Hugo's Tacos (Los Angeles, CA)

Hugo's Tacos is one of my favorite vegan-friendly restaurants in LA. They serve high quality, cheap California-Mexican food at two locations: Studio City and Atwater Village.

While there's plenty of meat on their menu, Hugo's offers vegan versions of nearly everything. Soy chorizo, Daiya cheese, Vegenaise... they have it all! Last time I was in the area, I went to Hugo's three times in four days. I probably would have gone there on the fourth day too, but I was too busy camping out in a parking lot for a U2 concert. It's a shame they don't deliver.

So, while I was in LA last weekend, of course I headed to Hugo's to get my taco stand fix.

Green tamales, $3.19

I love these spinach and sweet corn tamales so much. The spinach is all blended up into the masa, and there are sweet corn kernels folded in. There's probably a load of sugar in these because they're super sweet and could almost pass as dessert, but that's what makes them delicious. They come covered with mild tomatillo salsa by default, but you can choose another salsa instead. I like the tomatillo. No sense in messing with a good thing.

The only small complaint I have about these tamales is that they are always served lukewarm. I've eaten them three or four times, and not once have they ever been hot by the time I received them. Considering Hugo's pushes your food to you directly from the kitchen via a window, I don't get it. It's not like it's a long journey from the warmer to my face or anything.

Rice and beans, $1.59

The rice is good, but the beans are fabulous. Organic white beans at a taco stand? Yes, that is a great idea. They are so creamy and flavorful.

Frozato, $2.28

I know I sort of buried the lead here, but this is the real reason to come to Hugo's: VEGAN SOFT SERVE! In a vegan waffle cone*. It comes in vanilla, chocolate, and swirl. It is the stuff dreams are made of. It's honestly better and creamier than any soft serve I ever ate in my pre-vegan life. So, so good.

*Hugo's staff at both locations claimed the cones were vegan when I asked. The web site says they are not. However, the web site also says the Frozato is only available at their Atwater location, while it has actually been available in Studio City for a long time. The point is, the web site has outdated information, so I choose to believe what the people have told me. Eat the cone at your own risk. Or, ask to read the ingredients. If you find out something I don't know, please let me know. I would have investigated better myself, but I didn't look at the web site until after I'd already eaten a few of the cones.

Hugo's also serves vegan coconut rice pudding for dessert, which sounds awesome. Frankly, I'm pretty sure I'll never try it. I can't not get the soft serve.

Everything I've tried at Hugo's has been great, and if I lived in LA, I would happily eat my way through their entire menu. Having been to both locations, I can report that in my experience, the food quality has been consistently good, with little to no variation between the two restaurants. The menu is the same at both. If I had to choose a favorite, I'd go with the Atwater location, simply because it always seems less crowded, and parking is far less of a pain in the ass.

Hugo's Tacos

Atwater Village
3300 Glendale Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90039

Studio City
4749 Coldwater Canyon
Studio City, CA 91604

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Doomie's Home Cookin' (Hollywood, CA)

Okay, so I failed at posting everyday for MoFo. Life happened and I was busy. Moving along!

I went to LA with my mom for a long weekend. While our main reason for driving down there was to attend a Clinton Foundation benefit concert at the Hollywood Bowl (Bono and Edge! Lady Gaga! Stevie Wonder! The Clintons themselves! A whole bunch of other people!), we were also on a mission to eat a lot of delicious food. While Sacramento has enough vegan-friendly restaurants to keep me from getting bored, LA is on a whole other level. You can drive past two other vegan restaurants on your way to your destination vegan restaurant. There's just never enough time, and I never have enough stomachs, to eat even a fraction of the vegan food LA has to offer. But, I always give it a pretty good effort when I'm down there.

Since we were in Hollywood already, we decided to try Doomie's Home Cookin' for the first time. The restaurant is situated in a strip mall with some other restaurants and other business, and it looks pretty unassuming from the outside. The place has a decidedly hipster vibe, but not in an annoying way. The staff was friendly and made us feel welcome.

Doomie's is a vegetarian restaurant with an almost entirely vegan menu. Their only non-vegan offering is dairy cheese, but since (homemade!) vegan cheese is also an option on all of their dishes, it's really a free-for-all for vegans.

The first thing you'll inevitably notice when you walk in is the bakery case with a whole lot of killer looking baked goods inside. I think I stared into it in awe for a good solid couple of minutes before I finally took a seat and looked at the menu. We ended up taking some baked goods to go, but first we did order actual food.

Doomie does classic American comfort foods, veganized, and he does them right. There is a huge emphasis on fake meat, so you have to be prepared for that going in. Think greasy, salty diner food, and embrace that concept.

The Classic Burger, $7.95

My mom went with the basic burger with vegan cheese, which came with either fries or fruit. Thousand island dressing on the side. As you can see, the cheese was pretty saucy, and honestly pretty flavorless. It made for kind of a gloppy mess when the burger was assembled. The patty was quite good, though. It reminded me a little of a Boca burger, but much better. The texture was chewy and meaty, which I guess are desirable qualities in a burger. I thought it was tasty enough, but I'm just not much of a burger person. My mom thought the veggies were a little skimpy, but she enjoyed it overall.

