Haydn Zugs - East Petersburg

Overall Rating: A Good Choice for a Special Occasion
Highlight: Very Willing to Accommodate
Lowlight: Holy High Prices
Veggie Note: There area few vegetarian dishes on the lunch and dinner menu and the chef is willing to prepare you anything

My office had our holiday party here. It's a little bit of a drive from Harrisburg, but a really nice spot for a special occasion dinner with family, friends or a loved one.

Haydn Zugs is an upscale dining establishment set in a colonial style old general store. The tables were set with beautiful holiday pewter chargers and individual pewter bread plates and butter dishes when we arrived. They checked our coats and were very fast with drink service (Each ice tea, etc... came with a little refill carafe to keep your drink fresh, and the server was quick to top off everybody's drinks for them as she made her way around the table). The menu is extensive. There were separate lunch and dinner menus included in the same book, along with an extensive wine list. There is a vegetarian sandwich on the lunch menu and also an entree on the dinner menu. Both are non-descriptive and suggest they are at the whim of the chef that day, however the waitress told me she thought the sandwich was usually a portobello mushroom creation. That seemed unoriginal to me, considering the creativity of many of the other dishes on the menu so I continued searching for something else. There is a very forward statement on the menu that the chef is willing to accommodate any requests for adaptations for dishes or even create something new, particularly in regards to vegetarian meals.

I had the following:

Complimentary:

• Fresh Baked Dinner Rolls - A variety of rolls were placed on the table once we ordered our food. They were warm and fresh and delicious. There were definitely some standard white bread rolls mixed in, but I had one with poppy and sesame seeds and another with flax seeds. They were great. I should also note here that everyone had their own cute little pewter butter dish, so no worries about not having enough. I am a butter lover so this was great for me.

First Course:

• Spinach Salad - typically comes with bacon so I asked for it without that, but the sweet and sour dressing is not made with the bacon, so I was able to get that still. The salad was great with fresh spinach, mushrooms, croutons, grape tomatoes, and more. I should note that the first grape tomato I ate was like a little tomato popsicle. None of the others were frozen so I don't know if that one was just too close to the cold air in the fridge or if they freeze all of their tomatoes, but everything else tasted very fresh.

Entrees (what we created anyway):

• Cup of Soup with a Half Sandwich of the Day - So I really wanted soup, it was a chilly day. Much to my disappointment none of the soups were vegetarian however (The Cheesy Chowder sounded so good, but was made with chicken stock). So I got this dish, but just ordered a whole sandwich instead of half to replace the missing soup. The sandwich of the day was an egg salad on brioche. The egg salad had a little chipotle seasoning in it which was a nice touch. The brioche was very tasty, but they were small rolls, so I actually got two little sandwiches (I imagine the half sandwich would have been just one whole little sandwich in reality this day). Because of this, I felt like it was a little too much bread and not enough filling. It reminded me of those "slider" sandwiches you see popping up at chain restaurants these days. The dish was served with a pickle and homemade potato chips. The chips were great, light and crispy, not heavy and oily the way some homemade chips can be. Overall this was a very satisfying lunch dish.

Dessert:

• Yule Log - okay they had a much fancier name for this dish but it was a special so I couldn't pull it off the online menu and there was no way I could get it right. It was a flour-less chocolate cake rolled like a yule log, with white and regular chocolate mousse inside. The whole things was coated in dark chocolate ganache and then served in a pool of a really nice cream sauce of some sort. It also came decorated with a little tree cookie and a meringue mushroom (my mother used to make these toadstool looking confections every year for the Holidays - I have never seen them anywhere else in my entire life - so strange to run into them here). This was a delicious dessert. The mousse was really nice. The cake didn't seem as flour-less as it was claimed to be, but it didn't really take away from the overall dessert.

Just a few other notes: It doesn't seem like they often have a vegetarian soup option, this is something they could improve on for certain this time of year.

They dessert menu was several pages long, plus specials not on the menu, so save yourself some room. You will definitely find something that jumps out at you. They had something with butter cashew ice cream that I almost couldn't pass up, a great looking creme brulee, several cakes, cheese cakes, and lots of other gourmet treats.

I was ordering wine for a pretty eclectic group of folks, and I would have preferred to make a selection from some local wines (which they did not have) but I did take some time to review the extensive list and not being satisfied with the descriptions, i asked to speak to someone about the wine list. They immediately found their wine buyer and she came and went through the list with me and also went into the basement and brought up some selections in my price range that weren't even on the list. It was really nice to get that kind of attention.

Final Thoughts: Okay, so they don't specialize in vegetarian fare specifically, but the servers and the chef are all pretty well versed on their meals and their ingredients. I ate with confidence here and felt like I had lots of choices to make. It's also nice to be encouraged to make substitutions and special requests, something some restaurants make you regret with their bad attitudes. This would be a real special treat to take a special someone or for your visiting family over the holidays.

Tokyo Diner - Harrisburg

Overall Rating: Good but Weird
Highlight: A Vegetarian Chef's Special Roll
Lowlight: Ambiance Not So Hot
Veggie Note: Appearances can be deceiving I guess, but what a treat to have a special roll that was totally vegetarian and right off the menu

Still on a quest for good vegetarian sushi, and this time looking for a place with a hibachi grill for a friend as well (meat eaters - go figure).

Tokyo Diner has multiple locations in the Harrisburg (Central PA) region. They have both a sushi menu, hibachi menu and a few other assorted things. The location we went to, Londonderry Rd in Harrisburg, came across as sort of a dive when we pulled up. It was a little disconcerting and we had some doubts about what we were about to eat. The waitress really struggled with English (we tried to order a Dr. Pepper and she looked at us like we were crazy, I told her it was a kind of soda and she stared right through me like a window pane - we settled for coke, which she knew). FYI - the iced tea was iced green tea, which was good, but not listed that way on the menu, just one of a few Tokyo Diner surprises. The booth we sat in had broken benches and the inside decor wasn't too much nicer than the outside appearances.

We had the following:

Complimentary:

• Cucumber Salad - There was no indication on the menu of this one, so we were surprised when it came. None of us really ate it because it came with pieces of crab meat mixed in. I picked out a few pieces of cucumber just to try it. It mostly tasted like vinegar, there were a few sesame seeds mixed in. Nothing special as far as we could tell.

Appetizers:

• Edemame - These were fine, needed added salt. They were strangely served upside down (in the shell waste bowl with a plate on top) It kind of gave you the idea that the waitress never had to serve this dish before.

Entrees (what we created anyway):

• Tamago Sushi - tasted fine, the egg looked a little pale
• Inari Sushi - pretty standard, good
• Oshinko Sushi - we custom ordered this, it was listed as a roll option, but to avoid excess seaweed (for those opposed to that sort of thing) we requested it presented as two pieces of sushi instead and they were fine to accommodate that.
• Chef's Special Green Roll - Here was the treat of the evening. It's very rare to find a chef's special roll on the menu that is entirely vegetarian. This was a spinach roll (also something rare) wrapped in thinly sliced avocado (like a dragon roll) and no seaweed! It was very tasty. Everyone at the table tried it and liked it a lot.
• Futo Maki Roll - my non-vegetarian weakness kicking in again (this one has crab in it). I do like a good futo maki roll. This one was okay. I have to mention that I ordered a side of spicy mayonnaise. This was one of the best spicy mayonnaise concoctions I have ever had. Instead of the standard smooth and creamy dip, this was chunky with the bits of hot pepper that was also in the hot sauce they served with the hibachi dishes. It was clearly mixed up by hand and was super spicy. Yum!
• Steak Hibachi - With just onions and broccoli (it was a little too much for our meat eatin' friend - but probably not too much for someone who really loves broccoli - it was good broccoli). It turns out they also put onions in the fried rice so there was also an abundance of onions. The fried rice was really good and the steak was "full of flavor and so tender that it melted in your mouth." That's a meatatarian quote if I have ever seen one. Some other nonsense about no fatty deposits, blah blah gross whatever. There was a desperate attempt made to order it prepared spicy, the waitress said she would bring a side of hot sauce, which ended up needing to be two sides of hot sauce by the time the dish was done. Oh - and this dish was supposed to come with either soup and a salad. The default soup was clear soup, not miso, and the waitress totally forgot to serve it until after she brought the entrees and we reminded her.

Just a few other notes:

I think I added all of my thoughts throughout this time. None of us noticed a bar here (we weren't really looking) but I'm pretty sure it's alcohol free there.

Final Thoughts: So in the end I have to preach the old adage "don't judge a book by it's cover." I wouldn't bring a first date here or encourage a fine dinner here before prom, but the food turned out to be pretty good. There were still no vegetarian specific "entrees" but there was plenty to choose from anyway and we had a good time trying that green roll.

What does good vegetarian sushi look like?

