California Vegan

I’ve never reviewed this place and usually only review restaurant I dislike… but this place is not only GREAT, as is the kindness of the service staff.
I’m DEVASTATED to find out they are closing in 5 days. Just devastated. Never have a had such great vegan restaurant that delivers, I had only been unimpressed but it’s décor and think things would have ended differently should that have invested in that’s area.
I want California Vegan to know you will truly be missed (as well as your orange chicken, delicious stir fries rice and spicy green beans)
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE don’t close on us!
I’m so sad this place has seen its final chapter :-(
Wishing you all the best but so sadden to you you and your delicious menu leave

Oh no, is it really closed?!
This is one of my favorite vegan restaurants in LA, if not ever.
Their crispy chicken is INCREDIBLE. And all other dishes are decent too.
I loved this place! :-(

Yum. Vegan Thai
I’ve ordered dinner delivery on Eat24 and I’ve gone with friends for lunch. It did smell like they just cleaned so that was annoying, but also reassuring that it’s a clean place…
The food is good and averaged priced for what it is. We sat in a booth by the window and we had polite & fast service.
Free parking lot and convenient location.

Just ordered delivery from them the other night… here’s how the four dishes I ordered break down:
— Yellow curry was absolutely delicious. The best of the meal. Nice of them to throw in some brown rice with my order, too.
— Summer rolls (called «Tony’s Rolls» on their menus)… also very good. Even tho it’s an app, you get four large rolls and it could easily be a meal on its own.
— Won ton soup… terrible. The flavor was «off,» the texture was wrong (I couldn’t quite tell what some of the things in the soup were… water chestnuts? bamboo shoots?) and I couldn’t eat more than a few bites. Not even sure if there was a vegan won ton in my soup. Did not taste right and it killed me to throw away a nearly-​full container of soup but it just was not good. Incredibly disappointed.
— Tiramisu… bland and VERY expensive ($ 6 for a super tiny slice). It had just come from the freezer, as mine had some icy «crunch» to it which was not expected and also not very good. The flavor was somewhere behind «bland» and «non-​existant.» Another disappointment.
Overall: I am sad to say that I probably won’t be back. I love me some good vegan food (hello, Vegan Glory!), and California Vegan isn’t too far from my place so I really was hoping it could become my new go-​to… but a 50% «success» rate for my first order is just plain miserable and doesn’t have me rushing back to try again. (And as for the expensive tiramisu, I don’t mind paying a premium if the food is great, but in this case, high prices for low food just doesn’t work for me.)

Service — 4 stars
Food — 2 stars
I don’t know why I gave this place a 2^nd chance. I guess the vegan in me always wants to pick the vegan thai restraurant over the regular thai restaurant. But this place is just no good. My pad thai was extremely soggy — I’m Russian and I can make pad thai better than that (and I’ll be the first to admit mine’s hardly authentic).
Seriously, next time I’ll drive the extra distance and go to Vegan Glory which is always awesome (and I think once upon a time had the same oweners, oh, how the times have changed).

I am vegetarian. I will not eat here again
The restaurant itself smelled awful — like cleanser.
They had a ‘B’ health rating in the window, but I decided to try anyway.
I ordered tofu red curry to go.
I carried out my lunch and was so disappointed to find what was inside.
Mostly curry sauce, with peppers. Very little eggplant or tofu or anything besides liquid and peppers. For over 10 $ with tax, I expect more.
Plus, I could smell the cleanser in my food when I was eating it.
I will not be back.

Stumbled upon CV after a Runyon canyon hike. What is lacks in décor it makes up for it taste. The Spring Rolls were why were there and they didn’t disappoint These were much better than most real shrimp spring rolls around town. Definitely worth trying.
The garlic soy chicken was also pretty tasty as well. Give CV a shot.

I ate yellow curry here with a friend for lunch yesterday, I didn’t actually step foot into the restaurant because we had a dog, but the food was delicious, I’ll eat it again for sure, I feel that it is a bit expensive but so is everything else in California, I suppose. A really friendly worker brought us ice water and even brought water for the dog, she showed our pup lots of love and kept an attentive eye on us, I appreciate her!
Great food, great people.

Meat-​eaters looking to take a break for a night and need help deciding between the faux-​proteins: the vegetarian chicken is AWESOME. Skip their seitan. I’ve had much better flavor and texture elsewhere. Perfectly cooked brown rice, too.

