A Cautious Meal At California Vegan

After getting my haircut in Hollywood, I headed down the street to California Vegan for a late lunch. I was a little wary about dining there, since they had a "B" rating, but I was optimistic in hoping it was due to one bad inspection. I opted to take advantage of one of their lunch specials, settling on the Orange Chicken ($8), since this has always been one of my favorite vegan Thai dishes.

The server brought out a cup of miso soup, fairly quickly.

The soup was decent. I'm not a huge fan of miso soup, but this version was pretty good. The seaweed was very dominant and the miso flavor had a fishy taste. The scallions added a nice crunchiness.

Next, the main course came out.

The spring roll was perfectly deep-fried and crispy on the outside. The inside was a little too salty and bitter, though. The lettuce and cucumber mixture in the salad did not taste very fresh, although the peanut dressing was very scrumptious. It was very creamy and had lovely balance of sweetness and spiciness. The orange "chicken" was great on the first bite, but the sauce became very overwhelming. It was very greasy and oily and difficult to digest. I felt my stomach aching before I even finished the meal.

For dessert, I wanted to try a slice of the vegan cheesecake. Despite the signs all over the restaurant hyping up the cheesecake, they were sadly out of it. Thus, I ended up ordering the Tiramisu ($6).

The dessert was the highlight of the meal and almost made up for the mediocre food. The tiramisu had a lovely espresso taste that was balanced out by the rich chocolate. The dessert had a wonderful creamy consistency. The chocolate sauce took the dessert over the top, adding the perfect amount of sweetness.

Overall, the meal was not very satisfactory and left me with bad stomach cramps. The only good part of the meal was the heavenly dessert. If I were to return to California Vegan, I would probably just order dessert, although I regret not ordering Thai Iced Tea. With the Scout Mob 50% off deal that I used on Scoutmob's mobile app, the meal only cost less than $10 with tax and tip.