Tried and tested vegetarian food options in the Bryan/College Station/Texas A&M University area
3rd-best place for veggie tacos in town (2nd if you don’t count Bryan).
This one is by Wellborn, so it takes sheer force of will not to drop in while going to the new HEB (Jones Crossing) for groceries!
My favorite order: a taco (two if I am really hungry) on flour tortilla with all the veggies except red onions and jalapenos (the optional second taco with jalapenos). Special emphasis on avocado and potatoes.
And don’t forget the green sauce! Always go for the green sauce. đź––
For a change, here’s a non-taco post about a Mexican place: nice setting, great lighting, happy place to have a pleasant dinner. Remember: they do not have everything veg listed on the menu, so make sure to take a look at the online menu (or this blog post) before heading there, and ask for the veg recipes of interest.
Starters
The chips here are large in size, and they re well fried. I like the salsa that is served with chips (complimentary chips and salsa), I have to ask for a refill at least twice! The Border Queso (added jalapenos, pico, and I believe cilantro) makes for quite a great starter.
††
Quesadilla
The veggie quesadilla here is one of my favorites. As opposed to the spinach-and-mushroom quesadillas offered by all the Mexican places, this one is different. Zucchini, squash, red onion, and red bell peppers buried in cheese make for a great taste. The tortillas are heated for just the right amount of crisp, and the dish is served at the right temperature. Sour cream and guac make fore the perfect sides, complimenting the quesadilla’s taste; pico de gallo is not bad either.
Chimichanga
I had to google what a chimichanga is, all I knew was that it was Deadpool’s favorite Mexican dish. Apparently, it is nothing but a deep-fried burrito. The chimichanga in question contains the same ingredients as the quesadilla above, and is topped by a lot of ranchero sauce. The chimi tastes okay — too oily for my taste, but then again, it’s a deep fried burrito so what else did I expect! The cilantro lime rice and beans provided as sides are nice. This is the only chimi I have tried, so don’t take my word for it. I might try it again and develop a liking — that happens all the time. I’ll keep y’all updated if something like that happens.
Desserts
Yet to try, because whenever I visit, I get too full with the chips and salsa, queso, and enchiladas/chimi.
I am a taco lover. BCS is known for good taco places. The cause-effect relationship for the previous two statements is unclear. I, along with my roommate, am on a mission to discover as many taco places in the BCS area. So expect a lot of posts about tacos.
Taco Crave is located in Bryan downtown. This is my second favorite taco place after Torchy’s — and a close one at that. Best time to visit might be First Friday (of the month) when the downtown is alive and booming: a post-dinner walk in the midst of the live music can be quite enchanting. However, I find that Taco Crave itself is reason enough for a short drive downtown.
Let’s dig in.
Taco Crave Queso
Traditional queso here is quite good. However adding jalapenos, pico de gallo and avocado slices makes it taste a lot better. The in-house chips here have a homely feel, slightly different than the regular restaurant chips or store-bought chips. The Taco Crave queso is a bit pricey, especially since we vegetarians cannot have meat in the same. I believe the economical prices of tacos makes up for it.
Tacos
The cutom-made $2 tacos are exquisite. They are quite small in size (standard street taco size) but 4 of them would be more than enough to make a meal. I add the refried beans, onions, lettuce, tomatoes, grated cheese, cilantro, pico de gallo, and of course avocado slices to my tacos (and sometimes an jalapeno). Getting a lime on the side and squeezing on top of the tacos adds to the taste.
Salad bar
The sauces as well as extra onions, cilantro, and pico de gallo from the salad bar add the luxury to further customize the tacos.
Sauces
Without sauces tacos are inconplete. They provide 3 sauces at Taco Crave. The red sauce is tangy. I prefer the orange and green sauces which are both spicy. I have yet to figure out which one is spicier. However, to be honest, I like them both and add both to my tacos.
Write caption…
Quesadilla
Yet to try but I predict it’d taste pretty good.
