Mood:  a-ok

http://www.carinos.com/menu

Ok, first of all what I want to say is that Johnny Carino's offers a lunch punch card M-F, from 11 a.m. until 4 p.m. and on Tuesdays they give you double punches. I have gotten several free meals this way. Always check to see if restaurants have punch cards! Also, on Mondays they have half off family platters. Once I went out with two friends and we each ordered our own family platter since it was almost as much as a regular entree would have cost. I had left overs for like 2-3 more meals!

Johnny Carino's offers the most delicious egglplant parmigiana, way better than Olive Garden. It is a thick, breaded and fried (or maybe baked?) cutlet served with spagetti with meatless marinara sauce. You can get an unlimited side salad for an extra $2 with your entree. I don't know if the unlimited salad also applies to dinner entrees, but it does apply to family platters (per person cost). Of course this all comes with bread.

Like most Italian restaurants, they also offer a fair amount of vegetarian options. They have a good amount of meal salads, all of which have meat, but of course you can request without (but why pay $10 or up for just lettuce and some veggies?)

Appetizers: Stuffed mushrooms; Bruschetta bread

Soup: No, the minestrone there has a meat-based broth

Lunch entrees: Eggplant parmigiana, baked cheese tortelloni (note: this comes with meat sauce unless you request otherwise)

Dinner entrees: Those listed in lunch entrees, also angelhair with artichokes, and create your own pasta (choose sauce and can add vegetables)

Family Platters: None are specifically vegetarian, but I remember I just requested one without meat. I wish the eggplant would come in family platter size, I would eat all of it!

Eggplant Parmigiana

Mood:  a-ok

http://www.fiveguys.com/menu.aspx

It's so great to have a burgers and fries place I can go to! The only thing missing is a milkshake! I love hearty food and comfort food (no hummus for me) and this often isn't available in vegetarian style unless you make it yourself.

Five Guys directly addresses vegetarianism on its website:

"Our veggie sandwich and grilled cheese sandwiches are suitable for lacto-vegetarians. One thing to take note of is that our veggie sandwich is NOT a veggie burger. Our veggie sandwich consists of as many veggie toppings as you desire and served on our basic bun. You can add cheese if you please. Our bread is toasted, usually on a separate grill from meat products. Finally, our fries are just plain potatoes cooked in 100% peanut oil and are suitable for even vegan diets."

It's nice that you can eat the fries there because sometimes fries are cooked in lard or have beef tallow or flavoring in them (example, McDonald's fries). It's a very satisfying burger and many toppings to choose from. The seasoned fries I don't think are that great, but the regular fries are good. In addition, there's free peanuts to eat while waiting for your order. 

Another place that serves veggie (patty) burgers is Burger King. It's far less delicious, but good if you are traveling or need something quick or late at night. Burger King fries are also 100% vegan (and are cooked in separate oil from meat products).

Also, some McDonald's have veggie burgers, but they are completely disgusting like the rest of their food. Also, McDonald's is one fast food restaurant that seems to not even try to accommodate vegetarians, with very, very few veggie options, so don't go there! I also once had a cashier there argue with me about how I could eat their chicken sandwiches because that's vegetarian. I was flabbergasted.  This was on a work-related field trip lunch break where I asked the cashier Is there ANYTHING I can eat here? Turns out, there's not unless you want just fruit or oatmeal so I ate three tiny fruit salads for lunch. McDonald's even states right on their website: "McDonald's does not represent any of our foods as being vegetarian." But does go on to add, "However, we gladly accommodate customer requests to custom-order items without meat." Now, I've heard some people are claiming McDonald's fries are now vegetarian, but they are not! I'm sure you could get a salad without meat, but I hate having only salad as an option because I don't care what anyone claims, salad as the main meal is not filling or truly satisfying in most cases.

Mood:  a-ok

http://www.wasabifargo.com

(note: the website menu seems to be a bit outdated with some things that are no longer offered)

Yesterday I went to Wasabi, which is in the back of Drunken Noodle downtown. 

They have several vegetarian options and will make other things vegetarian for you. For example, I had the Gecko Roll today for $8 (which I didn't realize was a salad roll and not a rice roll) and you can request that they don't add the crab or roe. 

What I get here is the sweet potato roll. Mmm, so good. It has  tempura coated and fried sweet potatoes with cream cheese. The texture and tastes are so good together, especially with the denseness and stickiness of the rice. Unfortunately, this appears to be the only vegetarian roll. Their online menu says they offer a veggie roll, but I have not seen that on the menu at the restaurant. I'm sure they would make one if requested. I wish they would offer some sort of specialty roll maybe with egg where the fish or seafood would be. 

I also like to get the vegetarian version of the gyoza. I've tried both steamed and fried and liked the fried version better. With every roll order you get miso soup (I've also heard you can get a ginger salad instead). 

