Audio By Carbonatix
Spiral Diner is a vegan diner in Oak Cliff. Every vegan cliché is there: massage therapist business cards; dreads; a flier suggesting that we all get together and build a dog park; good-for-you-smelling air mixed with patchouli stank; employees who are all totally, sincerely, Jehovah’s Witness nice all the time. At almost every booth there’s a hardback copy of Jonathan Safran Foer’s Eating Animals, which is a book about people who are vaginas. And the worst part of all: There’s not an ounce of meat or dairy anywhere to be found.
It’s not the end of the world, but as someone who appreciates a good meat circus, it’s a little bit like buying tickets to the Austin City Limits Music Festival and finding out Stevie Wonder is headlining. Fuck it, you probably go anyway, but there’s a big part of you that’s like, “This. Is. Bullshit.”
I heard the Jamaican Jerk BBQ San’ich is fantastic, so I ordered that. It’s multigrain tempeh marinated in jerk sauce. It’s blackened and topped with grilled pineapple and lettuce, tomato and onions on multigrain bread. As a safety measure, I also tried the creamy lemon pasta. It’s penne pasta with a cashew cream sauce, lemon, a ton of veggies, capers and topped with big-as-your-butt grilled asparagus (Seriously, the asparagus are not-fuckin’-around huge. Prepare to experience peesparagus for a solid month.)
While I waited for food, I drank about 50 gallons of my new favorite fizzy drink, Oogave’s watermelon cream soda. It was so good it tasted like summer banging a lollipop.
Of the two entrées, I preferred the pasta. It was vegan, but it didn’t taste like there was any funny business going on. Just veggies and pasta with a nice sauce.
I liked the Jamaican Jerk BBQ San’ich, and I appreciated that the tempeh wasn’t acting like soy always does, trying to pretend it’s meat. The tempeh was like, “I’m weird. Kinda like a big old seasoned wad of nut rice. Deal with it.” I just think I need to stick with the Visitor Vegan Person and not Legit Vegan Person options.
Spiral Diner, thanks for the shockingly unshitty food. Also, I apologize for humping your Oogave soda fountain.