Just a quick aside note...
Sorry we have been out of town and haven't eaten anywhere local lately to review. While we were gone, we went to one of our favorite sushi spots ever, Aoyama in Erie, PA. Strange part of the world for sushi, yes I know, but they do it great! They have a great Vegetarian Sushi Platter, Veggie Roll Platter and lots of vegetarian a la carte options. Here are two pictures of what we ordered. Aside from tasting great, they also put a lot of effort into presentation, neatness and creativity. So for all of you sushi loving vegetarians in Harrisburg, demand better - it does exist!

El Rodeo -Colonial Park

Overall Rating: I'm Just Not Sure
Highlight: Chile Rellenos
Lowlight: Mushy, Runny, Bland
Veggie Note: There's a large section on the menu dedicated to vegetarian dishes. Lot's of choices, but there's a lot of repeating elements just in different combinations. Still, cool that they have a vegetarian menu.

We have driven past El Rodeo (several of them) multiple times, and we laugh at the name every time. We finally decided to give it a try, despite the fact that it seemed just a bit too phony to be authentic.

El Rodeo is a local Mexican Restaurant chain (claims to be the first authentic Mexican restaurant in the Harrisburg area). The restaurants are very "themed" looking and boast a rotating schedule of live Mariachi music (not the night we ate there). The menu is large and looks a lot like the menu of many other "authentic" Mexican restaurants that we have been to in Pennsylvania. Lists of combination dinners, a section of specialties, some a la carte stuff and of course beans and rice served with most dishes. The whole place was brightly colored and the staff were all mostly Spanish speaking with moderate English speaking skills.

We had the following:

Complimentary:

• Chips & Salsa - it came as no surprise to us that we were served this standard Mexican restaurant starter. Chips and salsa were both fresh. Watch out, the side order menu says a second basket will cost you $1.25, no free refills here!

Entrees:

• Vegetarian #5 One authentic cheese chile relleno, cheese enchilada, rice and beans - The relleno was good, the sauce was interesting, almost reminiscent of some kind of Indian curry. It must have been a spice they used, but I couldn't pick it out. The enchilada didn't blow me away, I almost forgot what it was that I was eating. Melted cheese in a tortilla, the only thing that really makes that an enchilada would be good enchilada sauce, and the sauce here was just sauce. No spicy, not particularly flavorful, ho hum. Beans and rice were beans and rice. The beans here were very runny. Same as they were in the Mexican joint we used to haunt in our last home town, so maybe that is "authentic," at least for Pennsylvania standards.
• Vegetarian #9 Plato de Chile Auténtico - basically two chile rellenos. My partner really enjoyed these, saying they were better than most. So that's good I guess. They were tender, and fried very nice. Not at all spicy though.
• Combination #4 Two hard beef tacos, one beef enchilada and one chile con queso - our favorite non-vegetarian friend (who is becoming more and more vegetarian everyday - hooray!) ordered this, with cheese over the enchilada instead of enchilada sauce. There was kind of a rather confusing exchange with the waitress, who was having a hard time understanding the special request, and a lot of specific questions in general. It came with out enchilada sauce, but the cheese sauce was poured all over the plate (except for on top of the enchilada - I don't know how they managed to miss it, the whole plate was flooded.) The crunchy tortilla under the chile con queso was really soggy as a result. The server who brought our food didn't mind bringing out a crunchy replacement, but it was kind of stale (maybe that's why they flooded the first one?) Did I mention our dear friend is from Texas? "Authentic" obviously translates a little different down there. There were no blue ribbons being given on the meat-eatin side of the table.

Just a few other notes:

In general we had a little trouble communicating with our server when it came to specific questions about dishes and special requests. Ordering straight off the menu, however, was no problem.

They do have a full bar here, we ordered margaritas on the rocks and they were pretty good.

I checked out using a credit card, at the cashier's station near the exit. I was asked about how much I wanted to tip verbally, not given a chance to write it on the receipt myself. I don't like that method at all. It doesn't give you time to think and puts a lot of pressure on you in general, so anyway, just be prepared for that.

Final Thoughts: We like Mexican food, but we're pretty much limited in scope to Pennsylvania's finest. Perhaps a trip down south would ruin PA Mexican for us forever. This really wasn't a bad spot for a vegetarian. Here were tons more choices here then we were used to, and the prices were pretty reasonable (except the chip refill charge). I just wish they went a little further with spice and flavor. And be weary of making special request, the language barrier could result in a non-vegetarian result.

Gilligan's Bar & Grill - Colonial Park

Overall Rating: Good For Appetizers/Bar Food
Highlight: Smoked Gouda Quesadilla
Lowlight: Not so many dinner options
Veggie Note: There were lots of really unique and interesting appetizers to choose from that were vegetarian, but not so many entrees

We chose to eat dinner here on our way to Colonial Park for grocery shopping. We heard great reviews of the seafood here once and hoped that quality would translate into their vegetarian options as well.

Gilligan's is a sports bar style joint with a relatively large dining room, serving mostly traditional American fare (they claim steak, pasta, seafood). Walking into Gilligan's for the first time, it seemed obvious that this place would have once been billowing with cigarette smoke but is now smoke free thanks to the PA smoking ban. It was a very odd sensation to be in a smoke free sports bar, but much appreciated since we were there for dinner (smoke and food don't usually sit well together for me). We went planning on a traditional dinner, but after reviewing the menu, we decided we would rather try a handful of their more interesting appetizers than their less than interesting vegetarian dinner options.

We had the following:

Complimentary:

• Nothing complimentary served with our appetizers

Appetizers:

• Spanikopita - here's something you don't see on a sports bar menu everyday. A traditional Greek dish that has become a trendy American appetizer (I think you can buy it frozen in a 10 pound box at most warehouse stores now). Usually prepared small triangles or squares, it's puff pastry with a spinach and feta cheese filling. This spanikopita was more irregularly shaped, so it gave us the impression that it might have been hand made (at least it's not out of the frozen 10 pound box). The filling was a little runnier than normal, almost like a spinach dip, or maybe they didn't drain the spinach well enough. Either way, it wasn't the world's best, but still a nice treat.
• Cheese Quesadilla - Read the menu closely before you order this otherwise traditional looking dish. This is not your ordinary quesadilla. It is made with smoked Gouda cheese and caramelized onions (also your choice of meat, but the meat free version does come at a lower price, woohoo!) This was fabulous! The smoked Gouda paired with incredibly sweet caramelized onions reminded me of some sort of German preparation (add a few apples and I think it could have been). What a unique dish for a traditional bar. It was still served with salsa and sour cream, strange. I tried it with both, the salsa didn't really do it justice, but the sour cream did add something nice to it. Anyway about it, yum!
• Crazy Bread - almost like a Greek french bread pizza. This sub roll, cut open and toasted with Greek olives, feta cheese, tomatoes, onions and garlic was pretty tasty too. We got to this dish last, as we worked through our appetizer smorgasbord, so maybe we would have loved it even more if we weren't starting to feel bloated. It was very tasty. The sub roll is claimed to be fresh baked, and it wasn't bad. I come from the land of Amoroso's rolls, so I am very persnickety about sub rolls. That is one of the secrets, by the way, to making a killer cheese steak, a bad roll can really mess it up.

Just a few other notes:

So why did we skip the dinner entrees? This place has a huge menu (sorry it's not currently online even though the website says it is). There is a chicken page, a steak page, a seafood page, a sandwich page and a pasta page. There is a little box on the pasta page that says "Vegetarian Dishes" and that's it for the whole menu (aside from a garden salad or Greek salad). The pasta dishes were pretty boring; spaghetti, cheese ravioli, an Alfredo dish, etc... with your choice of Marinara or Meat Sauce and added meatballs (just in case the non-vegetarians didn't find what they were looking for on the rest of the menu). There was, however, the option of adding portabellas to any pasta dish or salad for a few extra bucks. I figured there are plenty of Italian restaurants in town so why spend a lot of money on pasta here? Maybe it's great, but I was more enticed by the appetizer choices.

Other choices on the appetizer menu, that we skipped, included the traditional mozzarella sticks, fried zucchini, poppers, onion rings, cheese fries, etc... and a few other goodies. The prices on these dishes are not astounding, but I was disappointed there was no appetizer assortment option, so you have to order each one individually and the cost could start to add up if you want a little variety.

Final Thoughts: So here's the deal. If you've been invited to meet some friends here for drinks and football game, you won't have any trouble finding some snacks on the menu to absorb some of the booze. You could even do like we did and make a meal out of appetizers. If you are planning a nice sit down dinner here, be prepared for pasta (or a grilled cheese off the kiddie menu). I'm sure your meat and fish loving friends would dig this place, and you could definitely make do every once in a while.

Cantone's Southern Italian - Colonial Park

Overall Rating: Save Your Money
Highlight: It could have been worse
Lowlight: We paid way too much for what we got
Veggie Note: There's not a very diverse selection of vegetarian options here, and the default seems to lean towards meaty everything.

