The Brick Yard

I love good vegan eats, as you well know, and I'm happy to report that there are more and more of them in my neighborhood! While the Cow Hollow/Marina area is yet to get an all-vegan joint, plenty of omni places are stepping up their offerings, and the husband and I had the pleasure of sampling some from The Brick Yard last week. It's nearby, has great big screens for sports watching, a relaxed (yet elegant) vibe and, when I emailed to find out about vegan options, I got a quick and encouraging response. Restaurants who actually reply to email inquiries are alright in my book! Better yet, the hostess noted my vegan note on the OpenTable reservation and was prepared to let me know all my options. I love when places are on top of their game, you guys. And, the food was great too!

We started with the hummus with roasted chickpeas, pita crisps and cucumber salad (sans cheese). Actually that's not true - we really started with a spinach salad with strawberries and pumpkin seeds, but it was so good and we were so hungry that I never photographed it. Oh well. Back to the hummus; We were both a little thrown off by the fact that it is served warm, but once we got over that, we really started enjoying the slightly spicy concoction, loving every one of those roasted chickpeas. Great dish.

The husband had himself the roasted veggie panini (sans cheese) and I must say it was really delicious... that side salad, however, is the BOMB. The Brick Yard knows what the heck they're doing with vinaigrettes, y'all. It has the prefect herbaceous dressing and was just enough to coat the huge butter lettuce leaves. Yum.

My main was the personal pizza with mushroom and tomatoes (sans cheese). This was the only dish that was just OK. In a town where great pizza can be had, I'm a bit of a pizza snob I guess. Still, it was tasty enough, and the really and truly fantastic Brick Yard french fries made up for any lack of pizza goodness. I'd go back for the fries alone.

All in all, this is a really cool neighborhood joint and I will definitely be back to watch a game or meet up with friends for drinks and noshing! Up next: One of my favorite places to dine in LA, complete with more crappy iPhone pics. Sorry about that. I just keep forgetting my real camera. :) Enjoy the rest of the week everyone!