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!