At age 13, on a ski trip to Steamboat with my family, I declared one night while out to dinner at a steakhouse that I was going to be a vegetarian. At first my parents laughed it off, but over a few months, then years, it was clear I was vegetarian. And I must say, looking back to 1993 all the way up until 2000 when I started eating fish and seafood, my choices on restaurant menus were quite dismal. Pasta Primavera seemed like the only “vegetarian dish” chefs knew how to make.
Fast forward now to me dedicating myself to becoming a great home cook and food blogger, starting a restaurant tour business, and marrying a chef who is a devoted vegetarian of twenty years, and my standards for vegetarian food that I’d spend money on in a restaurant are very high. As a team, my chef and I make some pretty amazing dinners seven nights per week, and we search for the best vegetarian restaurants in every city we visit. So, I feel confident saying I know my way around a vegetarian menu.
Vegetables and vegetarian dishes, in my opinion, are great additions to menus. Meat, though often easy to prepare, doesn’t always do it for me. Vegetables, on the other hand, often need a little more finessing to make them the star of the show, and Boulder diners are going to have a chance to taste a number of new vegetarian dishes during this year’s First Bite Boulder Restaurant Week, November 14-22.
You can see most participating restaurants’ menus online, and almost all offer at least one vegetarian option. But, I found seven places that I’d personally want to try that offer vegetarian diners something more unique than gnocchi or risotto. These are listed alphabetically.
- Arugula, for example, has six veggie appetizer options as well as a quinoa stuffed pepper with root veggie hash, brussel sprouts, and canellini bean winter squash hash in a pine nut tarragon pesto.
- Bru, one of my all time favorite spots in town, is offering a roasted vegetable udon noodle bowl. Chef Ian Clark is one of Boulder’s most talented chefs/brewers, so I’d love to try his noodle bowl with at least a couple of his beers.
- Cafe Aion is offering a winter squash and cauliflower tagine. I love tagines! And, incase you haven’t heard, cauliflower is the new kale, so this is a must try dish in my book.
- The Greenbriar Inn is also thinking outside the box and serving a roasted vegetable terrine with grilled portobello, roasted bell peppers, smoked zucchini, charred tofu, pickled onion, and a green olive and tomato salsa.
- Leaf, Boulder’s only all vegetarian formal dining establishment, has an entire menu for vegetarians, but I think their sweet potato au gratin sounds the most inviting with black bean puree, sautéed kale, and crispy parsnips.
- Shine‘s menu offers a mushroom and goat cheese house-stuffed (grain free) ravioli. Their recent Great American Beer Fest win is reason enough to celebrate with a cheers to Boulder’s favorite triplets.
- Volta is also incredibly tempting this year as they’re serving a vegetarian moussaka with potato, eggplant, butternut squash, béchamel, spicy pumpkin purée, and pepitas. Please and thank you!