veggis are foodies too

When I kicked meat, about a year ago, my search for great vegetarian food commenced. I have always loved great food, but when meat was out of the picture my selection became seriously impaired. Sitting down at a restaurant scanning the menu with meat dish after meat dish, and finally realizing the only thing I could order was the house salad, first made me sad, and then violently angry (obviously very hungry at this point). I slowly began the downward spiral that any newly proclaimed veggi takes...I started settling.

At most restaurants I didn't order what sound best, because I couldn't.  At the grocery store, if the label says veggi, I had probably tried it in every flavor, and dosed it in every kind of sauce there is. Some of it is delicious, some is basically edible, and a lot should not be called "food" altogether. Before getting to cynical, I decided to try a few vegetarian restaurants. This changed my world. Great food prepared so much better than I had been making it, and I could pick anything on the menu!

If not for these amazing restaurants I would never have lasted those first couple weeks, much less a year. Today I know some good veggi brands and have some great recipes up my sleeve, but eating out had become a fond memory. What I can fit in between my full-time class schedule, internship, and 20 hour a week serving gig, usually involves cheap beer, and moist peanuts are pretty much the only things on the menu. 

A few weeks ago my friend Ellen decided the time had come, we were eating out goddamit!

A few days before our friend Alexis had been given a list by the cute bagger at Henry's. Probably some kind of granola pick-up tactic, which was lost on Alexis, but couldn't have been better for us. This list contained the name, style, and location of every veggi/vegan restaurant in San Diego. 
Jackpot. 

We plan to journey to every veggi restaurant, market, store, etc., and report back with the good the bad and the ugly, giving it a 1-10. Come with us fellow San Diegan Veggis, we're all foodies at heart!