Eat Local: Green Cafe Vegan Cuisine

Overview: Green Cafe is a Vietnamese restaurant that serves a vegan menu—no meat, egg and dairy. But that hardly holds it back from having more than 60 items on its menu, including drinks and desserts.

Decor: Strings of white lights hang around the restaurant along with Oriental wall fans. There are many two- and three-person tables and a handful of booths that rest upon a color palette of calming cool earth tones of blues and greens.

Drinks: Green Cafe offers many vegan and fresh fruit drinks, from Thai iced tea and vegan French iced coffee ($3) to soy milk shakes, fresh young coconut and fresh fruit smoothies ($4). 

Appetizers: The cafe has two types of rolls, both traditional. The golden rolls are a crispy fried roll filled with tofu, carrot, taro and bean thread ($5), and the four season rolls ($6) are fresh rolls filled with vermicelli noodles, mint leaves, cilantro and yam shrimp. Fried wontons ($6) filled with tofu, cabbage, onions, leeks, oriental celery and mushrooms are another delectable item on the menu. The crispy tofu ($5) and a favorite is the happy drumstick, which is a fried soy protein that is fried around a piece of sugar cane ($6) served with a spicy sauce that gives the fried protein a kick. 

Entrees: Some of the popular dishes include the vegan pho ($7), which is the famous Vietnamese noodle soup with tofu, soy protein, mushrooms, bean sprouts and basil in a vegetable broth. Another popular dish is the angel rice claypot ($10); it’s a ginger cooked rice along with tofu, soy protein, mushrooms, bean threads and onions. The humble curry ($10), which also draws many people to the restaurant, has a coconut curry sauce that is draped over tofu, potatoes, onions, carrots and garbanzo beans.  

Sides: Dishes range from a side of steamed white or brown rice ($2) or a side of vegetables or broccoli ($5). 

Desserts: Vegan desserts are hard to come by, and Green Cafe is know for its vegan cheesecake ($4), which it runs out of daily, and orange cake ($4), both definitely worth a bite. In case you might be too full from cake and want something lighter, there is also vegan ice cream ($3).  

Service: The brunch and lunch times are busy, and the wait can be a several minutes, but other than that, the service is great, quick and friendly. 

Signature Dish: Green Cafe’s signature dish is the special fried soy protein sauteed in BBQ garlic seasoning.

Where to go:

Green Cafe Vegan Cuisine
McCarthy Ranch Shopping Center
190 Ranch Dr.

Hours: Monday-Thursday, 11 a.m.-9 p.m.; Friday-Saturday, 11 a.m.-10 p.m.; Sunday, closed.

Payments accepted: MasterCard, Visa, cash

Opened: November 2010