Last month we made a trip to Asheville, NC. We stayed at Inn at the Biltmore, a beautiful hotel on the grounds of the Biltmore, one of the Vanderbilt estates. What a gorgeous place especially the gardens and butterflies!
Luckily there lots of vegan eats everywhere!
First stop was The Laughing Seed and we dug right in! I had the special entree because I love trying different variations of cashew cream, this one was a cashew alfredo. The dish was cavatappi with artichoke hearts, red peppers, capers, arugula and savory tempeh crumbles tossed with the alfredo. The dish was so beautiful topped with microgreens and a beet puree. Look at that color!
This here is your basic vegan meal. Brown rice, avocado, and perfect and super delicous locally made tempeh.
I am a big fan of good french fries and these are gooood! Check out those fried jalapeños in there. Surprise!
For lunch on our second day, we visited the local Whole Foods which was originally Greenlife Grocery. Whole Foods bought it at some point but the place kept its original charm. These carrot cashew croquettes were an original Greenlife recipe and they were phenomenal. I plan on recreating them in my kitchen soon. The sauce was ridiculously good too. They said it was made with coconut milk, cashews and cayenne. I plan on working that up too! The quinoa sweet potato cakes were a little dry but luckily I had that great sauce. And just look at the pretty stuffed tomato.
After our Whole Foods lunch, we stopped at The Hop Ice Cream Cafe. They make all of their own ice cream in house and they always have several vegan options! Lucky for us. The shop was totally cute and old fashioned, especially the formica tabletops.
The ice cream was divine. We had vanilla cookies and soy creme in a cone and chocolate banana creme in a cup with homemade coconut whip.
Our last meal was at Plant. It has been named one of the top vegan restaurants in the country. No wonder. It is a gorgeous restaurant with super creative dishes. It’s only open for dinner so I made sure we scheduled for it.
My son started with the house lemonade. His most favorite drink ever.
I love when a restaurant serves an amuse-bouche. This one was carrots in a little acid.
Next we ordered the cheese plate. I have to applaud a vegan restaurant with a cheese plate, homemade too! This is aged cashew, a farmer’s involtini (which is a small bite of food consisting of some sort of outer layer wrapped around a filling in this case vegan cheese wrapped in a slice of zucchini), rosemary peaches, pickled peppers, black garlic oil, and homemade focaccia.
My son got a plate of gherkins. Very gourmet!
We also had the smoked hummus plate. If you like smoked, this is your hummus. I prefer not smoked but it was still great. The roasted garlic bulb on the side was brilliant (I will be duplicating this at home) and the toasted bread was excellent.
Next we had the red curry tofu. What a great sauce! It was served with jasmine rice, kaffir lime cakes, and teriyaki green beans with thai basil.
Finally, dessert. The black out pie was excellent. It had a chocolate peanut butter fudge center with a cookie crust. And a creamsicle ice cream which was good but it had too much ginger in it for my taste.
Overall, the entire weekend was food filled and delicious. Go to Asheville just to eat!