Nile Ethiopian Cuisine

2130 Magazine St, Garden District, New Orleans, LA
Map

 

 

Restaurant type:

Ethiopian

The Yetsom Beyaynetu - vegetarian combo

Service:

Acceptable

Ambiance:

A pleasant airy space with modern, if a little sparse, decoration. The large wall mural is somewhat eclectic. The restaurant is set in the beautiful Garden District on Magazine Street with its Antique shops and boutiques.

The inside of the restaurant

Vegan choice:

Limited, but the vegetarian platter offers all the choice one would wish on one plate.

 

Review:

I adore Ethiopian food. I like it more than most people. I try to eat in every Ethiopian restaurant I come across. I seek them out in every new town. I have eaten in approximately 25 Ethiopian restaurants. This was one of my favourites in terms of the quality of the food.

When I arrived, at lunchtime, the restaurant was very quiet and so there was little atmosphere. Nonetheless, the space was bright and airy, and pleasant for the day time. The only downside was the rather poor mural that dominates one wall. I imagine that in the evening, with a crowd, the place might have a slightly better ambiance.

The vegetarian/vegan options on the menu

The vegan options were precisely three. Not much one might think, however, I have seldom been in an Ethiopian restaurant where I wanted anything but the vegetable combo dish (yetsom beyaynetu). That was on the menu and that is what I had. It was delicious: red lentils in a berbere sauce (miser wot), yellow split pea stew (kik alicha), some greens, a potato and carrot dish, a red potato and beet dish, and a dry brown lentil concoction, served on injera bread. The miser wot was hot contained many levels of spice. The kik alicha, always my favourite, was mild, creamy and subtly tasty. The two potato dishes were fabulous: creamy, melt-in-the-mouth vegetables in a light sauce. Even the greens and salad, always my least favourite, were tasty and beautifully dressed. The injera, a deliciously sour crumpet bread, was light and as moreish as ever. The injera was not in short supply and our reserve dish of it was topped up frequently and without extra charge. The quality of the food was excellent. I rate it the third best Ethiopian restaurant that I have been in, third only to Addis Red Sea in Boston and Fekerte's in Canberra.

The outside of the restaurant

The menu

The vegetarian combo with the injera

Carmo

527 Julia Street (between Camp and Magazine), Warehouse District, New Orleans, LA
Map
http://cafecarmo.com/ 

 

Restaurant type:

informal tropical cafe with many vegan, vegetarian and gluten free options. Eco-friendly and sustainable ethic. Eclectic mix of African, South American, and Asian influences.

The Acarajé main course

Service:

adequate

Ambiance:

stripped-back, exposed brick, re-purposed and re-finished furniture, kitchen open to restaurant

Vegan choice:

Excellent. Most of the dishes were vegan or had vegan alternatives that involved replacing a non-vegan ingredient with a vegan one (e.g. replacing ham with vegan ham) not just leaving things out. Thought was given to the vegan meals to make sure that they were nutritionally balanced. The menu contained a substantial salad selection, sandwiches, a handful of main courses plus a couple of extra specials, and a few baked goods. Unusual fruit juices and cocktails are a feature.

The Acarajé main course

Review:

In many ways this restaurant knows what it is doing, and is doing it very well. Based in the trendy warehouse district it offers a pared-back look, with undisguised, re-cycled furniture, exposed brick, high ceilings and the kitchen open to one of the two main dining rooms. It has a utilitarian, functional aesthetic. Matching this, is the stated eco-friendly, sustainable ethic behind the food, which is also sensitive to vegetarian, vegan, and gluten-free needs and desires. In addition, the restaurant has an inventive, varied and interesting menu. Yet given all these positive and attractive features, the food doesn't quite live up to what one might hope that a place like this might deliver. That's not to say the food is not good. It is. It is just does not quite live up to the high expectations the other features the restaurant has to offer set for it.

