- [Lucas] We are headed to what began as a pop up
and is now a permanent fixture
inside of a classic car showroom called Hella Vegan.
And it seems to be comfort food,
so things like biscuits and gravy,
fried chicken and waffles, you know home-style
comfort vegan food at Hella Vegan.
- You look great by the way.
- Not as good as you.
Showing me up on my own show.
- Bonjourno!
- Do you speak Italian?
- No, I just say that for like everything.
It's like cheers, bonjourno,
or like you're in my way, bonjourno.
Or it's like bon jour-no!
- Wow.
- Oh yeah. (laughs)
Hella Vegan Eats, it started off as a pop up
and then one time we threw this huge
vegan beer and food festival in this space
and like thousands of people showed up.
And so it was like we should just do this thing...
- Permanently.
- Yeah.
This is like the free kingdom
and so I'm just another one of them.
- Did you have a background in food?
- All the vegan food around that was kind of like
not as exciting and bright as I live my life,
so I basically just was really forward with the options,
and so just learned how to cook.
- Is everything in the restaurant vegan?
- Yeah, it's not just vegan, it's Hella Vegan.
- Do that again.
- It's not just vegan, it's Hella Vegan!
(upbeat rock music)
- What can I do for you today?
- Well hello, that's how we do things
at Hella Vegan Eats.
My name is Lucas and I would like to order
some of this delicious food.
- [Hannah] Tape means we don't have it, sad.
- Tape means no.
So you ran out of chili?
Well hopefully the chicken waffles are just as good
'cause I will try that.
- It's kind of the staple on the weekends for sure.
- I think also just like the breakfast,
the champions of breakfast.
Are you a vegan?
- I am not a vegan.
- Okay, but that's okay.
- It's fine.
I think that's almost like a bigger compliment,
is if you do eat meat, but you choose to eat vegan food
even if your friends...
You know, especially 'cause your friends make it.
- That's very true.
- But I will opt for things on this menu.
- But you'll just eat it 'cause you think it tastes good.
- Yep.
- Thanks for talking to me.
Looking forward to this food.
- Yeah, you guys should sit in the beer garden.
- I think we will.
- Yeah, and we're gonna yell on a megaphone.
- Oh yeah?
Oh awesome, great.
Okay, let's go.
(upbeat rock music)
- Lucas, your order is ready.
Enjoy, thank you so much!
- Thank you, thank you.
Look at this, a vegan feast.
A lot of thought and care has gone into
how do we make things taste like meat,
even if they're not meat.
A favorite is tofu,
made from soybeans, is a common meat substitute.
Another is tempeh, fermented soy beans,
and it has more of like a grainy texture.
And then lastly there is seitan,
and seitan is wheat gluten, so not for the gluten free.
For the chicken and waffles, bachelor number one,
this chicken is a compressed, texturized soy patty.
There's a little pat of herb butter,
which is not going to be butter
'cause butter is a dairy product.
But margarine is not,
or at least most margarine is.
It's sort of perfect, fried chicken is
crispy, salty, crunchy, savory,
and then the pleasantly wheaty texture
of the waffle goes well.
So it's you know, when you think of biscuits and gravy
you think of sausage and biscuits,
baked good with protein.
That frequently goes well together.
Sage, oregano,
it's nicely battered and fried.
You know, it has a crunchy coating on the outside.
I like this, I would eat this.
Alright, we have a breakfast plate
of biscuits and gravy.
There's also like a tofu-egg scramble, some seitan bacon.
I'm gonna get a spoonful of this egg scramble,
some of the fake bacon.
It has the texture of scrambled eggs.
Tofu gets a bad rap, but I really like it.
It very much is a blank canvas
and I think that's sort of the strategy.
Like it has a slightly sweet flavor,
but it has that firm texture of a piece of meat
and the flavor's not overwhelming
so that whatever spices or things you put into it,
the protein will take on that flavor
and that's what tofu is.
It lacks the depth of an egg flavor,
if that makes any sense,
like what you would get from an egg yolk.
I don't necessarily miss it.
The seitan bacon, it's heavily spiced.
It tastes like curry.
Biscuits and gravy, again it does become
a little bit of a challenge for baked goods
because you can't use things like eggs and butter.
The common pitfall is that it becomes sort of too dense.
But this is nice.
The biscuit still does have that buttery flakiness.
As far as the gravy goes,
it tastes like onion soup a little bit.
You know, as someone that works in food,
it would be very hard for me to be a vegetarian
and it would be very hard for me to be a vegan,
given the industry and that it is my job
to try to eat as many different kinds of things as I can.
If you look at it from the perspective of
well the goal is to like stop suffering,
then I think there's a very strong argument
for vegetarianism.
I get it, and I respect that choice.
There are good vegan options,
and so I for one welcome our new vegan overlords.
I really hope you enjoyed this episode
of Dining on a Dime from Hella Vegan
in Oakland California.
If you'd like to watch more, please click here.