with sushi rice, crunchy tempura bits, avocado, cucumber, julienne vegetables, daikon sprouts served with a ponzu dipping sauce. $6.95 (double order pictured, so i will have a double amount of hippie-ness and feel twice as close to the earth)

woodstock roll: sunset mix, romaine lettuce, daikon sprouts, cucumber, avocado and topped w/ ponzu sauce. $7.95  (of course this roll reminds me of watching janis joplin, the who and jimi hendrix while under the influence of several unmentionable substances…but in sushi form. how did they capture the fantasy so accurately with just a few daikon sprouts?)

in all seriousness though, this sushi was pretty tasty albeit a bit fusion-y. the rice paper was a welcome change from the nori i’m used to…and it was nice to have a wide variety of innards in my role, rather than the standard avocado and cucumber combo. morgan’s earthy crunchy roll was the favorite at the table (good thing since we got a double order); the crunchy tempura bits blended together with the creamy avocado tasted divine.

although there’s not much for vegetarians to eat on the menu (most of the sushi has fish, and they also specialize in southern bbq) these 2 rolls are enough to please and definitely delicious. plus, the place has that chilled out rockin’ roll vibe that a lot of sushi establishments have been adopting lately. i like it.

oh, and don’t forget to start off with some edamame. it’s the root of all that’s good in the vegan diet.

eddie’s mommy (eda-mame): blanched soy bean pods, dusted with kosher salt. $4.25

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