Meatless Sundays @ Willie Jane
I’ve been eating an almost exclusively vegan diet for about six months now, but I don’t necessarily want to eat out at a vegan restaurant every time. Sometimes I just wanna hit up a vegan-friendly spot that I can enjoy with my meat-eating friends. And that’s just what I did at Willie Jane restaurant on Abbot Kinney. Their new Meatless Sunday Dinner offers three courses that change weekly for just $26. Three words: Vegan crab cakes. OMG!!! These things are so addictive even our non-vegan friends asked for a second order. Thankfully they’re a permanent fixture on the regular menu, so you can get ’em anytime.
Chef Ryan Costanza isn’t a vegan but his fiance is, so all of us get to reap the benefits of his culinary creativity and his knowledge of how to make a vegan dish really come alive with flavor.
The quinoa and sorghum salad is dressed with the freshest vegetables in season. This version has beets, radishes, garden greens from their organic community garden and housemade cashew cheese. FYI: All the soy proteins at Willie Jane are made in house. Really good stuff.
The star of the show: Vegan crab cake made with heart of palm, which gives it that crab-like texture. There’s also a deliciously spicy miso remoulade and edamame hummus. As someone who’s eaten plenty of crab cakes in the past, if they hadn’t told me it wasn’t crab, I would never have known. This is one instance when imitation is better than the real thing.
Spicy charred tomato pasta. The sauce is made with Fresno chiles and habaneros, which give it the perfect kick. The buckwheat soba noodles are pan-fried like dan dan noodles, so there’s a nice crunch, not just some boring slippery spaghetti. Plus the tofu ricotta and pepper jack are amaze!
Vegan red velvet chocolate bar with marcona almond crumbles and soy cream. WOW!!! It almost tasted a little like a Butterfinger to me and I loooove the texture of the chocolate. Think of it as a Southern twist on the classic Ho-Ho. Thankfully, it’s always on the menu.
More info: www.williejane.com
Lifestyle writer Mar Yvette is on a mission to bring you the best people, places, and products to make your life pop!