Paymon's Mediterranean Cafe

Here it is folks: the restaurant by which all others in Vegas are measured: Paymon's Mediterranean Cafe!

It's hard to find anything negative to say about a restaurant that claims on it's menu to have close to 30 vegetarian dishes. Wow! That's impressive, but is it true? Yup. Just count the items on the menu and you'll find 28 not including desserts. A favorite meal for us is: a large hummus & pita, tabouli salad, vegetarian dolmas and for Matt, the Lentil soupl. Tonight, I ordered the vegetable kabobs - one of my favorites at Paymon's - which come with a side of hummus & pita. It's hard to make a visit to Paymon's without partaking in their wonderfully smooth & creamy hummus and homemade pita. Often, we order the Combination Plate, hold the bourrani & add extra falafel or dolmas.

-=IMPORTANT=- we discovered that the Lentil soup is not vegetarian: it is made with chicken broth. As far as our server knew, all of the soups on the menu are made with a "meat" broth.

What I find the most exciting about dining at Paymon's is the waitstaff's ability to recognize dietary needs. It is one of the only places I've dined where they don't question requests to remove ingredients (like dairy) or give an opinion like "that won't taste very good without the cheese" like at some other places. Order some Athens Fries and hold the "dipping sauce" - they're divine! Even Andrew, the pickiest eater on the planet, loves them.

Read the menu very closely & you'll find some very sensitive & heartening lines such as:
Certified Angus Beef ® always in bold to avoid surprises.

Please ask for a Supervisor for all allergy related questions. Don't bother! Your waiter is probably going to be knowledgeable enough to accommodate your needs.

Our Vermicelli Pilaf contains toasted Pine nuts

*All sauteed and fried items are cooked in Canola Oil and/or Olive Oil (0 Trans Fats)

We also offer upon request, White Balsamic Vinaigrette as an alternative to any of our dressings. Eliminates the need for vegans to feel trapped into dry salad as an alternative to creamy dressings. Yeah, that's happened to me before...


It's not just a pleasure to dine somewhere with so many options, but where the servers & staff are so sensitive & knowledgeable when it comes to dietary needs. This restaurant is truly the standard by which all others are measured.

Visit Paymon's at their two locations for dine-in, take-out, late-night and children's dining :

4147 S. Maryland Pkwy
Las Vegas, NV 89119
(702) 731-6030

8380 W. Sahara
Las Vegas, NV 89117
(702) 731-6030

PAYMON'S MEDITERRANEAN CAFE

Las Vegas Vacation Deals

Disneyland

The "Happiest Place on Earth" is not such a treat for Vegans. Perhaps vegetarians (lacto- ovo-) and semi-vegetarians (pesce-, pollo-) would find Disneyland a much more friendly place, but Vegans beware! There is nothing for us in the "land of a million dreams." Unless you count the "million hallucinations" you will have in your hunger-induced stupor.

We were at Disneyland for the Music in the Parks competition festival with my husband's high school concert band. I went along as a chaperone & of course we brought our 6 1/2 year old son! For the price we paid (about $100 for the 3 of us) it was a great deal. Our day would begin at 4am on Saturday April 19th and end at 3:30am on Sunday April 20th. That's a long day for grown-ups, that's a long day for high school age kids, and that's a mighty long day for a lone kindergartener.

On Friday morning, while grocery shopping, I had a "moment". I paused by the Odwalla shelf and remembered back to how convenient those bars had been at the San Diego Zoo last month. I grabbed 4 bars (strawberry pomegranate and chocolate chip peanut) and hoped that I wasn't going to need them.

Unfortunately, I ended up eating 3 1/2 of those bars while I watched everyone else eating whatever suited their fancy. Thankfully, I only had to worry about one meal in the park because breakfast was eaten on the bus (1 strawberry pomegranate bar for me) and lunch was found at a stop in the town Placentia, CA, where the competition was held. Thankfully, there was a Starbucks so I was able to purchase a citrus fruit salad to eat along side my chocolate chip peanut bar. I was feeling pretty proud of myself at this point - 2 meals down and so far on track with what I'd normally eat calorie-wise on a regular day.