This restaurant was recommended to us by several people as a great spot to get some home-cooking style Italian food.

Cantone's is a southern Italian style restaurant off the main drag in the Colonial Park area of Harrisburg. It was actually a little nicer and more comfortable in the dining room than we had anticipated, having come from the land of good, cheap Italian restaurants that tend to skimp on their interior design efforts. We were asked if we had reservations, which we did not, but that didn't prevent us from being seated right away (we just ended up way in the back). There is a bar here, and they had a pretty nice selection of beers on tap (more than just the many varieties of Bud, which all taste like dirty dish water to me). The menu was swimming with super-meaty dishes, which is no surprise considering it's southern Italian style. There were three meatless dishes and then a build your own pasta section.

We had the following:

Complimentary:

• Bread Basket - after ordering our entrees we received a basket of warm Italian bread, crusty on the outside and soft in the center. It was pretty good.

Entrees:

• Eggplant Parmigiana - comes with a choice of Marinara or Mrs. C's sauce. Mrs. C's sauce is their meat sauce, so obviously I went with the Marinara. Too bad though. It was definitely missing the love that I bet Mrs. C's sauce has in it. It was about as exciting as a jar of Ragu. The fried eggplant slices were okay, they probably were freshly cut and breaded, but there was nothing about them that couldn't have been reproduced from frozen eggplant out of a box. The dish also comes with some spaghetti. It was cooked al dente, but was also pretty boring. I ate about half of this dish and really struggled to decide if I wanted to bother taking the rest home. It didn't take me long to remember that this dish cost me $15 and I darn well better get my money's worth, so I took the rest home to eat later with hopes it would be better the second time around (I ended up eating it for breakfast, being able to be lazy and just reheat leftovers added something to this dish, but not much).
• Penne Spinaca - This dish was definitely more interesting than the eggplant. The spinach was fresh, not frozen. The sun dried tomatoes may have been a bit too populous, but you can eat around them. It was plenty garlicky and nice. There was nothing special about this pasta either. It definitely looked fancier on the plate than the eggplant did, and it smelled better too.
• Side Salad - both entrees came with a side salad (Ceaser salad costs $2 extra, not that we would order one due to anchovies usually being in the dressing, but jeez, that's a pretty steep extra fee for something like that). It was just a salad. I opted for the homemade bleu cheese dressing, even though it came wiht an extra 75 cent price tag. It was not worth tacking that extra cost onto the bill. I definitely couldn't tell it was homemade and not mass-produced.

Just a few other notes:

I have had good home-style Italian cooking, at home and in restaurants before. There was nothing particularly wrong with the food here, but it wasn't extra-super special, even though the prices said otherwise. $15 for spaghetti noodles, plain marinara sauce, and some breaded eggplant is astounding. I can get three whole pounds of plain old pasta (with meat) from Pizza Hut for $12.99 (not that I ever would) and that also comes with bread. So what was I paying for here? There was definitely a nice family atmosphere, lots of folks talking, having fun, enjoying a meal together. That's great I guess. And maybe they are really knocking it out of the park with their meat dishes, but those all came priced at $20 or higher.

There was also a vegetarian baked capponatta on the menu. I considered ordering this but I just wasn't in the mood for it's Burgundy Wine Marinara sauce, it seemed to heavy for me by it's description. The build your own pasta section is essentially choose your pasta and choose your sauce for $12-15. Pretty steep again for noodles and sauce. Want to add some veggies? That'll cost you $1 per vegetable (only broccoli and spinach are offered).

You might be able to order some of their other pasta specialties without the meat (there was a lot of ham in many of these dishes) but I would not count on getting a price reduction considering how many you get nickel and dimed to death with "additional costs" for almost everything else.

We had a friend with us who ended not ordering anything at all. Part of that can be attributed to having eaten a ton of rice about an hour earlier at a picnic, but part of that also comes from it just not being worth the money to get what was being offered, and that nothing really jumped off the menu as a spectacular find.

Final Thoughts: There's something about this place that makes people love it, but I don't know what it is. Meat maybe? Atmosphere possibly? I guarantee you it's not the fabulous deals and the great vegetarian dishes, bummer. I doubt we'll be back here.

Asian Noodle House - Camp Hill

Overall Rating: Great!
Highlight: Fun Veggie Shrimp (and other meat)
Lowlight: Veggie Steak was a little tough
Veggie Note: The menu here has a vegetarian section with chicken, steak and shrimp substitutes. There are also lots of tofu options throughout the menu, dishes with meat are clearly marked and a request from the chef to inform the server of any dietary needs is also stated right on the menu.

We made a special trip here after some discussion about the vegetarian meat substitutes in a Pennlive forum thread.

Asian Noodle House is a relatively new Chinese/Vietnamese restaurant (grand opening banner still up when we ate there). It is clean and bright, but the dining room is small (the service area/soda fountain is right in the middle of everything). It was not very crowded (empty when we arrived, two other tables filled while we were there). Their menu is printed on the wall, counter service style, but we were also handed menus ate our table and our order was taken from there. The service was quick and polite. The couple that came in right after us asked the server for a replacement for a dirty plate that was on their table and we clearly heard him behind the kitchen wall scolding whoever was responsible for dish washing. Then he very carefully examined the next plate before he brought it to their table. That was theme for the evening as well. Everything was very thorough.

We had the following:

Complimentary:

• Nothing complementary was served here

Appetizer:

• Steamed Edemame - very fresh, but not very salty. We added our own.

Entrees:

• Vegetarian General Tso's Chicken: Plenty of Chinese restaurants are offering a vegetarian version of General Tso's these days, but most just serve it with fried pieces of tofu. Here it was actually served with a vegetarian meat substitute (they did also offer it with tofu in the regular menu and with crispy fried tofu in the bean curd section of the menu - I'm not sure if there was actually a difference between those dishes or not). The sauce was delicious, just the right kind of sweet and spicy for me. The meat substitute reminded me a bit of the dehydrated steak pieces we used to buy at the food co-op in our old town, long ago before Morningstar Farms came out with their steak strips. When re-hydrated, they were pretty tasty (as long as you had a good sauce or marinade) but they were always a little bit tough. The same goes for this meat tonight. But that did not stop me from eating quite a bit of it, and then eating the rest for lunch later this week. It was tasty.
  
• Vegetarian Happy Family: A combination of all meats and vegetables or in this case all meat substitutes, which included beef, chicken and shrimp. The whole thing was in a brown sauce, to which we forgot to request a little added spice. There was a bowl of spicy garlic sauce on the table though, which helped to make it a little more our style. The beef pieces looked the same as (and were tough like) the meat in the general tso's, and the chicken pieces were a bit smaller (also much more tender than the steak) The real fun of this dish was the veggie shrimp. I have seen little tiny veggie shrimp before, but never anything like these. We took a picture with my phone, it doesn't do it great justice, but I have posted it here anyway. They were kind of the consistency of that imitation crabmeat (fish based) they often call "sea legs" in the grocery store. But the menu clearly stated that they were soy or vegetable based. Sometimes though, it's just more comforting to eat fake meat that isn't very meat-like. I thought these were spectacular, my partner didn't like them as much, but also never liked shrimp prior to becoming a vegetarian either.

Just a few other notes:

There were several other vegetarian dishes on the menu including an orange steak, shrimp and vegetables, and I think another chicken stir-fry kind of dish. In addition, there was a section of specialties on the menu where you choose what type of protein you want and then the type of dish, so you could pretty much put tofu into anything. These dishes included a variety of more popular Chinese dishes and some I did not recognize (maybe Vietnamese style). Also, there was also a section of Bean Curd dishes, and those that contained meat gave you clear warnings. There really were not any vegetarian options in the Vietnamese (noodle) section of the menu.

This was definitely a very casual restaurant and it attracted an interesting clientele (nothing bad, just reminiscent of some of the folks my parents used to play D&D with in the 80's). It would probably make a great spot for grabbing some take-out as well.

Final Thoughts: A vegetarian could come back here many times and never order the same thing twice. What fun! That's a rare find. I think I may have mentioned before, but the Asians have really exceeded America in producing meat substitutes. Big cities almost always have all-vegetarian Asian restaurants in them (Zen Garden in Pittsburgh, Kingdom of Vegetarians in Philly). Asian/International grocers are also great places to get veggie meat products to use at home. I make some mean Philly cheese steaks and chicken cheese steaks out of some yummy stuff I buy at an international grocery store (Assi) in Montgomeryville, PA. Check out any city's China Town section to find your own treasures. Just watch out for bins full of live animals as well (I once almost threw a piece of trash into what I thought was a trash can but ended up being a can full of live bullfrogs staring up at me - ack!)

Hong Kong City - Colonial Park

Overall Rating: Good
Highlight: Variety of Food
Lowlight: Not a fancy dining room
Veggie Note: There are three very different types of cuisine on this menu, so you have to fumble through it to find all of the vegetarian options available, they are not all collected in one place or designated with a symbol. But there are lots of choices.