Tres Leches Cake
Although I have not tried many Tres Leches recipes yet, I have heard that the one available at HEB is one of the best. I am a fan of HEB’s Tres Leches as well. However, I tried this cake at Taco Crave– partly to satisfy my curiosity for exploration and partly because I am one of the biggest sweet-tooths (sweet-teeth?) of ’em all. Result: positive. The cake is perfectly soaked in milk, and the bottom surface is slightly more baked, a bit harder than the bulk–just the right amount. The cream on top was fresh as dewdrops. I highly recommend this dessert cake.
To summarize…
Can’t help but write about my absolute favorite (or once-absolute-favorite for quite some time) restaurant in College Station: Torchy’s Tacos. Although tacos are close to my heart, Torchy’s Tacos are practically components of my full-sized aortic pump. As one can probably tell, this particular review is going to be biased. However, on the off chance that you might find a small tip that could help you enjoy Torchy’s more, while having half-hearted smi-laughs on my stupid jokes, do read on…
An Austin-based chain, Torchy’s is popular for their Tex-Mex tacos. With chilled-out indoor/outdoor seating and little-devil themed artwork, the ambiance at different Torchy’s branches is generally fun (making this statement from n=3 places as my sample space). They seem to be the only place who have figured out the perfect recipe for vegetarian tacos. Just like any other taco place, I have tried switching out non-vegetarian ingredients with avocado on their popular recipes. Result: their Fried Avocado taco still remains the best-tasting vegetarian recipe. Let’s start in order though.
Chips & Queso:
One of the essential component of the Torchy’s experience is the chips & queso. Although Torchy’s is where I had tried my first queso-dip about 4 years ago, no other queso-dip has ever been able to top the Torchy’s recipe. Albeit queso stands for melted cheese, different restaurants, esp. Tex-Mex ones add a few extra ingredients to the traditional queso in order to make their dip unique. In my experience, no one does it better than Torchy’s. In addition to the melted cheese, the said dip consists of some grated cheese, cilantro, the diablo sauce, possibly some added salt-n-pepper, and.. behold… guacamole! Perfectly following the rule of thumb that avocado makes everything taste better, the pieces of avocado (due to the guacamole being smashed just the right amount–not too much so that avocado becomes a paste) make this queso the best I ever had. The onions and tomatoes from the guac, as well as the topped cilantro add to the unique texture of this dip. Call me nontraditional (alternatively new-fashioned), but I prefer a custom queso-dip over lonely melted cheese any day. No other queso-dip except for Trudy’s in Austin (queso+salsa+guac) has ever come even close to Torchy’s.
The chips are not bad either — they have the right amount of salt and are almost always well-fried. If you like getting guacamole at restaurants (I prefer to make my own), you might want to try it at Torchy’s, it is pretty good.
Fried Avocado Taco:
This is my all-time favorite taco. The idea of frying avocado just like fried chicken must have made Torchy’s a truckload of money from vegetarians, maybe a quarter truck from me. They seem to have found out a highly optimized solution to the vegetarian taste-buds problem (preliminary result from sample space of n=4 people). On the one hand, avocado already tastes like a dewdrop-filled garden, and on the other hand we are designed by evolution to love oily, fatty fried stuff. Now put your hands together! Could it BE any tastier?!
Turns out it can. In addition to the mind-bogglingly piquant fried avocado, this taco carries refried pinto beans, pico de gallo, lettuce, and grated cheddar jack cheese. They suggest having the taco on a corn tortilla, but I prefer the taste and texture of a flour tortilla. I hear they have better corn tortillas in the original Torchy’s outlets in Austin, so that is added to my long-bottom (or long-donkey, not sure which one is lamer, that is, better pun) bucket-list. In any case, at least in the College Station Torchy’s you want to get the flour tortilla. The poblano ranch is the recommended sauce with the recipe, and it indeed works wonders. In fact, I have found the poblano ranch to be the dairy-analog of avocado: it makes everything (non-dairy things–I am not going to try it with milk okay) better. If there was one thing that could make this taco better, that is the poblano ranch. I always ask for 3 additional poblano sauces, maybe steal one for home if I am not in the mood for having a liquid taco.
