Tino's and Bouldin Creek Cafe

Had a couple of yummy restaurant meals recently.

Tino's is a chain of casual Greek restaurants all over Austin. You order cafeteria style. The veggie lunch plate lets you choose soup or salad and four sides. I had lentil soup, spanakopita, falafel, baba ganoush, and hummus.

On this visit to Tino's, I noticed that they have posted a list of which menu items are vegan, vegetarian, and gluten-free. It's right there in front of you when you are placing your order, which is really helpful.  I wasn't sure about the lentil soup because I know restaurants occasionally use chicken stock to prepare soups that would otherwise be vegetarian.  But it is in fact vegetarian. Jackson loves the lentil soup; he ate most of mine. Next time he gets his own bowl.

Last weekend we had brunch at Bouldin Creek Cafe.  It was my first time sampling their breakfast items. The menu description for the Renedict said that it is served until 1:00 or until they run out. I thought, if they have to worry about running out of it, it's probably really good. And it was.

The Renedict is Bouldin Creek's version of eggs Benedict, and it can be made vegan by substituting tofu for the eggs, which is what I ordered. The pieces of tofu were completely coated in nutritional yeast so they have a really strong cheezy, savory flavor that you may or may not enjoy depending on your feelings about nooch. I like it, so there you go. There were also some little pieces of either tofu or portabella mushroom, I couldn't tell, that were super smoky as though they had been marinated in liquid smoke for a long time. These added a bacon-y flavor to the dish. But the real highlight was the vegan Hollandaise sauce. So amazing.

Have a great weekend!