Enjoying some vegan eating in Austin's neighborhood

This is the famous Protein 2000 dish: vegetable proteins made of soybeans in a slightly sweet brown sauce with broccoli, garlic and onions.


This is called Lucky 7. Here's how the menu described it: seven fried tofu balls made of celery, carrots, chestnut, vegetable protein, and breadcrumbs are cooked with broccoli, baby bok choy, cauliflower, carrots, napa cabbage, onion and garlic in a slightly sweet and spicy red sauce.

One of the difficult parts to living in the Rio Grande Valley is the shortage of restaurants that serve to vegans. There are simply slim pickings down here. Perhaps that's a good thing, considering I don't eat in restaurants as much anymore. I did this weekend though when I went to Austin and had lunch at Veggie Heaven next to the campus of the University of Texas with my friend, Dean. I forgot to take pictures of what we were eating until after we had already started chowing down. That's why they look a little a sloppy. The restaurant serves such a crazy variety of vegan dishes. So many are good, but I always find myself gravitating to Protein 2000. It is simply soul food. I love their fried spring rolls, steam buns and the brown rice with lentils, as well. Here's a link to Veggie Heaven's menu.