Post Punk Kitchen Forum

My mom and I are taking a weekend vacation in Santa Cruz! The only vegan place I know of is Saturn Cafe, but I'd like to see a variety of things - brunch, dinner, etc. I heard that there's a Thai place which is vegan, does anyone know what it is?

I really like the Sri Lankan place in Santa Cruz...can't remember what it's called, but I'm pretty sure there's only one.

Ooo, I have never had Sri Lankan food!

Bar recommendations would be awesome as well. Dive bars welcome. :D

Run, don't walk, to Dharma's. It's in Capitola but GO. It's insanely, crazy, wonderfully good. Capitola is a cute little seaside town, check it out while you drive back to SC.

A Friend in SC told me about this place, she called it "salsa's" taquaria, but I'm having trouble finding it online.

Brady's Yaht club is a pretty legit dive bar.

Upon a glance at Yelp, I found three: Pearl of the Ocean, Malabar, and Asian Rose Cafe.



This one? It looks like their pesto is vegan - pestoroni pizza, plz!



It's just cruel to show me that picture. I can't find it online either!

I think the Sri Lankan place you want is Malabar.

No, the Sri Lankan place is Pearl of the Ocean. Malabar is kind of mixed asian. Asian Rose is Malabar in the day! Malabar's a great place to have dinner too! Neither is all vegan but both have options.

I don't know anything about this mythical Mexican vegan place!

Dharma's is really solidly good for any meal of the day.

Zachary's downtown makes a vegan tofu scramble that's actually good, you pick the mix ins. Be sure you ask for your toast dry though or they'll pretty much always put dairy butter on it.

Planet Fresh burritos downtown makes good big cheap vegan burritos. Little Shanghai across the street is okay Chinese food with a separate vegan menu. Original Thai Kitchen on Soquel has vegan stuff clearly labelled and are really accommodating.

The Bagelry has vegan bagels and a variety of toppings... tofutti, hummus, house made guacamole, and this spread I love called New Delhi. Great for a quick cheap lunch.

What I'm saying is you really don't have to eat just at the Saturn.

Thank you so much for the recommendations! Friday can't come soon enough. :D

OK, so Salsa Bar used to be named Leo's http://www.yelp.com/biz/leos-taco-bar-santa-cruz its at 1710 Brommer @ 17th ave. Let us know how it is if you go!

I think my favorite food option in SC might be the breakfast burrito at Chill Out Cafe on 41st and Portola, or for breakfast at least.

Yeah, Sri Lankan was Pearl of the Ocean. I loved it! I like Malabar too.

What's the pizza place with the tofu spread? I liked that pizza.

Oh damn, how could I forget to mention Engfer's Pizzaworks? They do a great vegan pizza like Nebraskalaska says! Also, they are right by my house.

Oh my god, their tofu-spread pizza is called "Megan's Vegan." That's my name!!! I have to go there now. :)

I lived in SC for 7 years. Some of my faves:

1. Engfer's: awesome brick-oven fired pizza with all sorts of vegan toppings, including a tofu spread
2. Hula's: they have this delicious bean, rice, and cabbage bowl with fried tofu and plantains
3. Palomar: best chips and salsa in town and pretty fabulous margaritas (pineapple!). All their vegetarian items can be made non-dairy--I like their guacamole sopes
4. Chill-out: eat a breakfast burrito and then walk along Pleasure Point. Pretty fantastic way to start the day
5. The Bagelry: great bagels, 2 kinds of Tofutti, and other fixin's
6. New Leaf and Staff of Life: natural foods markets with killer sandwiches. Staff of Life makes their own cashew cheese spread that's delish

Enjoy!

For some reason I was thinking about this thread when I woke up this morning (I'm on vacation in the middle of nowhere Oregon and starting to miss having food options at restaurants I guess) and would be remiss not to come back and mention:

You can get coffee (straight up or lattes) with soy milk anywhere in town. Verve has the best coffee but I hate their shop and there's not usually anything to eat. The Delmarette actually uses Verve beans and makes equally good coffee with it, plus they have house made syrups and if you don't like soy milk, they have almond milk too. And at least one of their sandwiches is always vegan, plus usually a salad and/or the soup.

Also, Mobo Sushi has good clearly marked vegan sushi that's more interesting than the usual token cucumber roll.

And if you're around on Wednesday, there's killer sorbet (Scream Sorbet) at thr farmers market along with vegan crepes, vegan Indian food, and zillions of free samples.

I hope you have a nice visit and eat some good stuff!

My trip was wonderful and so relaxing. We ended up only eating at a few places because we're both light eaters and had breakfast at the hotel. On Friday we had dinner at Planet Fresh, and I had a pretty tasty garden burrito - I am pro-broccoli-in-burritos!

On Saturday we almost missed going to Engfer's but managed to get there in time. The pizza was delicious, and they had Blackthorn cider! I love that stuff!

On Sunday we stopped in at Salsa's (formerly Leo's) Taco Bar. I've been a vegetarian my whole life and had never known the love of a chimichanga. Now that I do, I don't know if I can handle being back in San Jose. :(