We were doing a little late evening shopping and were looking for a good option for take out dinner to bring home with us.

Hong Kong City is a fairly standard looking Chinese (American style) restaurant that probably does about 50% of its business in take-out (that was about the average while we were sitting there waiting.) The nice thing here is that they not only have a pretty complete menu of traditional Chinese-American dishes, they also have a small Thai section and a nice sushi bar menu. It's a very plain dining room (although they do try with the typical cheesy decorations). We weren't looking to sit down and eat, so I didn't give it much thought. It's not a fancy restaurant by any means. It was very clean and bright however, I'm not trying to say you shouldn't eat-in there. We walked up to the register to place our order. We were told it would be about 20 minutes, and that was pretty accurate.


We had the following:

Complimentary:

• Nothing complementary came with our take-out food, but I did see a couple eating-in that had crispy noodles and duck sauce on their table, I am assuming that they were served complimentary.
  

Off the Chinese Menu Section:

• Szechuan Style Bean Curd - one of a couple tofu/bean curd dishes available (there was also Hunan style and General Tso's style.) It was spicy, but not too spicy (could have been spicier really). We noticed after ordering that there is a little place on their take out menu that you can check off for how spicy you want your meal. We'll remember that in the future. The tofu was cut into long strips, almost like chicken stir-fry pieces, instead of just being cubed and fried. It was nice to see a detail like that. It makes you feel like they spent time thinking about and preparing the dish. Overall this was a pretty good dish.

Off the Sushi Menu:

• Vegetable Maki Combo - listed as three "vegetable rolls" on the menu, mine was prepared with an avocado roll, an avocado mango roll and a roll with avocado and sliced up pieces of inari (sweet tofu pancake) inside. I love avocado, but this was actually a bit of overload for me. On a positive note though, the avocado was at its peek of ripeness, so buttery and delicious. I had no problem finishing it all in the end. The combo meal also came with miso soup and salad with ginger dressing. Much like my experience at Mikado on 2nd, the dressing here was really chunky and ugly colored on top and then super watery at the bottom. It looks so unappealing. I have had much better looking ginger dressing in my lifetime, but so far I have not found it here in Harrisburg. I will say that while we were wandering the aisles of Costco recently, I noticed a big jug of similarly ugly-looking ginger dressing on the shelf - coincidence? There was no Costco near where we used to live, hmmmm...
• We also ordered some a la carte Inari and Tamago, our two favorite seaweed minimal sushi varieties for my seaweed-averted partner. They were good, as usual. I was reading the specials from the sushi bar, and one of their fancy rolls of the day (The Yellow Submarine) was yellowfin tuna rolled in a yellow soy wrapper. We have seen these fancy alternative sushi wrappers before (and bought a variety pack at Wegman's once). If we could talk the sushi chef into using those wrappers on some veggie rolls, that could really open the door to sushi for the seaweed opposed, and add a little fun to the very green appearance of most veggie sushi.

Just a few other notes:

To give you a rough idea, since the menu is not available online, other vegetarian options included a vegetable choice in all of the standard Chinese-American dishes (lo mein, fried rice, moo shu, egg foo young, etc...). They also had a couple other veggie dishes listed with the bean curd ones (a broccoli dish of some sort - sorry these details have left my brain now). They had Pineapple Fried Rice on the Thai menu (I'd check to make sure this is definitely meat free). The Pad Thai and other Thai dishes did not have veggies or tofu listed as an option, but I'd be willing to bet they would do some substituting for your here. There were not too many other veggie sushi options available. I asked them if they ever have sweet potato tempura rolls as a special and they said yes. I think they were pretty open to special requests here as well. In addition, they had edemame in the appetizer section of the menu.

I feel with any restaurant being managed by folks for whom English is not necessarily their first language (and even in some cases where English is the only language your server has ever spoken) the word vegetarian does not always translate perfectly. Be really careful with dishes marked "vegetable" but not necessarily "vegetarian." Ask questions, be specific, and peek inside your dish before you start chowing down. We had no problems here at Hong Kong City.

Final Thoughts: Trying to not compare Hong Kong City to the fancy, sit-down Asian style restaurants we have been too, this is a really nice place. For take-out or a quick eat-in meal, this is definitely a really nice place. Our food was all very delicious and we had no shortage of vegetarian choices to make. This will definitely be a place we will consider returning to when we're in the mood for take-out.

Appalachian Brewing Company - Harrisburg

Overall Rating: Not Too Bad
Highlight: The Beer
Lowlight: Burnt cheese
Veggie Note: There is no vegetarian designation for the dishes on the menu, but there are some choices available and ingredients are listed pretty well.

Came here for the beer, but had a plan to eat dinner while we were here as well.

Appalachian Brewing Company is brewery/restaurant that now has several locations around the region (Cameron St in Harrisburg is where we were). There are two floors here, with Belgian beers featured on the second floor along with pool and darts. We ate upstairs in the Abbey Bar. The table service was spotty as it is not their main dining room, but we were fine with walking to the bar if we needed something a little quicker than the bartender/server was able to bring it to us. The menu is pretty full and has changed some since the last time we ate here several years ago.

We had the following:

Complimentary:

• Nothing complementary served here

Appetizer:

• Appalachian Beer Cheese Dip (Backcountry Buffalo) – if you’re a regular reader you should be able to predict by now that we will almost always pick a cheese related appetizer when it’s available. This blend of beer, cheddar cheese, peppers and spices came out a little darker and chunkier than we expected it too (funny how the server said “it’s dark and chunky looking like it’s supposed to be” as she set it down – that was unsolicited and now looking back it was almost as if she was planting subliminal messages in our brains). It was also very much burnt on the bottom. All that said, it still tasted pretty good, but hey, it was cheese after all… There were two other varieties of cheese dips available as well.

Entrees:

• Springer Mountain Pasta – Somehow I misinterpreted what it was I ordered so when it came out I was a little surprised, but it ended up being pretty good. I think I was totally out of it tonight though. I’m not usually a big fan of sundried tomatoes and this dish was swimming in them, but to be honest I found myself seeking them out by the time I was done. They were very nice sundried tomatoes. The fettuccini was a little too al dente for me. Also, the “Chardonnay Sauce” was very thin and oily. I think I imagined it a little more reduced or at least something a little thicker. It splashed around a lot and I actually noticed a few little oil spots on my shirt when I got home. All of the pasta on the menu is prepared without meat, which is really great. You can add the meat of your choice if you want, or portabella mushrooms, which is what I did.
• Santa Fe Salad – This salad was all around pretty good, the dressing was the most notable (Stout BBQ Ranch) and the black beans made it very tasty. The salads, like the pasta, can be customized with your choice of meat or mushrooms, but some have meat in them already, so watch out for that.
• Pomegranate Blueberry Chicken– I forgot to mention we had a non-veggie friend with us again (it seems we have a bunch of those). Apparently this chicken was awesome; the blueberries were very unique and yummy. The onions, I’m told, could have been more caramelized than they were, but two thumbs up!

Just a few other notes:

On Tuesday nights, pool is free! (Also on Sundays)

Back in the day, ABC used to have a really nice vegetarian chili on the menu that we loved. When we travelled through this area, we often stopped here and had that. Over time it stopped being very good, so we were disappointed it’s no longer on the menu, but not surprised.

The beer made here is super good. We highly recommend a stop here for a pint or four, even if you’re not hungry. It would be interesting to find out about their brewing process. For those of you who are serious vegetarians or vegans, you may or may not already know that a common beer filtering agent is a compound that comes from fish. It is typically left behind in the settling process, but there is no guarantee that it hasn’t made it into your glass of beer and of course, if you are vegan, it is an animal by-product.

Final Thoughts: There are no specifically vegetarian dishes on the menu, but it is nice that the pasta and salads can be customized with just mushrooms. For a place that is PA preferred (a Dept of Ag designation) it would have been nice to see a few more local foods “featured” on the menu as well.

Carley's Ristorante - Downtown Harrisburg

Overall Rating: Good Food, Mediocre Service
Highlight: Yummy Gnocchi
Lowlight: Over-fried Olives and Disconnected Server
Veggie Note: A handful of vegetarian dishes occur on the menu, but they are not listed as such so you have to read carefully and be able to translate some Italian ingredients

On a Sunday night a lot of downtown restaurants are closed, so we were happy to find an opportunity here for dinner with a visiting out of town friend.

Carley’s Ristorante is a trendy downtown Italian restaurant with a diverse menu and ample wine list. It was not too busy here considering the limited number of choices on a Sunday night. This was also day one of the first ever restaurant week in Harrisburg. We perused the special menu for the event, but no vegetarian choices were available so we ordered from the standard dinner menu. We had to decide between a few nice sounding appetizers and entrees. Luckily there were three of us so we could sample several and share.

