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Compiled by Dilip Barman of Triangle Vegetarian Society Whether you are a resident of the Raleigh-Chapel Hill-Durham Piedmont area of North Carolina or just visiting, and whether you are a vegetarian or just interested in looking for a vegetarian-friendly restaurant, food preparation course, or other similar resource, hopefully this information will be of value to you. If you are indeed traveling through our area, feel free to contact us if we can help to make your visit more enjoyable. We will try to keep this information current and encourage updates if you find errors or additions. But please do reconfirm any information, such as business operating times, that may be important to you. Triangle Vegetarian Society (also abbreviated "TVS" and what is meant here by "we"; "I" refers to Dilip's opinions) attempts to provide a handy compilation here, but is not endorsing any of these organizations. All area codes are 919. Restaurants
VegTriangle.com has compiled a list of local restaurants that offer vegan options.
TVS has been reviewing restaurants since before 1997 and the one
rule that we follow is that a restaurant we review must be able to offer
at least one vegan (purely plant-based) entree, and we haven't run out
of restaurants to visit. You can visit our
online reviews and can email to
become part of the group that reviews restaurants.
Vegetarian Restaurants
The Triangle is blessed with an excellent concentration of South Indian
vegetarian restaurants and I've found it difficult to find consistently
better dosa (a South Indian crepe) any other places, including my
travels to places like the Bay Area of California and New York City.
Most of what they offer is vegan, but do ask to ensure that ghee
(clarified butter) or yogurt isn't used in any particular dish, if you are
vegan.
Udipi Cafe
Tower Restaurant
Sage Vegetarian Cafe
The Fiction Kitchen
Sai Krishna Bhavan
Third Place Coffeehouse
Cool Breeze
Vegetarian-Friendly Restaurants
Most restaurants should be able to come up with vegetarian or vegan
options. Here are a few that are particularly noteworthy.
Neomonde's - please reconfirm, but they seem to make their falafels in
oil dedicated to this and not also used to fry non-vegetarian items
Two locations:
10235 Chapel Hill Road
3817 Beryl Road
Margaret's Cantina - they can use tempeh creatively in a number of
their southwest-inspired dishes, like fajitas and enchiladas
Cafe Parizäde - TVS has its annual Thanksgiving event here, when
we transform this fine Mediterranean-inspired restaurant into an all-vegan gourmet buffet. Their normal menu has a number of vegetarian items and they can make many of their dishes vegan
Whole Foods Market - we have four of them in each of the Triangle
cities and Cary, and they each include a deli and salad bar which can
have a good and wide selection of vegetarian and vegan options.
Weaver Street Market - like Whole Foods, their deli and salad bar
offers a number of choices
Pizza
Any pizzeria should be able to make a pizza with your choice of
vegetable toppings but with cheese withheld for vegans. Ask to make
sure that the crust doesn't contain eggs or honey if you are vegan, and
double check that the sauce isn't a meat sauce. An increasing number
of pizzerias are offering soy "cheese"; beware that many soy cheeses
contain caseine, a milk derivative.
Lilly's - definitely reconfirm, but offers a caseine-free soy cheese.
Their crust appears to be vegan other than a "tiny amount" of honey,
but they have made honey-free vegan crusts in the past.
Pepper's - their crust may have honey but otherwise, like Lilly's, they
offer a large variety of interesting vegetarian toppings
Groceries
Vegetarian Food Stores
We used to have one all-vegetarian grocery store (Durham Food
Coop), but currently no grocery store is non-meat.