We were in a rush to make a meeting in Hollywood and needed some quick vegan sustanance. They delivered. We were thrilled with our meals. We had Pad Thai with soy, ordered spicy and they brought the spice. Thai Green Curry was quite flavorful, among the best I have had in my eating career. Steamed Dumplings and Kung Pao both solid.
Good vegan sit down or on the fly take out. They also deliver.

FOOD: is among the best vegan restaurants I have ever visited. Imagine Thai food, but light, healthy, clean, and leaving you anything but feeling heavy afterwards! You will be surprised with what they can do with soy and will not miss meat at all when dining here. The entire menu is excellent, and meals come with brown rice, salad, and miso soup. Even the Thai iced tea and desserts are vegan and delicious. You can also order fresh coconuts and drink the juice right out of the shell.
SERVICE: is friendly and attentive.
AMBIANCE: is not fancy, but clean and neat. This location is fairly small with one row of booths along the window facing Sunset Blvd. Parking can be a little tricky depending on time of the day (options are small above ground lot or street).
VALUE: excellent give the quality and distinctiveness of the cuisine. Two people can be satisfied for about $ 30, including drinks and a shared dessert.

I used to eat here more often when the service was better, but I’ve been skipping it recently. The food is always delicious and the lunch/​dinner special is more than enough for a meal at a good price. I’d suggest getting brown rice instead of fried.
You can see them cooking and they move FAST. My word. If you need a quick lunch, check ‘em out!

VEGAN??? YEAH RIGHT!!! I CALL BS!!!
LOL
Food is amazing, ridiculously affordable, and faster than opening a bag of chips!!!

This place is awesome.
I like meat, and the food made here fulfills a number of excellent needs, I, as an eater of meat, enjoy.
1. AWESOME TASTY
2. CHEAP
3. QUICK COOKED
4. HOLY CRAP IS IT TASTY
As for whether it’s Vegan or not, they do declare no egg use in their menu. No idea if they do, though I don’t particularly care due to my animal-​eating habits.*
*I don’t eat kittehs.

A lot of non-​vegans seem to like the place according to reviews. Well, that’s not surprising because CALIFORNIA VEGAN ISN’T VEGAN. No, there is actually egg in several of their products and tests have been run.
Have you ever heard of a «Thai surprise»? It’s when a prostitute in Thailand advertising itself as a woman reveals it’s penis. Well California Vegan likes to do a similar thing by putting non-​vegan items in their food.
Even before I knew this I had dined here once, the food is terrible as far as vegan food is concerned. There are far superior vegan restaurants within a 15 minute drive. Do not waste your time here.

A person I know pointed out one day that many of the «health food store» employees don’t look all that heathy. Also not helpful was a quick review of a few vegan recipes that were high enough in fat that a 4×4 burger would have been a healthier choice.
So I don’t consider vegan to be healthy just because it’s vegan. (Plenty of foods out there purport to be healthy, so please don’t think I’m picking on just one field. Do the math comparing fat calories per serving against total calories per serving and see what 2% milk really is.) I’ve also spent quite a few years in a food mfg. company and one of the pet projects was using TVP and attempting vegan blend of soups as well as taste testing new items from food conventions. Back in the day, the vegan alternatives to cheese and meats were: coughing-​up hairball: bad, and how.
So I’m very skeptical when invited to vegan restaurants. I’m a little less weary when a carnivore suggests a vegan meal. As of today, I really have to give vegan created protein and texture products a huge round of applause. But that’s just an ingredient. It takes a lot more than interesting ingredients to make a meal.
What it takes is heart to bring good items together to make a great meal memory. I recently had that exact experience at California Vegan. I know it made an impression because I had Mushroom (Kai) Tom Yum last night, and it was not as good as Tom Yum Kai at California Vegan.
There was a really good balance in CV’s soup, a clarity of the broth and a nice note of citrus although not overwhelming lime. Good Kaffir leaves usually add that kind of flavor. And the mushrooms were added in just before it was served, I’m guessing, because the mushrooms retained their own flavor but were warmed to their middle. It was spicy — completely without that oily red layer one finds on soups. This soup had the chili powder spice artfully blended throughout the broth. Now, I did try it with the «chicken» texturized veggie protein, and it was surprisingly good as an added dimension but the soup is sufficient without it.
So why should you care? Reduce meat eating and slow down global warming? Nothing with a face guilt? Naw, in this case, I gotta go with no political or scientific slant on this one.
This is just one of the great places I’ve found in Hollywood in a fabulous retro restaurant. The booths are vinyl and the tables look from that era too. You get greeted at the door warmly, and the menu starts at pancakes and goes into Thai. And it’s clean. At some point, renovation doesn’t cut it. I’ve seen plenty of renovated restaurants that are so cold and «cubicle» you really don’t want to stay long. I guess I look at retro restaurants as people not only in it for the long run, but also people who take care of what they have. Shows in the location and it shows in the food.

