Eating Our Way Through Atlanta, GA
This past weekend my partner and I took a trip down to Atlanta, Georgia. My partner’s film, a documentary about the Transgender Assistance Program of Virginia, was up for a National award for Best Documentary through Campus Movie Fest, so of course, we drove down for the showing and awards show. While Sarah was paying close attention during all the workshops and other films that were playing, I was plotting our meals for the entire weekend.
On our first night in Atlanta, we had a looooong and stressful ordeal with our AirBnB and ended up not eating dinner until about 8:30. We were starving, stressed, exhausted from a 10-hour drive (plus being up since 4:30 am), and very upset. Not to worry though, because I found us a vegan soul food restaurant called Soul Vegetarian. We drowned our sorrows in plates full of BBQ cauliflower, crispy tofu cutlets, collard greens, sweet potatoes, mac n cheese, and brown rice with gravy. We left full and happy, wishing we could eat there every night. My favorite things about Soul Vegetarian were that all the dishes were “whole foods” where you know exactly what’s in your dish and the low prices. I’m a big advocate for accessible veganism and this place really hits the mark for that. They even make their own homemade soy-based ice cream, though we were too full to try it.
Day two in Atlanta was our first full day in the big city! We got up pretty early and headed down to Dulce Vegan Bakery and Cafe where we got THE best breakfast sandwich I have ever had. It’s called the Kirkwood Breakfast Sandwich and it has cream cheese, avocado, tomato, cucumber, and kale on an everything bagel. We decided to split a sandwich and get a maple pecan scone, which was also heavenly. After finishing up though, we decided that we would come back the next day and each get our own sandwich. Yes, it really is that good. Not to mention they had a pride flag out and I got a compliment on my “Lesbi Vegan” shirt, which will always make my day. If we are ever back in Atlanta, you’ll know where to find us – at this bakery all day long.
We had a small lunch of our leftovers from Soul Vegetarian, so we ended up having an early dinner at 4:30. We were both craving a burger, so off we went to find Bareburger! We already knew they had the impossible burger and the beyond burger, but we didn’t realize quite how many vegan options they have. I ended up getting a sweet potato burger in a collard wrap, Sarah got the impossible burger, and we split a salad and a side of sweet potato fries (can you tell I really love sweet potatoes??). I was surprised at how delicious everything was and found myself wishing we had a Bare Burger back home.
Our third day in Atlanta was a little more busy with more running around, but we obviously went back to Dulce Vegan for breakfast again! There’s no way we could pass up another one of those breakfast sandwiches. We did some more exploring and ended up at the mall around lunchtime, so Chipotle was our easy peasy lunch for Sunday. By the time we finished up the awards show for Sarah’s film and spent a few minutes at the after party, it was 9:30 and we were too exhausted to do anything other than order some Chinese food. Our go-to is always sesame tofu. We rounded out the night, snuggled up on the couch watching Netflix and eating Chinese food. Is there anything more cozy than that?
On Monday morning, we laid in bed, sad we had to leave and go back home. After we packed up, we decided to hit up Dulce Vegan one last time only to find out that they are closed on Monday and Tuesday. Although we were quite upset that we couldn’t have our new favorite breakfast sandwich one last time, Sarah was quick to find us another place to go (they’re getting so good at finding fun vegan food!). Off we went to Ria’s Bluebird just 10 minutes down the road. I got the tofu scramble, which wasn’t really a scramble at all, but delicious nonetheless. Rather than what most think of when you hear “tofu scramble,” this dish was a bowl of extremely well seasoned black beans, spicy tofu cubes, tomatoes, broccoli, red onion, and cilantro pesto. Holy heck, this dish was so delicious. We shared a side of skillet potatoes that were perfectly crispy and a soy latte to fuel the drive home. I definitely wasn’t expecting the tofu scramble to be SO flavorful, but I just couldn’t stop eating it and was disappointed when I had reached the end of the bowl. We left happily in food comas and hopped in the car to head back home.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this little review of our trip to Atlanta and that you check out some of these spots if you ever find yourself there! I would love to do more of this style post as my main mission on every trip is to find all the fun vegan spots (just ask anyone I’ve ever traveled with).