Ethos Vegan Kitchen

I ate at Ethos Vegan Kitchen in Orlando, FL. I am not a vegan, but it's fun to venture into the non-meat, non-dairy, animal product free world of vegan food.

I ordered the Udon Asian Odyssey, which was supposed to be Udon noodles with assorted vegetables. If you look at the picture below, those definitely aren't Udon noodles on the plate. Udon noodles are thick, round noodles that somewhat remind me of fuzzy worms when cooked. What was served were wide, flat noodles that seemed more along the lines of chow fun. I wouldn't have had a problem with the chow fun noodles if I was told that is what I was ordering, but I was expecting some udon. I'm guessing either Ethos was out of the udon and made a substitution without informing the customer, or they are assuming that the average vegan doesn't know much about Japanese noodles. I really don't like it when I order one thing, and get something else.

I also found the noodles to be way too salty. I love salty foods, but the amount of salt in here was over the top. Besides from the type of noodle problem, the pasta seemed like it would have been really good if it wasn't for the salt. Instead, I had to eat some bread and drink lots of water to counter out the overpowering salty taste.

While I have my complaints, I did think Ethos was better than some of the few other vegan/vegetarian restaurants in Orlando that I've tried. They have a long way to go before they can compare to Angelica Kitchen though...

NYC Angelica Kitchen & TKettle

After eating a very meaty lunch, I had the complete opposite for dinner. I ate organic vegan food from Angelica Kitchen in Manhattan's East Village.

I ate a Dragon Bowl, which consisted of rice, tofu, lentils, kale, zucchini, carrots, and some wonderful seaweed. This was served with a tahini dressing. I know many meat eaters would look away in disgust at this meal, but it really was delicious. Everything was good, with the exception of the lentils which tasted very bland. I'm not sure what the shredded purple seaweed that was used in the Dragon Bowl was called, but that is some of the best seaweed I've ever tasted. It was by far my favorite flavor in the whole Dragon Bowl.




After finishing dinner at Angelica Kitchen, I had dessert at Tkettle. They served what they called bubble tea (although I think the correct name is boba tea), and other variations on the idea, along with some actual food. Boba tea is very cool stuff. It is a type of tea that originated in Taiwan that is filled with floating tapioca balls. I ruined my vegan dinner by ordering a avocado milkshake. They blended half of an avocado, milk, and ice, and then poured the milkshake over the tapioca balls. An avocado milkshake is definitely not a combination that I would have thought of, but it wasn't bad. Drinking it without sucking up the tapioca balls left it tasting like it needed some salt, but with the tapioca, the milkshake was very good...