Once in the park, we treated our son to some cotton candy but we refrained from spending too much money on ourselves for snacks. My husband & I started to get the munchies around 2pm, so we split another Odwalla (1 strawberry pomegranate). But when dinner rolled around... the sidewalk menus at the various restaurants in Disney were chock full of meat sandwiches, meat soups, meat gumbo, meat salads, meat on a stick, meat in a piece of foil, meat on the bone, meat meat meat meat meat! There was one sandwich shop that had "vegetarian po' boys" but one look told me I did not want to eat this. First, the guys making the sandwiches were wearing latex gloves to handle the food but they did not change their gloves between orders or really even wipe off the counter they were making them on. All I could picture was meat juice on my "vegetarian" sandwich thus negating any vegetarianistic qualities my sandwich may have been clinging desperately to in the first place. We left. There was another soup counter that served "vegetarian gumbo" but again... are crayfish vegetarian? I don't know if that was what was in it, but I don't trust any "vegetarian" meal at Disney especially given that the "cast members" don't seem to be trained in open-minded free thinking.

My husband was actually disgusted watching a little kid near us gnawing on a turkey leg. He said between watching that kid and then watching those guys make all those sandwiches with the same gloves, he wasn't in the mood to eat any meat anyway. He left my son & I sitting on a bench (Andrew eating a peanut butter & jelly sandwich I had packed for him & I finished off the last Odwalla bar) while he scoped out the food situation. He found a small window, out of the way, that served "baked goods" like bagels, croissants & fritters. He bought himself a croissant & I ran over to get myself a bagel.

So... Are bagels made with eggs? No. At least they're not supposed to be made with eggs. Milk? Nope. Should be flour, yeast, water, sugar, salt. What makes various breads so different is the ratio of yeast & flour and of course the way you cook the bread. I decided I was so hungry, & so tired of Odwalla bars that I would go for the bagel & strawberry preserves. It felt so good to chew something other than a protein bar... and the preserves were just the sugar hit I needed.

Our score:
Vegan: 1 point for finding a bagel
semi-vegetarian husband: 1 point for the croissant
lacto-vegetarian son: 1 point for cotton candy and 1 point for grabbing the last quarter of my bagel & stuffing it in his mouth before I could stop him
turkey-leg-eating-little-boy: 10 points for grossing us all out

DISNEYLAND:

Starbucks Coffee

Yes, I am going to review Starbucks. Can you believe it? I can't help it... This review is long overdue.

Coffee. Totally vegan. Little beans dried & roasted to yummy perfection. Ground up, pulverized, seeping into the water to make a drink fit for the gods. I admit that I love coffee and can't seem to live without a cup a day. Now, I only drink decaf, so it's not the caffeine hit that draws me to my French press every morning: it's the FLAVOR.

Starbucks is not my favorite coffee house to visit, I prefer to brew my own coffee at home & carry it in my spiffy pink thermal coffee mug, but it's always comforting when in a new town or traveling to see the green emblem. It only means one thing: coffee!! For my money, though, Starbucks coffee served in the cafe almost has a burnt taste to it, very different from the stuff you buy in the bags at your local grocery store. But, it's awfully nice to have someone make you a special cup of coffee - you know, something other than "coffeemaker-supreme-with-cream&sugar". Plus, I think holding a Starbucks cup makes you look hip.

Ok, maybe not so much.

Going Vegan at Starbucks is one of the easiest things to do. My usual drink is a decaf mocha latte, soy, no whip. During the holidays I go all out & add a shot of peppermint. During the summer months, I get the peppermint mocha variation iced. Mmm...

Today, I met some friends for coffee at 9am to sit in the cushy chairs & chat about life for a while. Not quite an image out of Friends considering there were 2 toddlers running amok throwing trail mix everywhere, but it was a relaxing way to start the morning. I wasn't in the mood for a fancy chocolate flavored coffee and I wasn't in the mood to spend a lot of money. I ordered a tall decaf w/soy. Yup, that's it. Thinking I have the $1.75 to pay for this, I reach into my wallet to discover that I still have money on my Starbucks gift card given to me by one of my music students. Woo hoo! Free coffee! I should have splurged...

Want to fancy up your plain old coffee? Head over to their little cream & sugar station & mix yourself a spiced coffee at a fraction of the price they charge you at the counter for the same drink mixed by a barista! In a ratio of 2:1 sprinkle some cinnamon & nutmeg into your coffee. Add a dash or two of chocolate, couple shakes of the vanilla, dump in 1-3 Sugar in the Raw packets, stir, taste, adjust and Voila!: Mocha Spiced Coffee!!

My favorite part about ordering at Starbucks is that no one gives you a funny look when you ask for Soy Milk. In fact, I appreciate that at the Starbucks closest to me they take special care to verbally announce to the barista to use Soy instead of just relying on the little "S" on the paper cup.

Unfortunately, Starbucks uses Silk soy milk, which if you don't know is part of White Wave Foods a subsidiary of Dean Foods. This is a topic for another day, or perhaps a trip & comment over at Compassionate Cooks will reward you with better information than I can provide!!

STARBUCKS earns itself: