A Bloodless Coup

Sometimes you want to eat among your own. Seattle vegetarians have a
growing stable of FUBU vegetarian restaurants—that’s “for us, by
us,” honkies—devoting themselves fully to vegetarian and vegan
cuisine from a variety of angles. (To be fair, I don’t know for certain
that the proprietors of Seattle’s various vegetarian restaurants are
indeed vegetarian themselves. Perhaps the owners of Fremont’s
Silence-Heart-Nest are just canny capitalists who serve vegetarian
cuisine inspired by the spiritual teachings of Sri Chinmoy by day and
eat veal steak tartare on mink chaise longues by night. I doubt
it.)

Georgetown Liquor Company (5501 Airport Way S, 763-6764)
bills itself as “Seattle’s premiere veggie bar/lounge,” and the
name/tagline combination encapsulates the GLC perfectly. Here is a
veggie joint where booze gets top billing, in a setting that feels like
the basement rec room of your teen-vegetarian dreams. By the entrance,
a row of scrappy televisions is rigged to old-school Atari video-game
consoles, offering complimentary games of Asteroids and Space
Invaders. In the corner blares a gloriously noisy jukebox, while
above the bar hang newer TVs, possibly broadcasting bouts of
hyperviolent Ultimate Fighting Championship. Sri Chinmoy would
be horrified.

Any restaurant that refuses to link vegetarianism with ethereality
is a delight, and the entire GLC hums with a down-to-earth ramshackle
vibe. This extends to both the menu, which boasts a variety of
veg-friendly spins on pub grub (sandwiches, nachos, salads), and the
service, which is so lackadaisical it’s funny. After flagging down a
waiter, who seemed genuinely surprised by my existence, I ordered the
Darth Reuben ($10), a veggie take on the deli classic with the corned
beef replaced by roasted-tomato Field Roast slathered in Swiss cheese
(also available with vegan cheese), sauerkraut, and rémoulade on
toasted marble-rye bread.

Having abandoned meat before ever sampling an actual Reuben, my
powers of comparison are limited, but my knowledge of Field Roast is
extensive. What the GLC’s menu called roasted-tomato Field Roast looked
exactly like Celebration Loaf, with its signature bumpy-ridged top and
a not-particularly-amenable-to-the-Reuben-experience taste. But the
rest of the sandwich fought the good fight, especially the sauerkraut,
which was sparse but strong, with a great tangy bite. Across the table,
my (usually carnivorous) dining mate dug into a platter of GLC nachos
with fake meat ($12), a flavorful pile of corn chips, pepper-jack
cheese, Roma tomatoes, green onions, and jalapeños—all of
which was thoroughly upstaged by the made-on-the-premises vegan taco
meat, which was so spicy, it was scary, and so delicious, we couldn’t
stop eating it. Our happily burning tongues demanded the
counter-downing of more beer than planned, which brought the value of
the Georgetown Liquor Company into clearer focus. Vegetarians looking
for a “special” meal out should definitely aim elsewhere. But those
looking to get tipsy in a superfun rec-room bar with veg-friendly pub
grub should go nowhere but here.

For that fabled special meal, vegetarians could hardly do better
than Araya’s Vegetarian Place (1121 NE 45th St, 524-4332), a
University District mainstay I’d heretofore stupidly ignored. Plunked
down on 45th Street within spitting distance of the Ave, Araya’s was, I
assumed, a collegiate vegetarian restaurant, and visions of
kaffiyeh-clad undergrads and PETA-inspired poetry readings kept me
away. My punishment for this idiotic assumption: a life devoid of
Araya’s for years—regrettable, regrettable years.

Araya’s hypes itself as “vegan Thai cuisine,” which seems
restrictive until you realize that the difference between vegetarian
and vegan Thai cuisine is egg on your pad thai. Araya’s comes off as
another good-to-great Seattle Thai restaurant, with special attention
paid to vegetables and tofu/meat substitutes. In other words, it’s Thai
veggie heaven, with the heavenliness extending to the dining room:
surprisingly large, well appointed, and both vast and cozy (a nice
trick). Service is attentive but never overbearing, encouraging the
sort of languorous multicourse meal Araya’s extensive menu makes
glamorously possible.

We started with a pair of appetizers that would’ve sufficed as a
meal. The spring rolls ($6.50 for six—six!) were exemplars of the
form (thin deep-fried crispiness surrounding a fresh veggie jumble),
but all thunder was stolen by the vegetable tempura ($9.50), a platter
of oh-so-lightly battered-and-fried fresh veggies (red peppers,
zucchini, broccoli, onion) that thrilled my vacationing-carnivore
dining mate and me equally. There’s simply no arguing with a good fresh
red pepper, and adding tempura to the equation takes things to an
almost pornographically delicious level.

After such pleasing openers, our entrées were perhaps doomed
to disappoint. Only one did. My pad phirk khing ($8.50) boasted an
attractive aroma and a sprinkling of finely cut lime leaves, but
problems arose with another primary component—the fake meat, here
billed as “bean composition” (yum!) and formed into knotted chunks that
required aggressive chewing. Not helping: the sauce-soaked green beans,
which were distressingly bland. But happiness came rushing back with my
dining mate’s pad thai ($7.95), a straight-up meat-free spin on the
classic tamarind-kissed noodles, delightfully spiced, with nice-size
chunks of stir-fried tofu. When I order this pad thai again (and I
will), I’ll request the addition of broccoli and zucchini. But such a
request may be a ways off, as working my way through Araya’s voluminous
menu could take years—glorious, glorious years.

Araya’s is a vegetarian destination restaurant easily on par with
the upscale standard-bearers—that is, the veggie-FUBU classics
Carmelita and Cafe Flora (the latter recently redecorated by new
owners, the former celebrating its 13th anniversary with a new chef
imported from D.C.’s prestigious Restaurant Nora). But Araya’s delights
are both more expansive (its menu holds thrice the offerings of
Carmelita and Flora) and much less expensive. As for the
good-and-grubby Georgetown Liquor Company, it offers a vegetarian
experience as different from Flora/Carmelita as bean composition is
from foie gras—the punk-rock choice at the other end of an
ever-more-fleshed-out Seattle veggie restaurant spectrum. Lucky, lucky
us.