Eating Vegetarian While Traveling

I just got back from an 8 day trip to Virginia and DC. We stayed in the Shenandoah area of VA and made several day trips to Falls Church, VA where we caught the subway train into DC for fun and museum hopping.

Under ideal circumstances you can check out vegetarian or vegan restaurant opportunities online and try those but alas I was traveling in a pack and the pack did NOT want to go to any hippie dippie vegetarian restaurants. In fact I was pretty miffed on some occasions when the general consensus was that we had to eat at some meat lover’s palace like Steak N Shake or a Barbecue joint. For the record I had a nasty grilled cheese sandwich at the former because they were out of lettuce for salads (WTF?) and french fries at the latter, nice meals eh? Grrr. To make matters worse, we passed the Sunflower Vegetarian Restaurant in Falls Church a couple times but I could not motivate anyone to eat there.

But this test also provided me with some good non meaty meals at places I would not expect or even eat at usually. In general Subway and Quiznos are good places to eat instead of Burger King or McDonalds and when you are in a museum or subway cafe those types of eateries may be your only options. They both have veggie subs. There was a Quiznos right outside the exit for the Smithsonian museums in DC so we ate there once. I ordered a small veggie sub on wheat, with no guacamole. It had spinach leaves, iceberg lettuce, black olives, mushrooms, tomatoes, cucumbers, and red vinaigrette dressing. It was quite yummy.

One day we ate at Chilis, where I used to devour their chicken crispers in days past. This go round I just ate chips and salsa and I ordered their Cajun pasta. It was delicious but a little too rich and I only ate half of it. A Chinese restaurant in China town had veggie options with bean curd or vegetable Lo Mein. The Golden Corral buffet was another place we ate and probably my favorite. They had lots of salad options, yummy baked potatoes, mashed potatoes with a non meat based gravy, and lots of fresh fruit. At Bob Evens I had a veggie omelet with Hollandaise sauce and big chunks of spinach, along with a cup of potato soup for lunch. I was very pleased with MOST of the places we ate. I could eat right alongside my non vegetarian traveling companions and not be left with iceberg lettuce salads. As a general rule though it is best to stay away from places that specialize in meat… aka barbecue places or steak joints. Veggie options are limited there. I had to avoid the green beans even at the barbecue place because they were cooked with bacon.

I was a bit worried about all the cheese I was eating since my stomach doesn’t handle dairy too well but I only got sick once… at Bob Evans. Hurray for small favors!

BTW, another place we could have eaten but didn’t, is Chipotle. They have an AWESOME veggie burrito. Where is your fave place to eat when travelling?

Recommended: The Vegetarian Traveler