I tried three of the salads. The Carmo salad contained rice, pineapple, avocado, nuts, raisins, cucumber, green pepper, vegan ham tossed with citrus mango vinaigrette. It was perhaps a little sweet, but otherwise tasty and varied. The Broken Noodle salad contained rice noodles with tofu, peanuts, bean sprouts, carrots, cucumber, peas, mushrooms, cabbage, cilantro, peppers and scallions, tossed with citrus ginger chili vinaigrette. This was a little disappointing. It was a bit light on the noodles, tofu and peanuts and contained too many bean sprouts. The dressing was not substantial enough for the salad and existed in a puddle at the bottom of the dish. The Esmeralda Salad was delicious. The base was quinoa, and it also contained black beans, corn, peppers, pumpkin seeds and cilantro. The coconut chili lime vinaigrette was absolutely delicious. Its sweet and sour balance was just right, and the quinoa held the dressing very well.

I ordered the Acarajé main course. It consisted of three black-eyed pea fritters stuffed with vatapá (spicy cashew peanut paste), served with salsa fresca, hot sauce and salad. The fritters were crispy on the outside and moist on the inside and fairly substantial. One of my companions thought that the fritters were much too dry and tough on the outside. I disagreed but they would have been better if slightly lighter. The cashew paste was tasty and thick without being cloying. The salad and salsa were fresh and a good accompaniment. Other main courses were not presented in as beautiful a fashion as this dish, and the presentation of some of the specials requires some attention.

I tried two of the cocktails on offer. The Cajulia was a mix of cashew fruit juice with lemon and vodka. It was beautifully bitter with the  right level of alcohol in it. The L'Entrepot was a tea-infused rum concoction with lime, mint, agave and soda water. It was high in alcohol and had an interesting intense many-layered spiced taste. The wine list was short but, nontheless, contained a variety of good quaffable wines. I wish that I had tried some of the fruit juices listed on the blackboards but not on the menus, and would have done if they had been brought to my attention when first ordering.

Overall the restaurant has an exciting, original menu of fair-quality fusion cuisine. It is well worth a visit.

Dreamy Weenies

740 North Rampart Street, French Quarter, New Orleans, LA
Map

 

 

 

 

Restaurant type:

This is a fast food joint serving only hot-dogs in buns and fries. Meat (including kosher and halal options) and vegetarian and vegan options are on the menu.

Inside the restaurant

Service:

The staff were exceptionally friendly and suitably attentive. They were exceptionally knowledgeable about what veganism was, the vegan options available, and offered information about how it was cooked (separately from the non-vegan dishes).

Ambiance:

An attractive, old school fast food joint playing cool jazz, NOLA-style, on the edge of the French Quarter, across the road from Louis Armstrong park.

Garden district hot-dog with vegan mayo and ketchup, roasted garlic and waffle fries

Vegan choice:

It was very good. There are three different vegan sausages on offer, and many topings including vegan mayo and vegan cheese, not to mention hummus, roast garlic, avocado, and particular local specialities such as beans and rice, and chilli and Creole mix. There were also fries of various kinds available. Only the wholewheat bun was vegan and they sometimes run out.

Vegan preparation:

The vegan food is cooked separately from the rest.

Garden district hot-dog with vegan mayo and ketchup

Review:

The restaurant serves excellent fast food in an appropriately atmosphere: a knowingly old-school jazz diner, with New Orleans attitude. I tried both the kielbasa (an eastern European style sausage) with the chilli and Creole mix and vegan cheese and the garden district sausage with ketchup, vegan mayo, cheese and roast garlic. The sausages were meaty, hearty, and flavoursome, with the spices in the mix singing out despite the generous toppings. I suspect that they were wholesome too. The third kind of vegan sausage on offer were falafel, which I didn't try. The toppings were delicious and the whole lot came in a whole wheat bun. The seasoned waffle fries were crisp and exceptionally tasty, but the other waffle fries and sweet potatoes fries were good too. I don't think that vegan fast food could come much better than this!

This man looks as jolly as the staff turned out to be.

Louis Armstrong park entrance right outside

Welcome

Dear Reader,

Welcome to this blog about vegan dining and eating. I'll mostly blog about vegan dining experiences in restaurants of all sorts: vegan, vegetarian and non-vegetarian. I travel to disparate places frequently and luckily get the chance to try out many different places to eat. However, I'll also review interesting products and recipes from time to time. I  hope that some of my vegan friends will guest blog occasionally too.

The first few reviews come from New Orleans. I was told it might be tough to be vegan here. I beg to differ. At least for five days it was rather good as the first reviews in this blog will attest to.

Best wishes,
Discerning Vegan