Other veggie items include:

Edamame

Golden tofu (wasn't that into it, but it does have a nice plum sauce)

Salad roll (can request vegetarian version)

Seaweed salad

Tamago (egg) nigiri or sashimi

I give them a 4 out of 5 for vegetarian friendliness. They don't offer much roll-wise, but they do have a fair amount of other options to change things up every time you go there. 

I promise these blogs will get pictures at some point!

Mood:  a-ok

http://kobescuisine.com

Yesterday I went to Kobe's. I love sushi, but do not eat fish. Here's what I ordered yesterday: Green peace roll, $11.95; Avocado garden salad, $4.95; Miso soup, $2.25; Tempura fried red bean ice cream, $4.95. 

The Green Peace Roll has been absolutely amazing every time I've tried it. It has asparagus, cucumber, mango, and sweet potato inside topped with avocado and served with BBQ sushi sauce and mango puree. The avocado salad was not that great though because it was iceberg lettuce. That just seemed out of place and dull compared to all this beautifully cut avocado that was artfully arranged and a good ginger dressing. Miso soup is always delicious. I thought the red bean ice cream might creep me out for some reason, but it was actually pretty good. It was sweet without being overly sweet and a nice light, crunchy tempura coating.

They have two vegetarian soup options: miso, vegetable tofu; salads: Green garden salad, Avocado green salad, seaweed salad;  and appetizers: Edamame, vegetable gyoza, tosa tofu, steamed asparagus, and vegetable tempura. If you get the vegetable gyoza don't panic, it's not meat mixed in there, it's tofu because I freaked out the first time I got it and they explained this to me. 

As far as basic rolls go they have they have avocado, peanut avocado, sweet potato, and one specifically called vegetarian. They only have one specialty roll that is veggie, which is the Green Peace Roll.

Other vegetarian items include: 

Egg (tamago) sushi or sashimi a la carte

Vegetable Yaki soba (not sure if this has fish oil though)

Vegetable Teriyaki

Vegetable Tempura

I give Kobe's a 5 out of 5 for degree of vegetarian friendliness. Lots of veggie options here!

Mood:  happy

I'm an ovo-lacto vegetarian (eat eggs and dairy). I have been a vegetarian for 9 years now. There were several reasons I became a vegetarian.

1) At the time I was dating someone who was a vegetarian and I cooked so it was easier to just make everything veg instead of two versions.

2) I absolutely love animals and have always been sensitive when it comes to their suffering. I was especially influenced by the book The Jungle.

3) Even though it doesn't make much sense, the final deciding factor was when the police shot a moose and its baby who had wandered into town. Why couldn't they have just tranquilized them and then released them? Either way, they were going to shoot them and have to transport them somewhere and somehow!

4) I believe if I was able to go out and get my own meat or fish I  would possibly eat it, although maybe not because I'm a lil creeped out by meat now. I feel like others shouldn't be doing the dirty work for me, and I can't do it myself, so I remain meatless. I have no problem with (ethical) hunting and fishing because they are going out and doing it themselves and the animal was not just raised for meat or mass-slaughtered. I especially appreciate when hunters/fishers have respect for animals simply because it was another living creature; they understand taking away something's life is not to be done without thought or purpose. But others who just shoot animals for fun or do things like run over animals on purpose, that's just not right!

I am pretty strict, but I understand it's nearly impossible to be 100% true vegetarian. For example, I will still eat sour cream or yogurt even though most of the time these have gelatin. Sometimes I can't resist a marshmallow (gelatin) or a donut or pies (they usually have lard). I don't even pay attention to things like table sugar possibly being filtered through charcoal (which may be derived from animal bone) or that cheese could have rennet. But I do not eat things with animal flavorings, animal-derived broths, fish oils, other things with lard, beef tallow, Caesar salad, jell-o, etc. I don't eat fish or seafood, which I still consider meat...well, actually I consider most seafood just giant sea insects (shudder). I don't pick the meat off things and then eat it. I hate when people do that, that's pointless and not vegetarian, the meat juices are all in everything!

I also want to say that I do not care if you eat meat or not. I think being a vegetarian is just a personal choice, and I'm not going to give you PETA pamphlets or other bothersome things like that.  

I usually try to look at online menus before going to a restaurant so I know if I can eat anything there. However, sometimes these menus are difficult to find or do not exist. I thought about how convenient it would be if there was a list or webpage about vegetarian options. I will go to restaurants in the Fargo-Moorhead area (and some other cities) and discover and post the vegetarian options available at the restaurants, and my opinion of the foods I tried. No pizza places will be discussed unless there is something outstanding about it. Everyone already knows you can just get cheese or a veggie one. 

I will also find out the prices of desserts and post them here. I don't know why the dessert prices always seem to have to be a secret at restaurants, very rarely ever posted on the online menu.