Vegetarian-Friendly Food Stores
Increasingly, standard grocery stores like Harris Teeter and Food Lion
are offering "Natural Foods" (would you ever want to eat anything
else?!) sections where items like organic produce, non-dairy "ice
cream"s and "milk"s, whole-grained baked goods, and other items are
readily available. Some of the stores that have a larger selection of
items of particular interest to vegetarians are:
Whole Foods Market (see above)
Weaver Street Market (see above)
Earth Fare - Brierdale Shopping Center, 10341 Moncreiffe Rd, Raleigh, 433-1390
Fresh Market - 3 locations: 400 Woodburn Rd, Raleigh, 828-7888; 6661 Falls of Neuse Rd, Raleigh, 676-2939; and 3655 SW
Cary Pkwy, Cary, 481-2865
Durham Food Coop
Harmony Farms
Food Preparation Classes
Carrboro ArtsCenter (919-929-2787) offers
vegan cooking classes that Dilip teaches, as well
as raw foods preparation classes by TVS member Frances O'Hallaran.
TVS member Jodi O'Neill (jeoneill2@gmail.com, 919-462-0672) offers 3-hour vegan cooking classes culminating in lunch, as well as a bread-baking class in her Cary home.
Traction, a social network of progressive "20- and 30- somethings" occasionally offers vegan/vegetarian cooking classes, potlucks, and other foodie events; contact Celeste Richie for details.
The Town of Cary (460-4963) sometimes offers vegetarian cooking classes.
TVS member Leila Chung through her company Delight Foods offers periodic vegan cooking classes.
Dr. and Mrs. Tony and Linda Tanaydin of LodeStar Institute offer food and lifestyle classes in their North Raleigh home (919-772-1132).
TVS member Valine Zeigler offers
living raw foods seminars (919-949-0147, valine@allthewaylivefoods.com).
Catering
Dilip (barman@jhu.edu) occasionally offers catering of vegetarian foods or menu design for events.
Bakeries like Whole Foods and Weaver Street (mentioned above) can make vegan baked goods such as birthday or wedding cakes.
Organizations
Triangle Vegetarian Society maintains an active
calendar of events, including potluck dinners, discussions,
lectures, holiday gatherings, and restaurant reviews. Don't miss our
annual Thanksgiving event which draws
hundreds
of people and is usually featured in the local newspapers and at least
one local television news program! Consider joining
us! Also, please see our links to other local organizations, in areas such as
animal rights and macrobiotics.
Tom Regan, professor emeritus of North Carolina State University and
past-chair, Department of Philosophy, is one of the key scholars in the
modern animal rights movement and his organization, Culture and
Animals Foundation hosts an annual conference in early October
around Gandhi's birthday, the Compassionate Living Festival.
The Triangle area has many campus organizations that may be of interest, including NCSU's
Students Protecting Animals, Responsibly and
Compassionately, which maintains a list of vegetarian friendly restaurants
near their Raleigh campus; and Duke University's Plan V vegetarian club, which has a list of Durham vegetarian friendly
restaurants.
Internationally known animal advocate Dietrich von Haugwitz (July 14, 1927-June 26, 2007) maintained a collection of video tapes on animal issues. They are available by contacting Brandon Becker at brbecker83@gmail.com.
There are some "living foods" (raw vegan foods) resources forming.
Since early 2004, raw potlucks, "pizza" parties, and similar events in
Raleigh are being organized by Rebecca
Jordan.
Raleigh-based The Raw
Choice
began selling their products through area Whole Foods Markets
mid-2004. There are plans to open a raw foods café, also in Raleigh,
in 2004 or 2005.
Miscellaneous
Besides TVS, undoubtably the best resource for vegetarian gatherings are several
meetups, including the Triangle Vegan Social Club, Triangle Vegetarian and Vegan Meetup,
and Triangle Vegetarian Families. meetup.com provides a venue
for like-minded people to gather; each meetup is different and many require some small
monetary contribution. There are also several meetups about raw foods, the Furhman diet,
and other topics that may be of interest, all of which can be found at meetup.com.
There is a vegan potluck the 3rd Saturday of each month at Solterra in Durham; contact Sue
at 489-8162 or andresen.sue@gmail.com for details.
vegraleigh.blogspot.com is an online "blog" of commentary about Raleigh area vegetarian food. Dilip also, since March 2006, maintains a blog at dilipdinner.blogspot.com of his vegan cooking.
Last updated: March 14, 2011
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