 

Chicken Parmigiana, $9.95

As often happens to me at vegan restaurants, I got overwhelmed by the menu, and had a really hard time deciding what to order. I'm so used to having very limited options, so when I can choose anything I want, I get incredibly indecisive. In the end, I went with the Chicken Parmigiana, which came with garlic bread and a choice of soup or salad. I chose the tortilla soup - the soup of the day. It ended up being your average vegetable soup with pieces of fried tortillas in it. It was good, but nothing revolutionary.

The main course, however, was an event. Atop a bed of pasta with marinara sauce was a deep fried, breaded chicken cutlet. On top of that, vegan cheese sauce (similar to the stuff on the burger, but white instead of yellow). I haven't eaten real chicken (or any meat, for that matter) in close to 15 years, so my memory of the taste and texture has undoubtedly been distorted by time. But, this chicken patty was exactly how I remember chicken tasting. The texture was spot-on. The whole experience was really weird. I almost had to look around and make sure I was, in fact, eating in a vegetarian restaurant, or I wouldn't have believed that patty was fake. I cleaned my plate and enjoyed the hell out of it, but I felt super strange about how much I liked it! I don't know how they make their fake meat, but they're really onto something there. I've never eaten a substitute that came nearly as close to the real thing.

Fudge brownie, $4
Carrot cupcake, $2

Neither of us could manage dessert after finishing our huge meals, but we had to take a couple of things from the bakery case for the road (breakfast the next morning, actually). The dessert section of the menu also looked pretty amazing (fried oreos!), so I'll make sure to save room next time.

The brownie, while not very photogenic, was incredible. Without a doubt, this was the best vegan brownie I've ever had. Probably the best brownie I've ever had, period. Also, it was almost the size of my head. Rich, fudgy, gooey, covered in ganache: this brownie had it all. The price may seem high, but it was totally worth it.

The carrot cupcake, my mom's choice, was also delicious. We both liked that it wasn't overly sweet, and the frosting was light and fluffy.

I regret that I couldn't try the amazing looking red velvet cake or croissants, but I'll get to them someday. I will absolutely be going back to Doomie's on my next visit to Hollywood. While it's not the sort of food I would want to eat regularly, it was a really fun treat.

Doomie's Home Cookin'
1253 N Vine St, Suite 9
Hollywood, CA 90038

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Chipotle, I LOVE YOU!

Black beans, cilantro lime rice, grilled fajita veggies, guacamole (free only in meatless burritos - HAHA!), corn salsa (hidden but present), pico de gallo, and lettuce.

Best.

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Mati's (Sacramento, CA)

I've wanted to try Mati's for a long time, but they used to be located in Natomas. Considering I venture to that area pretty much never, it never happened. Fortunately, Mati's recently relocated to midtown! Well, I think they've been there since last year. Anyway, thanks to Groupon, I finally dragged myself over there tonight.

Mati's has good quality counter service food at really good prices (and it was an absolute steal with the Groupon). They have a good selection of vegan curries, all of which are clearly labeled (it says "vegan" right on the stickers on the food case! Go Mati!), so you don't have to ask a lot of questions. The staff was very friendly, and even offered us samples before we committed to ordering anything.

We went with the $16.99 Meal for Two special, which included three sides, naan (garlic or regular), two samosas, and rice. Most of their vegetarian dishes were vegan, and the exceptions were obvious. For our sides, we chose aloo gobi, chana masala, and mixed vegetable curry. The mixed vegetable curry was basically a bowl of cabbage, so I wasn't really into that one, but the other two dishes were very good. The chana masala could have used a little more spice, but the flavor was good. Has bad chana masala ever existed, anyway?

The star of the show was the bread basket! The garlic naan was pretty light on garlic flavor, but it was still delicious (and delightfully puffy!). And the samosas? Well, I could probably have just eaten a basket full of those. Samosas can sometimes be heavy and greasy, but these were light and perfectly fried. Hot, potato-filled goodness. Really, it's worth a trip to Mati's just for the samosas.

The meal also came with our choice of chutneys. We tried three: onion, cilantro, and mango. I wasn't thrilled with any of them, as they were more like little containers of spicy paste than chutney. The mango one was particularly odd. The flavor was somewhere between mango jam and a bottle of perfume. Pass. I didn't need the chutneys anyway, so no real loss there.

I've had better Indian food, but considering the quantity you get for the price, I was impressed with Mati's. Their vegan-friendliness also makes me want to support them, so I will be back. I hope they do well in their new location. The restaurant was pretty empty for dinner, but I would imagine they do most of their business at lunch time, since you can get in and out of there pretty quickly. They seem to have some good luch combination specials, too.

If you're in midtown and in the mood for Indian, give Mati's a try. Don't leave without trying a samosa!

Mati's
1501 16th St
Sacramento, CA 95814

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