Suggestions from a Reader

The response to the relaunch over at the LiveJournal austineats community has been excellent. Thanks for the nice comments, everyone. One of the longer responses was from LJer anricat, who gave me a number of useful suggestions:

You should add EZ's to your burgers section. They easily have the best veggie burgers in town. I have several veggie friends who agree. I drive all the way from Round Rock to get a taste of their yummy yummy veggie burgers. I would love to add further suggestions to your list.

You should definitely add Trudy's to the Mexican list. Any place that has specific menu items denoted as vegetarian is always a joy.

Also, in terms of Italian, I highly recommend Al Capone's. They are another place that has a little symbol for veggie next to their vegetarian menu items. I also like It's Italian, which is a new place in the Wells Branch area. Nearly all their dishes are veggie friendly and come with either meat or marinara sauce, so your carnivore friends can be happy too.

For Indian, SWAD is all vegetarian and I highly recommend it. They have south Indian, much like Madras. (And I totally agree with you on Star of India. Their buffet is excellent!)

There's also a new Indian place called Masala Wok up at I-35 and Parmer Lane that is sort of a combination Indian/Chinese. Sounds weird, I know, but it was really good and they had lots of vegetarian choices. They are also another place that denotes veggie items by using a symbol next to those menu items.

As for Asian, I love FireBowl Cafe. They have a few locations in Austin and they have a somewhat similar concept to the Mongolian grill, but with a few slight differences. You choose from 5 or 6 different types of noodles or from white or fried rice, then you pick from a couple different veggie combinations, then you select from 5 or 6 sauces and you select a meat/veggie option. Your non-veggie friends can choose shrimp, salmon, chicken, beef or pork (I think - I wasn't paying a huge amount of attention to the meat choices). Veggies can choose from tofu or just veggies. Then they throw it in a wok and stir fry it up. I sort of like it better than Mongolian because they use a different wok for each person so you don't have to worry about meat juices infiltrating your dish.

Thanks for the suggestions, anricat! In fact, I'm heading to SWAD tonight for dinner and I'm bringing my notepad.