Other Tacos:
The Independent is quite good. For people who don’t despise mushrooms, this is a must try! Fried mushrooms with avocado and beans make a good overall texture, to which carrots and corn are pleasant additions — I would not expect carrots to go well with tacos but they have pulled it off. The taco comes topped with the Diablo sauce which makes it spicier than Fried Avocado taco.
Migas is a standard breakfast taco, great for egg lovers. Strict vegetarians may give it a try too: substitute the eggs with avocado slices or fried avocado and you’d have a great tasting taco. The fried tortilla chips make for excellent crunchiness, and the salsa provided on the side adds a cold, slightly spicy taste.
The Secret Menu:
I had started to perceive/suspect Torchy’s as a cult after talking to a couple more fellows such as myself who swear in the name of Torchy’s Queso and have to visit a Torchy’s once a month for maintaining their sanity. When I came across their secret menu, this suspicion was confirmed. Jack of Clubs is the only vegetarian(ish) taco on the secret menu though. It is quite heavy on the calories yet, to me, does not taste as good as the other options on the regular menu. To each their own though– nothing wrong in giving it a try once you have visited Torchy’s for the first time and naturally become a regular.
Sauces:
As mentioned, poblano ranch is my favorite. It has the creamy texture of ranch and slightly salty/tangy taste of poblano peppers. For those that prefer spice (or like to show off that they can handle spice) the Diablo is the way to go. Pico de gallo is supposed to be ordered at the counter ($0.25/tiny sauce-bowl), all other sauces can be requested to the servers.
Lastly, Drinks:
One of the unique thing about Torchy’s: they offer local (made in Texas) fountain soda that is actually great. I usually do not need/order drinks when I eat out, but at Torchy’s ordering a drink is a must. Among friends, we refer to the Vanilla Creme soda as Amrit which roughly translates to elixir or nectar which is supposed to be godly and taste extremely sweet.
Edit: last I checked, they replaced the drinks with Coca-Cola drinks, which is a huge disappointment. I do not get drinks at Torchy’s anymore.
To summarize, I love Torchy’s and you do too. Any argument is invalid.
I am a taco lover. BCS is known for good taco places. The cause-effect relationship for the previous two statements is unclear. I, along with my roommate, am on a mission to discover as many taco places in the BCS area. So expect a lot of posts about tacos.
Following recommendation from another food blog, I went to La Familia Taqueria in Bryan for lunch today. The place is small with a seating capacity of maybe 25-30, seems to be run by a family as the name suggests. They are only open in the mornings, and are popular for breakfast tacos. A lunch buffet is offered, but once you look at the items, you know that you want to order the tacos Ă la carte.
Starters/Sauces:
To start, they served chips and salsa. Chips were okay, the salsa was hot for some reason. To me, hot salsa is weird. I asked for some other, cold salsa but there was some confusion and they served another kind of salsa, still hot. This one was marginally better-tasting, hot nonetheless. Finally, when the main course arrived, I specified that we are looking for something cold, and we finally received some cold green cilantro sauce with some skepticism and a warning that it is “extremely spicy”. This sauce worked out quite well and ultimately made the lunch enjoyable. We also ordered some queso for the table, which was the traditional melted cheese, orange in color, hot (obviously) and decent-tasting.
Tacos:
Just like any other restaurants, the menus at taco places are usually designed keeping the majority (non-vegetarians) in mind. A tip to order vegetarian tacos if you are looking for one: switch out meat ingredients with avocado, add some lettuce, tomatoes and beans, and ask for hot (cold in temperature but spicy) sauces.
Among friends, we ordered a few combinations of veggie tacos:
For 2 and 4, the rule of thumb applies: avocado makes everything taste better. The Mexican potato taco tasted pretty much like the spicy South Indian Fried Potato-recipe, a great dish if you haven’t tried it yet. The custom-made taco (5) tasted the best among all (maybe closely followed by the avocado-Migas–2), however, I felt that the potatoes were in an excess amount than would be ideal. Everything when topped with the cilantro sauce tasted hot/spicy and delicious. 5 tacos for ~$15 are enough for the brunch-appetite of two.
