If Pizza & Chicken Love Letter wins the prize for the most fanciful pizzeria name, the new Vegan Pizza would win for the most no-nonsense. Vegan Pizza serves, you guessed it, vegan pizzas. It just opened in Garden Grove and claims to be the first vegan pizzeria in Orange County. As far as I know, that's an accurate statement. Though Native Foods and other vegetarian eateries offer vegan pizzas (some of them actually great), Vegan Pizza is certainly is the first pizzeria I've heard of to be named as such and that specializes in it.
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A substance called “cheez” is used instead of cheese. And along with pizzas where one can pick one's own toppings, they also offer a Mexican pizza with black beans and corn; and Indian Pizza with curry and grilled bell peppers sauteed in garam masala.
But you can't call yourselves a fan of irony if you go to Vegan Pizza and not order the so-called “Meat Lovers,” which I can safely assume, contains vegan ham, pepperoni and sausage.
Also on the menu: hot dogs, corn dogs, burgers and Buffalo wings. “And don't worry, everything is 100% vegan,” Vegan Pizza's website states, as if there was any doubt. I mean, your name is “Vegan Pizza.”
12022 Chapman AVe
Garden Grove, CA 92840
(714) 750-8686
http://www.veganpizzaOC.com
Before becoming an award-winning restaurant critic for OC Weekly in 2007, Edwin Goei went by the alias “elmomonster” on his blog Monster Munching, in which he once wrote a whole review in haiku.