We had the following:

Complimentary:

• Crusty Italian Bread – after we ordered our dinner we were brought a basket of warm crusty bread. It was flaky on the outside and soft and delicious in the middle. There was a bottle of olive oil on our table which was absolutely delicious, no bulk food, low-quality taste here at all.

Appetizer:

• Olive Ripieni – described in the menu as stuffed olives (cheese and pepper) with a garlic aioli dipping sauce, these olives came to our table breaded and deep fried, which was a surprise to us. I like fried olives, so we didn’t have a big problem with this, but it should definitely be mentioned in the description here. These olives were also overcooked; the breading was tough and dry. If you cut them open and pulled the olives out, they were still slightly moist inside. The aioli was very mild, missing a distinct garlic flavor, and could have passed for ordinary mayonnaise (which is fair considering that’s essentially what it is). The family size was plenty for the three of us.

Entrees:

• Ravioli di Ricotta al Burro e Salvia – Cheese ravioli with butter sage sauce, was tender fresh pasta with a light filling. The butter sauce had some sort of flavor added, maybe a vinegar, that was slightly strong and overpowering. There were fresh tomatoes added as well, not described on the menu. As we were finishing our meal, I noticed other servers offering freshly grated cheese to their customers, ours did not offer us that and this dish definitely would have benefitted from the addition.
• Risotto alla Millanese– The way this risotto is described on the menu, it definitely gives you the idea that it will be delightfully accompanied by olives, capers, tomatoes, basil, etc… but it was really just risotto with a minimal amount of the additions. It was still good risotto, but again not quite the way it was described in the menu.
• Gnocchi Putanesca – The highlight entrée from these three, these gnocchi were fabulously tender and the putanesca had plenty of kalamata olives and capers mixed in. This dish was a definite A+. Note that this is not the gnocchi dish listed on the online menu (at the time this was written).

Dessert:

• Amaretto Macaroons – four macaroons were served on a plate with a drizzle of chocolate sauce and caramel. The macaroons were good, a little saltier than would be expected and definitely cold in the center like they had been frozen. Four was plenty to share among two people, too bad we didn’t do that. We ended up leaving two behind (we would have liked to have taken them home but our server forgot that we asked for box and was too busy to come back to help us much once we had our check in hand, too bad)
• Zuppa Inglese - a trifle of chocolate and vanilla mousse with a mascarpone layer on top. This was a delicious treat and very well made. It was rich and heavy and could have been shared as well (although two of us each finished our own without too much effort).

Just a few other notes:

Our server, right from the start, apologized for his service, saying he was “shaky tonight.” He seemed rushed every time he came to check on us, sometimes not even stopping moving as we made requests, asked questions, etc… Most of the servers seemed to be on the ball here though so I wouldn’t call it an all-around problem at Carley’s.

A nice wine list and martini menu was presented to us without request. We ordered a bottle of wine, Italian pinot grigio, to suit our meal. It would have been nice to see a few local selections here, but they did not exist.

This restaurant is very lovely decorated and “live” piano music accompanied our meal (it was player piano).

There is a nice looking baked tomato dish listed on the online menu which was not on the current menu at the restaurant. Be prepared for the menu to be different when you get there as well.

Final Thoughts: It was really nice for three of us to order three different vegetarian meals without having to ask for any substitutions, special requests, etc. It would have been so much better if our service was a little more with it, but I would recommend this as a good downtown vegetarian choice.

Okini Pan Asian - Progress (Harrisburg)

Overall Rating: Somewhere around Neutral
Highlight: Sweet Potato Roll
Lowlight: Chinese Eggplant and Limited Veggie Sushi Selection
Veggie Note: There is a “Vegetables” section in the non-sushi part of the menu. There are a handful of vegetable rolls and tamago on the sushi menu

We headed here to continue our quest for good vegetarian sushi.

Okini Pan Asian is a combination Chinese, Japanese, Thai restaurant in the Progress area of the Harrisburg suburbs. We were seated right away and the servers were very quick to our table. It was a little dark and the whole restaurant has an old carpet on the floor, a little bit icky. We’re not big fans of carpets in restaurants, kitchens and bathrooms. The restaurant was generally very comfortable and clean however. When a table finished and left, all of the available servers flocked the table and cleaned it immediately so it stayed very nice the whole time we were there.

We had the following:

Complimentary:

• Edemame – as soon as we sat down we were served a bowl of warm salty edemame pods. They were very tasty and a nice treat. It was odd that edemame were also listed for $5 in the appetizer section of the menu. I guess some people just can’t get enough soy beans.

Soup:

• Miso – there were no sushi entrees that were vegetarian, so I ordered a bowl of soup as an extra. It was pretty standard miso soup. Some of the miso wasn’t mixed in very well so it was in little clumps I had to break up, but otherwise it was the same as everywhere else.

Entrees:

• Chinese Eggplant in Garlic Sauce – listed as spicy in the menu (with the ubiquitous pepper icon). It was definitely not what my partner was hoping for. The sauce was not spicy at all and was actually super sweet and syrupy. The eggplant, bell peppers and onion were all very fresh though, so they may satisfy a different pallet. This came with a bowl of white rice as well.

Sushi A la Carte:

• Tamago – if it’s available, we’ll probably always order this. It was average here.
• Vegetable Supreme Roll – Asparagus, cucumber, avocado and oshinko prepared like a hand roll, very nice presentation. A little too much cucumber made it kind of watery but the ingredients were very fresh and crispy.
  
• Green Roll – this was interesting and something I’ve never had before. It was a roll of nothing but seaweed salad (the kind you usually eat in a bowl – salty/stringy seaweed). It wasn’t fabulous because the seaweed was a bit overwhelming, but it was definitely something different and fun to try.
  
• Sweet Potato Roll - my weakness. I love sweet potato tempura wrapped up in a sushi roll. Especially when it is freshly warm out of the frying oil like it was here. Again the presentation was very nice. I really enjoyed this roll.

Dessert:

• Fried Banana – the only dessert available was this tempura fried banana. It was cut into 1 inch pieces and fried and then set back in the peel which was cleverly peeled to look like a snail or something else with maraschino cherry antennae. Then the whole thing was doused in whipped cream and chocolate sauce. Pretty tasty but it definitely needed the whipped cream and chocolate since the banana itself wasn't very sweet and could have maybe benefitted from a little added sugar. But this was really fun and tasty overall. I love tempura fried anything for the most part. I once had a dream that I was making a salad with tempura fried root vegetables on top. I was particularly interested in the tempura fried red beets I had conjured up, some day I plan to really try that. I’ll bet it would be good. (end of dream sequence)

Just a few other notes:

This is another BYOB restaurant, we didn’t take anything with us, but the couple behind us had a bottle of wine and the restaurant was quick to provide glasses for them.

There were about 6 dishes total in the “vegetables” section of the menu. There were a few curries in the Thai section and tofu was not a listed option, however it was included in a few other dishes so I am sure it could be easily substituted for one of the meaty options given.

Aside from the rolls I ordered, there was really only an avocado roll to complete the vegetarian selections. There was also no inari in the a la carte menu.

Final Thoughts: I guess the quest for a good vegetarian sushi joint continues… stop here for a sweet potato roll someday, you’ll thank me.

The Coliseum (Brunch) - Camp Hill

Overall Rating: Not So Fabulous
Highlight: Free Games
Lowlight: Dirty plates, sausage in the eggs
Veggie Note: This is not traditional brunch fare, even if the hostess tells you it is when you call to ask what food is served. There is a very limited selection for vegetarians here.

We went to Sunday Brunch here because we love brunch and because we saw online that it comes with $10 of free game play.

The Coliseum is a restaurant and entertainment complex with several bars, a bowling alley, arcade, etc… On Sunday morning the restaurant there serves brunch exclusively, no ordering from the menu is allowed. After your meal you are given a $10 game play card for the arcade and you can take your receipt to the Maggie Moos ice cream stand for a free treat as well. The restaurant is nice, decorated with race cars and other sports themed accessories. The brunch service area was pretty small on first glance and it proved to be a pretty limited selection once we walked up to serve ourselves. I picked up the top plate from the pile of plates at the end of the table. It was dirty so I set it down to take the next one, it was also dirty so I started to think maybe this was the plate return not the clean plates, but I was wrong. We notified the boy attending the buffet area and he handed us plates from behind the omelet bar. I noticed later that they came out and placed a new stack of plates on top of the ones that were already there. The two I set aside remained sitting next to that pile until we mentioned it to our server and then finally all of the plates disappeared.

We had the following:

• Omelet Bar – The scrambled eggs on the buffet were made with sausage and peppers mixed in, so we went to the omelet bar to get our eggs instead. We had our choice of onions, peppers, tomatoes, cheese and mushrooms in garlic (and various meats). The omelet maker, who was also the pasta bar attendant and the meat carver (actually he was the only person working out at the buffet area), was polite and did make an okay omelet. Our friend who joined us for breakfast ordered scrambled eggs from the omelet station and that request was accommodated.