Final verdict:
This is among several under-the-radar places in town. I did not know about its existence for two years until a friend took me there. As the name suggests, the food here is a fusion of Peruvian and American food. Let’s look at the various options on the menu.
Burger:
Arguably the best veggie-burger in town, although I am confused among Fusion Peru, Hopdoddy’s, and World of Beer (Fox & Hound dropped out of competition after closing down). The Fusion Peru veggie burger has the usual black-bean veggie-patty and layers of tomato, lettuce, American cheese, Peruvian sauces, skinny fries, and fried egg. I like it better without the egg — the real vegetarian version. The patty is well-done but not burnt, and the burger by itself is decent. A few skinny fries in the burger adds a pleasant crisp. What makes the experience great is the Green Peruvian Sauce, which is ordered separately. DO NOT FORGET TO GET THE GREEN PERUVIAN SAUCE!! When you dip the burger in this spicy sauce, it significantly improves the flavor of the burger, just like how avocado would improve a taco!
The burger comes with a side of fries — I have always been served freshly fried (or maybe re-fried?) HOT fries here. If one wants to indulge with temporary ignorance of calories, to have a personal party in the mouth, one should get the fries as well as double cheese in one’s burger.
Drink:
Chica Morada is a Peruvian drink served here, which is a hit-or-miss, not just across different individuals, but even across different times with the same individual. With some people it might be very popular and others would just hate it. I have had it twice, loved it the first time, did not enjoy much the second.
Dessert:
Lucuma Ice Cream is highly recommended. Beware though: this ice cream is extremely sweet, do not engage if you don’t like sweet stuff. Yeah, sweet stuff for dessert. I know, sounds crazy to me too, but there are people who deem desserts too sweet! My hypothesis is that these might be the same people who go for horror movies and say they are too scary, or who say they like swimming but not getting wet, or who buy an iPhone and say they don’t feel like it has good maneuverability… You get the point — like, what else do they expect?!!
Coming back to the ice cream, lucuma is a Peruvian fruit that they get from Houston to make this ice cream. They are usually sold out of this one due to its popularity, so don’t miss if you get a chance. Passion fruit is another flavor you could try if you like tart. You can always ask for a taste before placing your order.
Other options on the menu:
I have yet to try their tacos with custom-suggested recipe: a handy, borderline-essential skill for vegetarians, but more on that later. They recommended the veggie-style Peruvian spaghetti (Tallarin Saltado, I think) last week, but I just cannot get over their burger, so ordered the burger again.
Value for money:
Overall, Fusion Peru provides great value for money. A filling burger with fries for $8 is not a deal you would expect to find even in this considerably economical town. A heapy scoop of ice cream is just $3.50 which also comes as a pleasant surprise.
In a nutshell, highly recommended place, excellent value for money, awesome veggie burger, and great ice cream. If you have not been here before, now is as good a time as any!
Several options to choose from: Aush (bean stew) and Kashk-E-Bademjan (Eggplant recipe) are decent choices, so are the Falafel Sandwich and the Baklava (dessert). Notably, the Baba Gannouj here is better than the hummus. However, I find Shiraz’s food to be quite dry. For beginners fresh off the boat who have not tried any Mediterranean food, Shiraz could prove to be a pleasant find. I would recommend starting with Shiraz, so as to be able to try all the options. For experienced players, there are better options in the town.
Howdy!
If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world. — Thorin from The Hobbit: Or, There and Back Again
I am a PhD student in TAMU-Chemical Engineering, been here about 3 years. Being a HUGE foodie and a vegetarian, I have created this blog for sharing my relevant experiences and opinions. The hope is that this can help vegetarians in Bryan/College Station area. Will be updating different pages on the blog as I go along figuring it out.
Keep visiting the blog if you are a vegetarian and interested in finding new places to eat around town. If you are among the majority who think that there are not too many good options available for vegetarians in this town, give me a chance to change your mind!
Vegetarians…
*intense eyebrows, burger in left hand, catches a flying taco in the right*
…assemble!
BCS for Vegetarians 