Plant Vegan jerky plantain

4 Tasty Bites in Asheville, North Carolina

Chimney Rock River

Chimney Rock, North Carolina

I spent only three days of this short trip and if I get the chance to visit North Carolina again I’d love to visit Raleigh and try a new Laotian Restaurant in the area and also visit a good friend of mine.  I was celebrating my birthday and there is a post I’ve already published regarding my trip to Asheville and Lake Lure, NC linked here.

We did a lot of walking and almost no planning on where to eat, my husband is vegetarian so it was important to at least know which places where veggie friendly so we were very lucky when visiting Asheville, every single restaurant either had a vegetarian/vegan section on their menu, or they made it clear they would accommodate us.  It felt pretty good for him considering that most of the times restaurants offer for vegetarians either a boring salad or a side of french fries.

He already had in his mind that he wanted to try VegHeads and Plant.  I was excited about Veg Heads because it is a drive-thru fast food joint but vegetarian!  Plant seemed more fancy but when we drove by we also noticed the funky feeling of their customers (by funky I mean everyone having blue, purple or red hair color, shredded jeans, tattoos and piercings).  Plant’s menu was also very interesting having spices from different cuisines and being fully Vegan, local and all the good things.

I don’t regret anything I ate during this trip, there were things that were not so good (fast food stops, a strange eating almost at midnight from a Chinese restaurant, etc) but they are not worth to mention with details or photographed during our trip.  In the end, there was my favorite thing that it was so good that I forgot to take a picture of it. It was a Coconut Cream Cake slice, and yes it was on my birthday.

These were five tasty foods we tried during our trip:

1.  Coconut Cream Cake from Old Europe (no picture, I know boohoo)

Chocolate Gems Asheville
2.  Chocolate Gems was terrific, I enjoyed every single truffle, my favorite was the one suggested by one of their employees *Earl Grey Tea Truffle* and their turtles, they were not overly sweet, I actually tasted the Champagne, the Beer truffle wasn’t as flavorful as I hoped, but the rest were flawlessly luscious.

VegHeads Asheville

3. VegHeads was the most surprising experience because it was our first vegetarian drive-thru.  The attention was the friendliest we had during our trip (and we must say that everywhere we went we received a very kind attention).  The Philly Cheese Seitan Wrap on Pita Bread was very delicious, warm, great bread, flavorful seitan/cheese and vegetables grilled just enough.  We also tried the Korean BBQ Tempeh Wrap in flat bread, it tasted great, but we were not in the mood for tangy flavors so we enjoyed the seitan wrap much more.  Also, be aware that this is not really a fast-food place, the folks in there take their time to prepare your food so I suggest to patiently order, go and take a sit at one of their available tables and wait for the smiling person to bring your meal.  I swear I felt happy even before eating my sandwich.

vegan cheese plate Plant Asheville

4.  Plant.  When we went to Plant we were expecting a very expensive kind of restaurant, don’t get me wrong it is pricey in compare to regular food joints, but I just thought it would be much more.  Do you know why?  Because we ordered beers and we were expecting DC prices and boy were we wrong, most of our beers were $4 or less ha!

The above picture shows the Cheese Platter I ordered, one cheese was made of soy and the other was cashew milk cheese.  The Rosemary-Olive Oil drizzled over the berries and in combination with the olives gave the dish a wonderful back and forth between flavors and textures.  I would definitively order it again the next time.  The customer service was ok, nothing too warm but never cold, our waitress was there whenever we needed her and that’s enough on my list. The below picture is also from this restaurant, the dish is called *JERK* grilled tempeh, smashed sweet potatoes, sautéed collards and fried banana.  I wasn’t too crazy about the presentation or the flavors of this dish.  Maybe it wasn’t a good day for it, but it arrived at room temperature/cold and it had too many sweet flavors (bananas and sweet potatoes), also I must admit I like my seitan with a crispy texture or if it’s going to be grilled, I look for the charred flavor, but it was my husband’s dish and he enjoyed it very much.

While at Plant, I also ordered their Peanut Butter and Jelly House Ice Cream, it was unbelievable, I ordered a scoop of it as an extra for our cranberry-apple tart that wasn’t impressive, but this PBJ ice cream made me forget about the other part of the dessert.

We finished our meal with a capuccino with soy milk, delicious, strong, just like coffee should be.

Plant vegan jerky plantain asheville

 

cranberry apple tart plant

Buttermilk Pie Scratch bakery

Bonus:  Scratch Bakery in Durham was our break-stop between DC and Chimney Rock (8-9 hours trip).  This Sugar Buttermilk pie was a bit sweet and sour, perfectly creamy, but a little too rich for my taste, I don’t dare to condemn or applaud this pie since it was the first of its kind that I’ve tried.  I didn’t like the crust, it had a strange chewy and not so very crumbly texture, and its flavor didn’t do much for me.  I would stop by again because I have read great things about this bakery, it is a shame we were not hungry enough to try other pastries or breakfast options from their menu.

Now there you have it this was my short but wonderful experience while visiting North Carolina, I know I missed a lot of places, a Ramen Shop, Indian and Thai Food, pizza, food trucks, so many places, so little time!

Hopefully my next road trip will be to Pittsburgh, but that has yet to be confirmed.

¡a comer!

 

 

 

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