California Vegan is a casual restaurant right downtown L.A. that offers a lot of Asian vegan food like curries but also vegetable burgers or — that’s how I got interested in that place — fish-​alternatives like soyfish that actually tasted pretty good. Prices are a bit high but definitely a nice place to go for vegetarians and vegans!

This restaurant reminds me a lot of Sipz in San Diego. It is entirely Vegan, and heavily ‘asian’ influenced, with dishes from many oriental countries.
Yes, there are a lot of fried items, but you don’t have to order them! I enjoyed a variety of items, including an incredible salad with lime (unfortunately I forget the name), and they are pretty creative.
The service wasn’t amazing, but it wasn’t bad, either. I would say that the service was decent. They were polite, but sometimes forgot about us. If I could give 3.5 stars, I would.

The lunch special was delicious and a bargain at that.
Rice, curry, spring roll, AND salad for $ 7.95? Damn good too. I eat approximately 17 metric tons of Thai food yearly so I would not say the curry was damn good unless it really was.
And thank you, thank you, thank you for not just having tofu. A choice of tofu, soy chicken, soy fish, seitan, and pepper steak means my combination options are endless. In other words I’ll be back, hopefully very soon.
PS– Your cucumber salad is so good I would push my grandmother out of a moving vehicle to get the exact recipe. True story.

This place does not deserve 3 stars. I went here last night, expecting mediocre food after I skimmed some reviews on Unilocal.The place looked like a small diner with booths. It was mostly empty and felt kind of deserted.
I had the dinner special which included, soup, salad, fried rice, a spring roll and the entrée. The miso soup was super salty. I couldn’t drink the broth. The salad didn’t really have a dressing. They used the peanut sauce that you usually dip chicken sate in as a dressing. The combination didn’t work at all. Who wants a sticky sweet salad? The dipping sauce for the spring roll was super sweet as well. I felt like I was dipping my spring roll into a cup of honey. Ick. I ordered the pad thai and I couldn’t finish it because, you guessed it, it was too sweet. The only edible item was the fried rice, which was made with brown rice, so that’s a plus.
It doesn’t even get an extra star for being vegan. All the flavors were so off! If Vegan Glory can get it together, why can’t you? Step up your game CA Vegan! Yuck, I won’t be coming back again.

We came here totally by chance, since we were actually going to Aroma Café across the street. However, I ended up parking in front of CA Vegan and had to go in to ask for change for the meter. Good thing for them, I saw the menu and decided to stay.
Service was spotty and I felt like they were more interested in having conversations with each other than really paying attention to the customers. But, whatevs. It’s Asian run and you know Asians and service. :)
We sat at a booth and I ordered the yellow curry with tofu and a side of fried rice. The curry was delicious! It came with carrots, baby corn, cauliflower and broccoli. I was very impressed. Rice was fried brown rice and had some peas in it for good measure, but wasn’t anything special. It was also $ 1 more to add tofu and $ 1 more for the fried rice. So, the curry ended up being $ 12. Sneaky sneaky. .
I ain’t complaining, the curry was good and there were lots leftover to take home.
They should work on service and maybe sprucing the place up a bit. It looks like a diner with the yellow booths. But, hey, maybe that is what they are going for.
pix–

Let’s just say I went to about a dozen vegan places in Cali and this was the one I went to twice!
Atlanta has great vegan food, but L.A. has something home is lacking…
This place has great hours, delivery, and the food is outstanding, cheap, and fast!
The chicken nugget sandwich is out of this world– i haven’t had chicken nuggets like that in awhile! Or even a vegan mayonnaise that has that real mayo kick to it! I got the chicken nugget sandwich (with mayo, tomatoes, lettuce, onions, and avocado) and it was insanely delicious and filling!
California Vegan has a cute little diner look to it that makes it stand out from other places we ate at. And it has a varied menu– good olé American food with Asian food as well!
I would definitely recommend this place to anyone in L.A. or visiting! Sigh, writing this has made me hungry for California Vegan now!