Looking for recommendations for upcoming visit first week of May. Primarily seeking places with good vegetarian/plant based options. Interested in all kinds of food, just need it to be really good.
Thanks in Advance.
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Welcome! You will find that almost all Restaurants in the greater Bay Area will have options/dishes that are plant based. If you could be a bit more specific about what you are looking for it would make recommending one easier. Price point, style , nationality and where SF, Oakland, North Bay, Santa Cruz?
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We will be staying in SF. And pretty wide open on cuisine. Been before. Loved Aziza and Chez Panisse. Also love a good fish taco and food truck food. What have you loved lately?
Where are you coming from and will you have a car? Except for Shizen, here are some casual options that come to mind:
Some completely vegan places I’m guessing others aren’t gonna mention:
- On Tuesdays, Chef Reina in Brisbane has vegan quesabirria tacos (their regular Filipino menu has good stuff too)
- Shizen for sushi (dinner, Mission District)
- Vegan hood chefs or Vegan Mob
- I’ve not been, but everyone raves about Singaporean Lion Dance Cafe.
Vegan and non-vegan options:
- Reems (Palestinian, Mission district) or Hummus Bodega (Israeli) in the Outer Richmond
- Kanteen (Hayes Valley), Scandinavian breakfast/brunch
- Bac Lieu (La Lengua, walking distance from 24th St. Mission Bart) has a stellar vegan banh xeo, and other good options on their vegan menu, but I’d instead recommend getting it as an appetizer and exploring other restaurants after.
- tons of pizza options, recommendations could be made based on your location.
- Oat milk soft serve at Gott’s (otherwise non-remarkable place) in Ferry building but more ethereal is the (non-vegan) banana pudding next door at Yes Pudding.
- Pastries at Breadbelly, most if not all specialties have dairy, lots of non-meat sweet pastries
- I recall the hot and sour rice noodle at food truck Momo Noodles being vegan, and Terra Cotta Warrior in Sunset has lots of vegan starters and noodle options, including hand pulled biang biang mian.
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Wow, this is super helpful!! Thanks so much.
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For a slightly higher end but still casual meal, one Michelin Starred AL’s Place in the Mission is super vegetable focused, although they do serve meat/fish dishes.
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Thanks, that is great. We can probably walk there from our hotel in SoMa.
And for a more high-end experience, either The Greens in Fort Mason or Bar Crenn in Hayes Valley.
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Walking along Valencia is the more shopping [quote=“Amy0829, post:7, topic:28732, full:true”]
Thanks, that is great. We can probably walk there from our hotel in SoMa.
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Al’s Place may be a mile from your hotel, and Valencia is the most shopping-scenic-bustling and flat route. Dolores is hillier but some nice historic architecture and Dolores Park along the way.
Since Soma to Al’s is mostly flat, pretty easy to rent a bike via the Lyft/Bay Wheels app and cruise along Valencia, though that deprives you of a stop at Dandelion Chocolate…
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Oh, that dandelion frozen hot chocolate… How could you deprive yourself?
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I second Greens, particularly for an out of towner. It’s been there so long we tend to forget about it. Perhaps the best GGB view of any restaurant in the city as well. I haven’t been since the pandemic but it has always been a reliable rec. for me.
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It’s AL’S place. Al’s is a burger joint in the East Bay. 
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We had an amazing tasting experience at Dandelion. Beyond interesting and delicious. Kind of a life altering experience of chocolate. Very grateful for the recommendation. So far haven’t made it to most of the refs but still working. Are at Burma Love on our first night and throughly enjoyed it. 2nd night we went to Lamar’s noodle bar. Also good and we are early so managed through neighborhood sketchiness pretty well. Today we are in Monterey and had fabulous vegan Mexican at El Cantaro. Took our food out and ate it at lovers point park and saw dozens of baby harbor seals. So overall another amazing California food experience. Thanks again. Will report on what else we find.
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You might also enjoy Progress (on Fillmore south of Geary) or Flour & Water (Harrison and 20th) both of which have numerous vegetarian items. Or the vegetarian bibimbop, green onion pancake (and honeycomb cheesecake ) at Sanhowon
I have a sister who is veg, and i will disagree that most sf menus have enough choices for the vegatarian. Places like zuni, for example, have always had one entree and one app which are decidedly veg. Going into a restaurant with only one item on the menu (functionally) is unpleasant - even if that item is really great 
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It comes down to the sf style of short menu. I looked at zuni, and they have 5 mains, pork, fish, lamb, chicken, veg. The apps are about same ( doubling up on fish and dropping lamb). There are only 10ish things on the menu. There might be two app sized things, it is a little hard to say. But this is the style.
I have learned to just scan a menu fast and make sure there are two or three veg choices. Indian restaurants and pizza places ( high end, low end, whatever) tends to be good choices. Japanese, Californian, italian, french are a middle ground. Chinese and most Asian tend to have less, unless the menu has dedicated markings of veg items, and you still have to ask what is meant by veg. Mexicans and South American generally far less.
As a counter example, i give you flytrap (in soma), a long favorite of mine, which has three clear veg apps, and three mains if you count the impossible burger. It is a longer menu than zuni. That is the kind of menu i look for if i am dining with a veg person.
If you like beyond meat, you are in business. The number of casual places that have beyond burgers is very high.
Greens has already been mentioned. Is bar argicole in business? There has been a descendant of that group doing good veg in soma for a while.
Sorry to not be more specific, i am checking in to say this is not a vegitarian paradise, you’ll have to do some research. We have great veg, we like to eat our meat with them 