• French Toast – pretty standard, nothing fancy here. There was a pitcher of syrup next to the buffet tray, but no butter was made available anywhere on the buffet. By the way, aside from Danish on another tray, this was the only bread available at this brunch. There were no choices of toast, English muffins, bagels, or other muffins here.

• Fresh Fruit – A tray of apples, pineapples, honeydew and cantaloupe was very fresh.

• Pasta Bar – A create-your-own pasta bar set-up included just one type of noodles, big fat macaroni noodles, two alfredo sauces and a red sauce, and a few toppings (some veggies and lots of meats). We asked if any other pasta was available and they were able to produce a single serving of some thick spaghetti noodles. It was okay.

Here’s What We Didn’t Have:

• There were no breakfast potatoes at all. There were some mashed potatoes next to the ribs and chicken in the lunch area of the buffet. They looked like they had some herbs, etc. mixed in, but we didn’t try them.
• There was no dessert on the buffet; I guess your free Maggie Moos treat was supposed to suffice. We did not have time to go there and get ours, so I don’t know exactly what you get for that, but it was certainly not going to be all you can eat like you usually find on a brunch buffet.
• Individual Yoplait yogurts were placed next to the fruit; however those do contain gelatin and are therefore not vegetarian.
• I mentioned before that there was no bread/toast on the buffet either.
• There was a big bowl of lettuce with sliced onions and tomatoes on top; we did not have any of this un-fancy salad.

Final Thoughts: If you are heading to The Coliseum to play arcade games and have an appetite, then perhaps you could consider this option. The meal was $13.95, so after our $10 in game play, we really only paid $3.95 each before tip. If you are looking for a nice place to have brunch and you don’t care about the arcade, I would highly recommend against this location. This is not a true Sunday Brunch and the vegetarian options are very minimal.

 

Bangkok Wok - Mechanicsburg

Overall Rating: Yippee!
Highlight: great selection, great taste
Lowlight: cramped for space
Veggie Note: The staff here clearly understand the vegetarian diet; the menu indicates all vegetarian and vegan dishes and also specifically requests that you tell your server if you are vegetarian or vegan so they may prepare your food accordingly :)

We made a special trip here, for dinner with a non-veggie friend, after hearing several good reviews of the food here (from a non-vegetarian perspective).

Thai food is what we crave when something hot and spicy is on our minds. We have not explored the world of Thai food in the Harrisburg area yet and a few folks from work had said Bangkok Wok really is the best Thai in the area, so we thought we'd put that to the test. The restaurant is very casual, located in a strip mall in a fairly overdeveloped commercial area just outside the Mechanicsburg Naval Base. It's amusingly decorated outside, imagine waking through a tropical jungle to get to the front door and you can pretty much get the picture. That theme follows you through the door and slaps you in the face with visual overstimulation. There are decorative bits of Thailand everywhere. We were seated at a booth like table, it was a little tight for two to sit on the bench (and we are average sized people). However, we were seated right away and our server was very quick to take a drink order. It took us quite a while to pour through the menu, it was like a short novel. We were so excited about all of the choices and very pleased to find clear markings of what is vegan and vegetarian on the menu. Every page had a note at the bottom requesting that you tell your server if you are vegetarian/vegan as well. When we ordered, we made sure to do this. Our server looked puzzled at or statement at first, but then when we pointed at the note in the menu, it seemed to click for her.

We had the following:

Complimentary:
Nothing complimentary served here

Appetizer:
Veggie Roll - this item is not listed on the online menu, but was in the printed menu and listed as Vegan. It is essentially a spring roll with bean thread noodles, carrots, cabbage, etc... It was very fresh and the roll was light and crispy. It came with a side of Pineapple dipping sauce which was very nice as well.

Soup:

Tom Ka Kai - again, in the print menu the option to have this soup with tofu is given (online only chicken is listed). We asked the waitress if the soup is prepared vegetarian if tofu was used and she said yes. The broth was a rich coconut and lime base, pleasantly saltier than the sweet broth my partner thought it might end up being. The tofu pieces were big and tasty, not like the tiny bits usually found in soups like Miso. There were mushrooms, tasty bits of fresh ginger root, and fresh Thai basil finishing off this very delicious soup.

Entrees:

Green Curry with fried tofu - all of the curries on the menu are available with mixed vegetables or with fried tofu. This one said it was the hottest curry of them all, but it really wasn't that hot (too bad really - it would have been enjoyed a little hotter). The ingredients were very fresh tasting, including green beans and snow peas that didn't come across as frozen reheats. The pieces of bamboo shoot were also nicely sliced into julienne strips instead of the slabs you sometimes get in cheap Asian dishes. Overall this dish was a hit.

Masaman Curry with fried tofu - this dish was listed as one star hot, but it really was not spicy at all. In fact, it was quite creamy and sweet. The peanut sauce was absolutely heavenly, the kind of thing that makes you almost put your plate to your face and start licking the last little bits off. It came served with onions and potatoes, in addition to the fried tofu. There was enough here for two people really - that goes for all the dishes we got. They all went home with us and were reheated for lunch (and once again, one very unusual breakfast) the next day.

Chicken with Thai Basil and Hot Peppers - this obviously is not vegetarian, but since our friend ordered it, and you may want to take along a meatatarian yourself, I thought it couldn't hurt to post some comments here. The waitress recommended this dish to our friend. She said it was pretty spicy and our friend asked to have it made super spicy. It was still not as hot as we expected it to be when it came out. The basil was overwhelming in this dish, so I would recommend steering clear of this one if you're not a basil fan (of course that would be obvious to most by the name of the dish). The sauce was dark and also had pieces of hot pepper floating in it. The chicken was really well made, not cheap little bits, but quality pieces of fresh chicken. They got a big thumbs up from our friend. With a little bit of the peanut sauce stolen from my dish, this ended up being a very good dinner also.

Jasmine Rice - came with all of our dishes. We asked for extra as we plowed through ours and it was quickly brought to us. It was plain jasmine rice, nothing fancy added, but that was great since our dishes all had a lot of flavor on their own.

Just a few other notes:

Bangkok Wok is a BYOB restaurant. We took a couple bottles of beer in with us. We asked for a bottle opener and they found us one, but they didn't seem prepared for us to need one, so maybe a lot of folks don't show up with their own beer?

In addition to decorations all over the walls, etc... Our table was also loaded with flowers, fancy light fixtures, etc... which made it a real challenge to fit our dishes on. Each of us received a bowl of rice, a bowl with our entree and we already had a plate in front of us when we sat down. That coupled with water glasses, etc... It was kind of a challenge. I can't imagine how we would have dealt with all four seats filled at our table. The traditional, non-booth tables looked a little bigger, so if you need space, you might want to ask for one of those.

They may be a little afraid of serving dishes too spicy here. Our friend who asked for "extra spicy" pointed out to us that our server looked as though she thought we might not know what we were getting into by asking for things very spicy. You might want to make a point of letting them know you are serious about having very spicy food if that's what you really want. If you are afraid of spicy, than you should still be okay here.

Final thoughts: This really is a great place for vegetarians to get good Thai food. No need to dress up, but you might want to plan on a wait as it got super crowded here as the night went on. I am certain we will return here soon, if for nothing else, to get some of that peanut sauce to go!

Miyako Sushi on Second - Downtown Harrisburg

Overall Rating: Boo!
Highlight: hmmm?
Lowlight: no creativity, limited selection, hidden meat
Veggie Note: This is not a sushi bar for vegetarians, plain & simple


We stopped here for dinner while walking back to our car, on the way home from a Senators game.


I know what you're thinking, sushi and vegetarian don't exactly seem like a natural combination. On the contrary my vegetarian friends. I am a sushi addict! Many sushi restaurants (even Wegmans) offer a variety of vegetable only sushi and handrolls to enjoy. Unfortunately, Miyako Sushi on Second was NOT one of those places. (they do not have their own website that I could find, so the link here will actually take you to another local restaurant review site for your enjoyment). Let's start at the beginning though, shall we...


This downtown sushi bar is set in a long narrow location, so when you walk in all you see is the sushi bar, but hidden behind the kitchen, down a long hallway, there is also a dining room with tables. We sat in the dining room so that we could take time to look at the entire menu. I was so disappointed in the selection of vegetarian sushi. There is so much to be creative with here, and they really do not take advantage. I am very used to seeing hand rolls and individual pieces of sushi that include mango, sweet potato, asparagus, pickled vegetables, tempura vegetables, mushrooms, leafy greens and so much more. Not here.


