A Visit to the Spiral Diner

After reading Katie's post about a month ago over at Chocolate Covered Vegan, I vowed to make a stop at Spiral Diner on my road trip home from college.



Well, I'm finally back from college, and I am happy to report that I did indeed eat at Spiral Diner for a late lunch yesterday! My dad agreed we could stop there, but we both know that my sister is an incredibly picker eater -- we didn't tell her our vegan dining plans until we pulled into Spiral's parking lot. Even though she's 18, we knew my sister would throw a hissy fit if she found out we were planning to eat at a 100% vegan restaurant. Here are just a few clues about how picky she is: She hates vegetables, she hates whole grains, she hates anything healthy, and she loves plain cheese quesadillas but claims she hates vegetarian food. She "hates" reading menus and she loves fried food. Her staple foods are pizza, French fries, hash browns, cheesy nachos, trans-fat-laden Keebler cookies, and who knows what other crap. But all this is beside the point.

The point is that my dad and I enjoyed our meals at Spiral, even though the whole time my sister gave us hell that we were there. I don't get to go to all vegan restaurants very often, and this is the place I requested to go on our trip. It sucks that my sister felt like she had to ruin it for me. Here's what my dad ordered:



According to the menu, The Big Taquito is "a heaping helping of our tofu scramble with diced sausage, onions, red bell peppers, potatoes, and avocado - all wrapped up, grilled, and sealed in a tortilla, served with a side of fresh salsa." He chose the potato salad as his side. I didn't try any of his meal, but my dad kept saying it was really good.

My sister ordered the V-L-T: "bacun bits, lettuce, and tomato served on grilled multi-grain bread with mayo." She ordered corn chips for her side item. She told me she doesn't even like non-vegan bacon, so it beats me why she ordered this sandwich. She didn't like the texture of the "bacun" bits and said it reminded her of a "cat litter sandwich." I'm not joking. She just scraped them off the bread and ate a vegan mayo/lettuce/tomato sandwich. I tried some of the bits from her plate and thought they were pretty addicting. Later she admitted she liked the bread.

Since it's not too often that I can eat absolutely anything on the menu, it took me forever to decide on my entree. I'm not much of a sandwich or wrap girl -- I like plate-style, fork-and-knife entrees -- but the wrap and sandwich section makes up the bulk of Spiral's menu. Finally I chose the Crispy Spring Wrap, which was "grilled seitan, carrots, cucumbers, red bell peppers, red onion, and salad greens topped with our homemade agave mustard dressing," rolled inside a flour tortilla. I had orange wedges for my side.



The wrap was pretty good -- I haven't had seitan since January and really wanted some. I also thought the agave mustard sounded good, but the wrap definitely was smothered in the mustard sauce. I still enjoyed it, and the seitan was grilled and had a different texture than I'm used to. The seitan was my favorite part, for sure.



I would definitely like to go back to Spiral to try some other menu items, but I know that won't be possible with my sister around. (Plus, the diner is 4+ hours away from my parent's house.) I couldn't decide on dessert either, so I decided to be boring and get a Chocolate Chip Cookie. It was a crispy kind of cookie. I liked it, but I think Dreena's Homestyle Chocolate Chip Cookies (with spelt flour) are better!





If any of you have ever visited Panda Express in the past, you know about the phenomenon that is Orange Chicken. Well, you can't even get anything vegetarian at Panda Express (it's all cooked in chicken stock, even the rice and vegetables), but I did finally recreate orange chicken by using frozen tofu and combining two different recipes. It was absolutely, positively delicious: Orange Tofu is one of the best things I've ever made!



I thawed some frozen lite firm tofu (I use 1/3 block for one serving), cut it into moderately thick and squat triangle shapes, wrapped it in some paper towels, and pressed it on a cutting board topped with a lot of heavy objects. After 10 minutes, it was ready. I filled a bowl with 1/4 cup of cornstarch, put the tofu inside, covered it, and shook it up. The tofu was still slightly moist, so the cornstarch coated the outside really well. I browned each side of the tofu triangles in 1/2 tablespoon of peanut oil. Meanwhile, I sauteed a chopped green onion in water in a non-stick pan, and heated up Dreena's Orange Sesame Tofu sauce from Eat, Drink & Be Vegan. I used 1/4 of the recipe to make my single serving. The only part I made from Dreena's recipe was the sauce -- I put it in the pan with the green onions, heated it through, and then thickened it up with a little cornstarch.

Next, I dropped the browned, breaded tofu triangles into the orange sauce and stirred gently to completely coat them. I plopped these babies on top of some reheated leftover brown rice and steamed broccoli, and then sprinkled the tofu with sesame seeds and more green onions. Ohhh man, this meal rocked! (Using juice from freshly squeezed orange wedges makes the most amazing sauce!) Try it, seriously. This fills the void in my life created by a longing for vegan orange "chicken."

My homemade Larabar post is coming soon! In the meantime, I will be enjoying my time at home cooking in the family kitchen, making waffles and pancakes for my family, relaxing, and maybe even embarking on my first homemade seitan adventure until I have to start summer school in a couple of weeks. Yee-haw!