Green in Tempe > Most LA restaurants
Last weekend was quite the adventure. My foster dog for over a year, Ralph, found a forever home. Hooray! …in Phoenix. I love a good road trip so I was more than happy to drive Ralph out there to join his new family and some new furry friends, and it meant I got to check out some of the local vegan cuisine.
I honestly didn’t investigate the vegan scene in Phoenix too much because I already had a place in mind thanks to Alix and a post she made earlier this past summer. That place was Green Vegetarian in Tempe. We rolled into Phoenix a little late and after we dropped Ralph off with his new owners, we got to Green about and hour before they closed. The place was PACKED and get this… Jonathan and I sauntered in and everyone gave us a once over! I was all like “WTF, are we still in LA?” I didn’t realize I was walking into the Tempe equivalent of M Cafe. I would have worn makeup!
Side note – I kept pronouncing Tempe “tem-pay” like the food.
Anyway, we walked up and glanced over the menu. We were still pretty stuffed from our lunch, which I will write about in the (hopefully) near future, so we decided to split a tsoynami (vegan blizzard!) and order meals to go and eat them for breakfast the next morning. WELL that changed when I saw they offered CRAB PUFFS! One of my favorite chinese takeout staples growing up was an appetizer of cream cheese puffs, and sometimes they’d have some crab meat inside. I was all over this shizz!
CRAB PUFFS!!! $4
There were four of these babies and I decided to be nice and let Jonathan have two of them. They had a little crab taste but mostly it was all about the cream cheese and the delicious fried wonton. These were also some of the prettiest cream cheese puffs I’ve ever had.
We decided to get a S’more Tsoynami to share.
S'more tsoynami - $4.50
In this baby was vegan ice cream, graham crackers, chocolate syrup, and ricemallow fluff. It was DELICIOUS. There was a slight coconut taste to it and I’m not sure I’m not sure if that was the ice cream or the fluff, which I’ve never had before. I imagine it’d be the ice cream. Jonathan fucking wolfed most of this thing down. I was okay with it because it then justified me getting another one. I wasn’t hungry anymore but I saw they also had a fluffernutter tsoynami and I thought, “fuck it, when is the next time I’m going to be in Arizona?!” so I bought another one.
Fluffernutter tsoynami - $4.50
In addition to the delicious vegan ice cream, this cup o’ heaven also had banana, peanut butter, and ricemallow fluff. Since it had peanut butter, I was going this one alone and I definitely didn’t finish it. When I came down to it, I pretty much paid $4.50 just to taste it, but it was worth it! Despite that, I liked the s’more tsoynami a little better but I feel like if there was more peanut butter in the fluffernutter tsoynami I would have liked it muuuuch better.
My only complaint is that since the restaurant is green and eco-friendly they use disposable bamboo spoons which I really didn’t care to eat off of. It made me think of those shitty ice cream sundaes I’d get from the scary ice cream man with a handlebar mustache when I was in elementary school. Bleh.
After this we took our meals and headed back to the hotel, where we proceeded to run around on the hotel’s golf course in the dark.Canvas shoes + wet grass = soggy feet =(
The next morning we woke up and got ready for another day of travel (we were heading to Vegas and made an unplanned detour to the Grand Canyon). Thankfully our room had a microwave so our to go orders were able to be eaten warm!
Green to GO!
At this point my digital camera’s battery was dying so I had to switch to my iPhone for pix. Jonathan got the Mexicali burger, which I didn’t get a cross-section of since the iPhone takes super shitty closeups.
Mexicali burger - $8
I got to have a bite and this burger was DELICIOUS. I can only imagine how good it was freshly made. It was a little on the spicy side thanks to a spicy chipotle sauce. The burger also had hummus, vegan nachos cheese, and mayo. SO GOOD!
I got the Kung Pao Bowl in an effort to be somewhat healthy.
Kung Pao bowl - $7.50
Okay, first of all, I don’t know what the faux chicken they used in this was, but it was SO incredible. It wasn’t Gardein and didn’t have the texture of chicken, but I absolutely loved it. The flavors in this dish were amazing: sambal, garlic, ginger, tamari and chiles, and topped with peanuts. I ordered mine with brown rice (you know, for FIBER). This was by far the best kung pao dish I’ve ever had.
So if you’re in Phoenix, going to Phoenix, have a lengthy layover in Phoenix, etc., GO TO GREEN. I would eat at this place multiple times a week if it were in LA, I can’t say enough good things about the food. I’m only sad that I really have no justifiable reason to go to Phoenix for the time being.
Related posts:
Arizona, Green Vegetarian, Restaurants, Traveling
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Arizona, burger, Green Vegetarian, ice cream, kung pao, phoenix, tempe, tsoynami
farewell ralph! i hope he loves his new home!
OMG i want that smore tsoynami RIGHT NOW and it’s only 8am! i will definitely hit this place up if i ever get to the grand canyon.
BTW, i thought it was pronounced “temp-ay”
ralph’s new home is going to be the cause of him getting really fat. they have 3 other dogs and they get fed sausage, eggs, bacon, potatoes, etc. gross…. but probably not to a dog.
phoenix is like a 4 hour drive from the grand canyon and i probably 5 or 6 from LA. but you really should go there and have a reason to leave from phoenix! pictures don’t do it justice.
i think the city is pronounced “temp-ee”. i was pronouncing it like the food.
That’s my new favorite restaurant (and I’ve never been there)! LA needs to get its shit together!
man, i am SO visiting this place when i go to phoenix next!!!! yay for ralphie and yay for tsoynamies! and that handlebar stached ice cream man was tooling around fla too! scurry
awesome post!!!
This is definitely the best veg place to eat in the Phoenix area since the Mandala Tearoom recently closed
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And Tem-pee is the usual pronunciation, though tem-pay would be more fun.
I was in Phoenix last week for biz trip and tried Green (found it via lookup on happycow.net). I had their daily special which was “catfish” po’ boy and it was delicious! The decor inside the restaurant is relaxed and fun. Gotta give it a try if you’re in town.
YUM! Take me with you next time.
Aw, Ralph… fare well, little Ewok. I love that you were calling it “tem-pay.”