We had the following:


Complimentary:

• Nothing complimentary served here

Appetizer:

• Vegetable Gyoza - slightly thicker than a wonton wrapper, gyoza (dumplings ) can be filled with just about anything. Lots of times it's shrimp or pork. This time we were excited to see a vegetable variety. They were very green when they were served, which caught both of us off guard. It is fortunate that we explore all new foods before just popping them in our mouths. We made a terrible mistake of assuming that labeling something as vegetable on the menu implied it was not meat, we were very wrong. There were little pieces of meat (pork maybe?) strewn throughout the dumplings. Too much really to pick out (if you tolerate that kind of thing). Needless to say, we didn't eat them. It was late at night and we were tired, so we did not comment on them to our waiter, just let them sit. Probably a mistake, but they were only $3.25.

Entrees:

• Vegetable Maki Combo - This was the only choice in the sushi entrees section that was vegetarian. There was no sushi platter, just this combination of three vegetable rolls (unspecified). When it arrived, I was not overwhelmed with joy. The three rolls looked almost identical and the plating was incredibly poor. Let's start with appearance. There are lots of neat sauces used in making sushi rolls; salty glazes, garlic sauces and my favorite spicy mayonnaise. None of that was included on my plate, not in side dishes or as a decorative swirl under my vegetable rolls. The rolls themselves were small and unimpressive. They included a very traditional looking vegetable roll with nothing but avocado and cucumber, more avocado and cucumber with mango added, and the last one - avocado and cucumber with sundried tomatoes (I think). No carrots, no traditional pickled vegetables (oshinko, daikon, etc...), no greens - just plain boring. I immediately asked for a side of spicy mayonnaise. For the first time in my life, I did not finish my maki. I was so bored of the repeating flavors that I gave up with three pieces left. There was nothing special about any of this dish.


• Al a Carte Inari and Tamago - my partner has some kind of aversion to seaweed, it causes an upset stomach, so we have spent some time seeking out ways for both of us to enjoy sushi bars so that I can feed my addiction. Two of our favorite seaweed free/minimal choices are inari and tamago. Inari is made with a fried tofu pancake (which opens like a pouch when cut in half - reminiscent of a pita). It is thin and delicate, and typically covered in a combination of soy sauce and sugar that makes the whole thing sweet and tasty. The pouch is opened, stuffed with rice and then rolled shut. If you are a very strict vegetarian/vegan, you may want to ask if they use Dashi (fish stock) in the pouch marinade as this is not unheard of. Tamago is an egg custard, chilled and sliced into a long strip and then laid on top of a ball of rice (traditional sushi style). It's tied on with a piece of nori (seaweed), but my partner works around that and leaves self- described "little seaweed carcasses" behind. Tonight, both types of sushi were made well, however the inari pancakes were a little dry, probably reaching the end of their life-span behind the sushi bar. Again, nothing fancy about the plating of this sushi.


• Miso Soup and Salad - my maki platter came with soup and salad. There are no choices here (not that uncommon) you get Miso soup and a basic house salad with ginger dressing. If you love salty foods, you would love miso soup. The broth is made from miso (soy bean) and it contains scallions, tofu pieces, and seaweed. Again, this is a place to clarify ingredients as occasionally bonito flakes (fish) are added to miso soup. I love miso soup too much and was too hungry to ask and risk not eating it. I am an ignorant vegetarian, I know it. The salad was typical for a cheap house salad (one tomato, a cucumber, and lettuce). The ginger dressing here, compared to many other Japanese restaurants, is very blah. It is watery but full of grated ginger. So the ginger sat on top of my salad in a very unappealing orange mass and when I reached the bottom, the lettuce was floating around in the watery component, not pretty.

Just a few other notes:

Miyako Sushi does have a liquor license so you can order a Japanese beer (or one of a poor selection of American varieties), a glass of wine or some Sake or Japanese vodka.

For those of you who are fish eaters - the group of five at the table behind us was raving about their choices, so you might do well here. I doubt the plating efforts are any better with or without fish, but I may be wrong. I should point out that one of this party's chairs broke and he fell right on the floor and this did not ruin their evening, so it must have been good for them.

Final thoughts: Short and sweet, this is not the place for vegetarian sushi. We will move on and probably never return here.

Sierra Madre Saloon - Camp Hill

Overall Rating: Ho-hum
Highlight: Potato & Cheese Enchiladas
Lowlight: Friendly but Inattentive Service
Veggie Note: Limited Selection, but at least a few choices. Recommend asking to confirm ingredients

Stopped here for dinner on our way to Wegman's.

Sierra Madre Saloon is a cantina style Mexican restaurant with more bar than dining room. It was a little dark and smoky but had interesting atmosphere and what appeared to be a pretty nice outdoor dining patio, but it was not set-up or in use tonight, odd for a warm summer night.

There was no indication if we should seat ourselves or wait, so after minute or two of standing in the doorway, we found our own way to table and sat down. The menu had a variety of slightly more interesting than standard Mexican fare. There was no specific indication anywhere on the menu of which dishes may or may not be vegetarian, but they were pretty good about listing ingredients for most dishes. I would still be careful to ask if you're not certain, especially if it's going to ruin your night to have meat appear on a plate in front of you.

We had the following:

Complimentary:

• Homemade Chips and Salsa - the homemade chips were a nice treat, but definitely left us with divided opinions. They were thick and flaky, very unique, which my partner enjoyed about them. I was not impressed and thought they were heavy and became pasty in your mouth. I would have preferred them a bit thinner and crunchier. The salsa had signs of being homemade as well. We both agreed the tomatoes were likely canned and coincidentally were also a bit pasty.

Appetizer:

• Cheese Dip "Con Queso" - described as a blend of cheeses with a touch of salsa. When it arrived it we both gave it an inquisitive look followed by a pretty thorough examination. It was very dark in color and had a strange consistency. We were actually a bit nervous that there might be meat hiding in there. Luckily it was thin enough that after a deep probing we were convinced that it was safe after all. The dark color definitely came from a heavy dose of salsa, not a touch. We would have preferred it to be cheesier than it was, but we did finish it. The bonus was that it came with more traditional style tortilla chips, which I was craving after our less-than-normal starter chips.

Entrees:

• Chili Rellenos - The relleno was very tender and mild flavored, as it is described in the menu. The ranchero sauce topping, also very mild, was mostly unremarkable.
• Potato & Cheese Enchilada with Red Sauce - this was a nice treat as my partner loves potatoes. The red sauce was not as spicy as the menu let on. Luckily there were tasty pockets of spice hiding in the potatoes.
• Refried Beans and Spanish Rice - these side dishes were served with both of our entrees. They were both fine, nothing special, nothing bad about them. They made our single portion sized entrees plenty filling though. There was no specific indication that the refried beans were vegetarian (no lard), we would have liked to ask, but our waitress was mostly unavailable ot us, sitting at the bar and chatting instead of attending to us. They were pretty thin in consistency, so we took our chances and ate them, but I plan to give them a call at some point and I will report back here when I get an answer to that question.

Just a few other notes:

The beer selection was typical for the most part (Bud, etc...). You will find as our blog posts continue that we are avid micro-brew drinkers, as well as local wine aficionados. In general, we always give a ++ to any locally produced food or drink. None of that was apparent here.

Our server was mostly friendly, but as I mentioned before, she was pretty preoccupied with an ongoing conversation she was having with a co-worker at the bar. The bar-tender also had a pretty saucy mouth that we could hear pretty clearly from where we were sitting, not that we're perfect angels, but she was working, we weren't.

Final Thoughts: With so many Mexican restaurant choices in the area, especially right on the same road, I doubt we will make our way back to here again anytime soon.

Cafe Fresco - Downtown Harrisburg

Overall Rating: Good
Highlight: Clever Appetizers
Lowlight: Servers have a hard time hearing over the loud music
Veggie Note: No indication on the menu of whether or not the dishes are vegetarian, but the ingredients are listed well and there are lots of choices.

We joined some co-workers here for happy hour on Martini Monday.

Café Fresco is an upscale “urban” restaurant that specializes in clever dishes with trendy ingredients. It’s a bit schizophrenic in that the casual lunch atmosphere changes dramatically to a more fancy setting once dinner starts. Our co-workers were already seated when we arrived, tables were filling up fast. Our waitress seemed to be in a hurry to handle all of her tables, and when we hesitated to choose or drinks as soon as she came to the table-side, she immediately walked away without really conferring with us about needing more time to decide. We were all served water right away, however. Our server was very nice, but was clearly having a hard time hearing us over the volume of the music playing in the restaurant.

We had the following:

Complimentary:

• Nothing complimentary served here

Appetizer:

• Almond Roasted Goat Cheese – a round of goat cheese was roasted with almonds to a lovely soft and warm finish and served in a warmed dish with very-caramelized onions and roasted tomatoes. We really enjoyed this dish with the accompanying fresh crostinis, which were quickly refilled for us when we ran out.

