Mixing it up with The Mix Cafe

Today I revisited one of my favorite restaurants to go to freshman year. The Mix Café is within walking distance of campus and conveniently right behind the business school.

We decided to eat outside because of the beautiful weather as well as the space in the restaurant being limited. The menu is also limited, although there were a number of vegetarian choices. Also, if you eat inside occasionally you come out smelling like grease, which I did not want to chance.

I got the artichoke & feta flatbread with some sweet tea. On it comes spinach, feta, artichokes, Italian seasoning drizzled with a balsamic glaze.

The food came out fast, however I wish the flatbread had more melted cheese to keep all of the spinach and artichokes on the flatbread. At first when I got it, I thought it was just a basket filled with artichokes spinach and feta, but then realized the giant flatbread underneath. It was quite difficult to eat considering it was just cut in half leaving the pieces still fairly large. The artichoke chunks were also kind of bulky, making it easy for them to fall off.

The flavors were delicious and location convenient, but I don't think I would order this meal again due to the difficulty of eating it.

Sometimes Rice and Beans are the Best Part of a Meal

This week I went to another one of my favorite restaurants from Austin, Chuy’s. They serve tex-mex food and have a good amount of vegetarian options on the menu.

Chips and salsa hit the table as soon as we sat down, and nice tall glasses of water, which after the game, tasted better than usual. They also gave us creamy jalapeño sauce to go with the chips which is one of my absolute favorites perfectly balancing the spice with creamy ranch sauce.

            For my meal I decided to try the veggie enchiladas. In it was spinach, onions, zucchini, yellow squash, red bell peppers, serranos, roasted green chiles and corn. It was topped with cheese and came together rolled in a homemade blue corn tortilla with topped with their famous ranchero sauce. Ranchero sauce is fairly mild made of roasted vegetables and is meat free. They also came with a side of rice and beans just as all the other enchilada plates do.

            To be quite honest I wasn’t a fan of these enchiladas. They were hard to cut and nearly impossible to keep the vegetables from falling out as I took a bite. There was also just a glob of spinach thrown on the top which was not pleasing aesthetically or to eat. The blue corn tortilla was also really dry and there wasn’t enough sauce to cover the whole meal.

            If I was vegetarian, I probably wouldn’t return to Chuy’s, or if I did, I would order something different.  

Zoe's (vegetarian) Kitchen

If you enjoy Mediterranean food, you’re going to love Zoe’s Kitchen. Today in my search for vegetarian food in Waco I decided to try out a place with a variety of vegetarian options. After pondering the menu for a while I ordered the spinach & mushroom piadina with a side salad. It was a new option on the menu and the intrigue of trying something new was a challenge I could not pass up.  

For those of you who don’t know what an piadina is (like me, before ordering it today) it is basically just a thin Italian flatbread. It was filled with mushrooms, fresh mozzarella cheese, a feta parsley spread, parmesan cheese and spinach grilled to perfection. The only critique I had was the vast amount of spinach in it, I wish there would have been a better balance of mushrooms and mozzarella.

 The thing I love about Zoe’s Kitchen is that the food is always very fresh and crisp. The side salad had a variety of vegetables and every bite was crunchy. Their greek dressing that comes on every table goes deliciously with the salads, but make sure you shake it up or you’ll get a mouthful of oil. I accidentally oversaturated my salad in dressing, making it quite mushy by the end of the meal.

If you’ve never tried Mediterranean food, I would definitely give Zoe’s Kitchen a chance. Although it is a bit pricy, the vast amount of meatless options makes it a great restaurant selection for Waco vegetarians.