Entrees:

• Spinach Pizza – this individual sized crispy thin crust pizza came with a dollop of red sauce on it, as indicated on the menu, but worth mentioning since it is less-traditional for a spinach pizza. It was not overwhelmed with spinach and was overall very good.
  
• Pad Thai with Tofu – a very large portion of pad thai served in a big bowl with chopsticks. They did not skimp on the added tofu (a choice on the menu), which was nicely fried. The tofu could have used a little more flavor, especially since the peanut sauce in the pad thai itself was also very minimal. Overall, I really enjoyed this dish and had enough to bring a lunch-sized portion home with me. This dish was not spicy.

Just a few other notes:

Dinners are not served with a salad; you must order this for an additional cost. One of our dinner companions did order a salad, which the waitress did not deliver until she was reminded of it (by us) as she was serving our entrees.

We were there on Martini Monday, so of course we all ordered Martinis. They were all very good, however very pricey. The deal of the day was that they were all $5. A bargain considering they are typically $8-$10 each.

The Pad Thai with Tofu is the only vegetarian entrée on the menu, however there were several other pizza varieties and a portabella sandwich in addition to a few very clever appetizers we’d like to go back and try some time (edamame ravioli, an artisan cheese plate, etc…).

Final Thoughts: Similar to other trendy restaurants, there are a lot of up and coming meats that chefs love to incorporate into dishes, so vegetarian entrees are not featured here. The food all had a very fresh taste and appealing presentation. It’s definitely worth a visit some day, but probably not a regular vegetarian dinner spot (unless you really love pizza and pad thai).

Nonna's Italian Restaurant - New Cumberland

Overall Rating: Ta-da!
Highlight: Veggie Meatballs and Sausage
Lowlight: BYOB
Veggie Note: This is a great vegetarian find! Menu is very specific and choices are astounding.

Stumbled upon this restaurant when cruising for some good Italian fare with an out-of-town, non-vegetarian friend.


Nonna's Italian Restaurant is a casual but still nice Italian restaurant located above a store front in downtown New Cumberland. It is a climb up a full flight of stairs to get to the dining room, but worth it if you can do it. We called ahead to make reservations since it was a Saturday night, but we did not need them. It got more crowded as we ate though, so it might not hurt. The menu had a wide variety of traditional Italian dishes with several special touches mixed in. There were specific sections listing vegetarian and vegan entrees on the menu and their soups were specifically marked vegetarian as well -two thumbs up to that, we love soup!



We had the following:

Complimentary:

• Fresh Baked Bread and Oil - the bread was tasty - crusty and warm and the dipping oil/vinaigrette was a nice touch as well. Refills came quickly.

Soup:

• Escarole Efagioli - since we love soup, we are very critical of soup. This was a well made soup; however it was a little sweet for our tastes and could have used just a bit more seasoning.

Entrees:

• Vegan Sausage with Peppers - This came served on Penne, and is usually topped with the house marinara sauce, but we spied fresh vodka sauce on another part of the menu and asked for a switch - no problem. Too bad the vodka sauce wasn't tops. It was a little thin and under seasoned (becoming a slight trend here) but the whole dish was still very good and the sausage was awesome! It's so nice to be able to add veggie sausage to a dish in a restaurant for a change. These treats are often reserved for vegetarian home-cooking.

• Penne with Vegan Meatballs - same deal here with the vodka sauce, it was requested switch from what would have been the marinara again (which is what allows them to list it as vegan). The meatballs were also very good. They were very familiar and we think they may have been Quorn brand, or at least very similar. (Quorn is our favorite brand of veggie meatballs, we highly recommend them). In both cases the penne was cooked well. Fresh grated cheese was on our table when we were seated, it was also a nice addition.

• Agli Olio - Our non-vegetarian friend who joined us made the most special requests of the three of us (funny since we're usually the ones swapping out ingredients and removing meat from things). The agli olio is usually served with linguini, but the waitress had no problem swapping it for angel hair (although the kitchen did because they put it on linguini anyway - it was quickly fixed however) and then adding some fresh veggies (from the primavera blend) and fresh mozzarella. This was a very tasty dish and a very full plate (it made for a late night snack for two later that night and also breakfast for one the next day - that's right, I said breakfast).

• Salad - came with every entree. It was very fresh. The bleu cheese dressing was amazing, for those who are dairy eaters. My partner said the house vinaigrette was just as good on the salad as it was on the bread earlier.

Just a few other notes:
Nonna's is BYOB. That can be a real bummer if you're not prepared; luckily we spied that detail on their website before we left the house so we took along a couple bottles of what we had in the fridge. Our server quickly brought us some glasses for those, and I noticed plenty other folks had brought along various beverages that were all accommodated just as well.


Our server was very friendly and dealt very well with all of our special requests.


Parking is on street and we drove past a few times trying to find Nonna's, their sign is not very obvious. Give yourself a few extra minutes the first time you go.


Final Thoughts: I'm guessing a lot of local vegetarians are aware of Nonna's. They clearly cater to that crowd, which is great. I'm being completely honest though when I say that we totally just stumbled on this one. Hopefully we are helping to get the word out here. We will definitely go back some day.

Bricco - Downtown Harrisburg

Overall Rating: Very Good
Highlight: Can you say Cheese?!
Lowlight: Pricey
Veggie Note: Some vegetarian options are available and they are clearly marked on the menu.


While browsing online for a nice place to eat dinner, we stumbled upon this gourmet find.


Bricco is a Mediterranean style restaurant associated with the Olewine School of Culinary Arts at Harrisburg Area Community College. The decor is very trendy, clean and comfortable. The staff members are all friendly, professional and dressed tidy. You definitely want to dress nicely yourself for this experience. We made reservations online but didn't really need them, we were greeted and seated right away.


We had the following:

Complimentary:

• Fresh Baked Dill Bread with dipping oil - very tasty and warm

Anitpasti:

• Red Oak and Mache - this was a great combination of pistachio encrusted goat cheese, fried and placed on top of red leaf greens, a few delicate slices of melon and pickled lemon rind. We ordered just one that we were going to share from a single plate. The waiter suggested they split it onto two plates for us - there was no extra charge for this. The whole thing was great!


• Formaggi - Selection of 3 (We chose Pipe Dreams Formage Ashed, PA, Goat;
  Fougerus, French, Cow; Tumbleweed, 5 Spoke Creamery, PA, Raw Cow) - I'll spare you the details of each individual cheese and just tell you that this was a real treat for us. Cheese is definitely one of our weaknesses, and here is a great example of enjoying locally produced food, another ++ for us. The three cheeses were served on a board with a slice of fresh honeycomb, several fresh crostinins and a fig compote (or something like that). Fabulous! What a great combination of flavors and textures. My partner didn't really dig the fig.

Entrees:

• Cappellini d’Angelo - this pasta dish had lots of garlic, which my partner really enjoyed, especially when the tiny balls of fresh mozzarella rolled around and got covered in tiny minced bits of it. The basil leaves were extremely fresh and flavorful, from one of the tinier-leaved varities. All-in-all this dish was a winner.


• Risotto del Giorno - okay, I confess, the risotto of the day was lobster, but occasionally (very, very occasionally) I give in to a shellfish dish. The number of vegetarian entrees was limited, and I was not in the mood to make too many special requests, so I picked this dish out of my laziness and want to order straight off the menu. If you're a vegetarian or vegan, you probably can relate to tiring of always trying to adapt dishes when the choices are limited. Of course you probably don't resort to eating shellfish the way I do. Anyway, ignoring the lobster, the risotto was made very well and the dish was very fresh. I did add a little salt to suit my tastes.

Dessert:

• Frozen Strawberry Shortcake - strawberry basil sorbet served on a biscuit with a hard meringue topping. The sorbet was very yummy, but the biscuit was hard and difficult to break through with the spoon provided. The meringue was also hard to eat this way.


• Fried Coconut Sticky Rice - the rice was wrapped in a spring roll type wrapper and fried. It wasn't too sweet, which my partner was glad about, but it also wasn't very coconutty either. It was served with a tres leches cake which was very moist and rich. I liked it better than my partner, but she's not much of a milk person to begin with.

Just a few other notes:


Bricco has a great wine list, which included a few local wines, very nice. We ordered a bottle of wine and we were well attended to when our glasses needed refilling.


We asked our server if he was a culinary student and surprisingly he was not, and even more surprisingly he said most of the servers were not. They were all super great at their jobs!


Bricco, in combination with the Hilton, hosts culinary lessons for the public. The cost isn't cheap, but the topics are pretty compelling. We are considering attending a 2 hour class on local beer, local cheese and complimentary spicy dishes.


Final Thoughts: While there were not an exceptional number of vegetarian dishes on the menu, there are definitely enough for you to pay Bricco a visit. There were lots of cold dishes, side dishes, brick oven pizzas and more cheese that we want to go back to try. There is a bar here, so maybe someday we will go back for drinks and something small. Heaven knows we can not afford to regularly eat there they way we did tonight.