Vietnamese Crêpe on the Run

The Chef: Colleen and Sunflower

The Menu: A crispy Vietnamese crêpe—filled with tofu, mushrooms, and bean sprouts, all wrapped in fresh lettuce leaves with mint, shredded carrots, and sliced cucumbers and a sweet soy dipping sauce

The Goods: VegNews Publisher Joseph and I had to run a few errands for the office during lunch, and then squeezed in a quick meal at Mission staple Sunflower Authentic Vietnamese Restaurant. Thankfully, they have lunch specials that are turned around fast, and I was able to indulge in one of my all-time favorite Vietnamese dishes, the Vietnamese crêpe. Made with rice flour (so it's gluten-free!), turmeric is added to the batter to give it an egg-like appearance, and then it is filled with tofu, mushrooms, and bean sprouts. To serve, you slice off a piece of the crêpe, place it into a lettuce leaf; sprinkle with carrots, fresh mint, and cucumber; and then drizzle on a spoonful of soy dipping sauce. It's a refreshing, healthy lunch that always satisfies. And Joseph's meal was just as delicious (see below). He had the curried vegetables with rice lunch special, which was quickly devoured so we could get back to the VNHQ. Speaking of the VNHQ, we have lots of exciting things happening today! First, we announced our VegNews Sizzling Summer Giveaway, where readers have a chance to win vegan burgers and ice cream for a month. Check it out! Second, we're gearing up to announce our 2012 VegNews Vacations next Tuesday, so if you're not a subscriber and haven't seen where we're going yet, get ready. Finally, I just received word that VN staffers are meeting at 4pm for a very important task: to make vegan s'mores. I have no complaints. Enjoy the rest of your day!

Joseph's colorful curried vegetables with steamed rice at Sunflower in San Francisco's Mission district.

Lemongrass Tofu and More

The Chef: Lyndsay and Sunflower

The Menu: A gigantic lunch for cheap, including lemon grass tofu, hot and sour soup, an imperial spring roll, salad, and brown rice.

The Goods: I haven't been to Sunflower since last year (too much Gracias Madre, I suppose), and boy did I miss it! So I begged editorial assistant Alexandra Chang and VN volunteer Robin Webb to go with me today. The dishes are full of flavor and totally satisfying, and do you see how much food is on that plate? This vegetarian lunch special is only $7.95! I don't know about you, but I'm impressed—and full, with leftover food to spare. I'll stop gushing about this great restaurant now, but speaking of cheap, check out some great decorating tips over at Savvy Vegan. Decorating on a budget is always a good thing.

Vegan Vietnamese Round 2!

The Chef: Brooke and Sunflower

The Menu: A healthy serving of leftovers from my lunch at Sunflower yesterday. I had Vegetarian Vietnamese Vermicelli, which was filled with cabbage, tofu, mushrooms, celery, bean sprouts, red leaf lettuce, and mint. One of my Mission favorites!

The Goods: I hate to say it, but I'm a creature of habit. One of my first weeks in San Francisco, I stumbled upon Sunflower Vietnamese Restaurant in the Mission, and fell in love with their Vietnamese Vermicelli. In the past six months, I've easily had it another 10 times. What can I say, it's amazing! If you're looking for a new favorite veg spot in your own city, be sure to check out The Cooking Channel's The Veg Edge, airing tonight at 9 PM! The show features veg superstars such as Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Chloe Coscarelli!

Vegetarian Noodle Soup

The Chef: Liz and Sunflower Restaurant

The Menu: A satisfying bowl of vegetarian noodle soup filled with mushroom, cauliflower, snap peas, broccoli, red peppers, carrot, celery, tofu, and rice noodles paired with a small order of brown rice—all of which I covered in a generous amount of soy sauce. And washed down with a Diet Coke.

The Goods: I live right across the street from Sunflower, so you could say that I'm somewhat familiar with its vegetarian noodle soup, in that I eat it all the time. On top of being a totally tasty way to warm up a very chilly Friday afternoon, this delicious meal—which, due to generous serving sizes, is easily two meals in one—was a mere $7. Does that mean I'll have some extra cash to throw at the East Bay Vegan Bakesale this weekend? You bet it does.

Vietnamese Vermicelli

The Chef: Brooke and Sunflower Restaurant

The Menu: Vegetarian Vietnamese Vermicelli. Also known as Bun Xao Chay, this noodly dish is filled with tofu, mushrooms, bean sprouts, celery, and red-leaves salad. Amazing!

The Goods: Ah, the Mission and its endless possibilities for eats. Our lunch hours are literally inundated with options. I kid you not when I say I spent the better part of 40 minutes walking up and down Valencia, checking out restaurants, reading the posted menus, and creepily trying to peek at what people had ordered. But, always a creature of habit, I went back to my favorite Vietnamese place in the city and ordered what I always do, this generous serving of noodles that will be both my lunch and my dinner. If you're like me and can never make a decision, you might be having trouble planning Halloween. Resist the stand-by cat costume and check out VN's Halloween Newsletter, which will help you with all your cruelty-free All Hallow's Eve needs.

Vietnamese Ziti

The Chef: Elizabeth

The Menu: OK, you caught us. The ziti is Italian, not Vietnamese. The spring rolls, one of which you see at left in its pre-rolled glory, were Vietnamese, but since there's no really smooth way of combining the ideas of spring rolls and baked ziti, well, we came up with the brilliant solution of Vietnamese Ziti. Filled with sauteed tofu, shredded carrot, sliced cucumber, and rice vermicelli, the spring rolls were a perfectly light accompaniment to the extra-super-rich baked ziti. Swimming in marinara and two, count 'em!, varieties of homemade, non-dairy cheese, this magnanimous main course was better than any non-vegan baked ziti we've ever had.

The Goods: It's not actually that Elizabeth is suffering from some sort of cultural-culinary identity crisis—she's happily swathed in green clothes and Irish pride today, while her Italian half felt right at home when the baked ziti came out of the oven—it's that we're testing recipes! Yes! That means that both of these awesome dishes will be yours to make once the May+June issue of VegNews comes out next month. Until then, we have a litte St. Patrick's Day giveaway going on to tide you over. Happy Vietnamese-Italian St. Patty's Day!

Cold Noodle Salad

The Chef: Aurelia

The Menu: An absolutely amazing Vietnamese cold-noodle salad with grated carrot, chopped romaine, fresh basil, cilantro, jalapeño, and a refreshing soy-sauce and fresh lime juice dressing. Dotted with Spicy Veggie Tempeh and garnished with tart lemon wedges, this meal was the perfect cool treat for our unusually hot day.

The Goods: It's 87 degrees in San Francisco today, and we are freaking out, as is totally appropriate. The mercury almost never climbs this high here, and to celebrate the heat we took a super-hot brisk walk on the beach. With Aurelia's spot-on Southeast-Asian meal and the cooling sea breeze, we were able to mentally transport ourselves to Vietnam's sandy shores.

Spicy Stir-Fry

The Chef: Lisa

The Menu: Some lovely, saucy, stir-fried veggies (broccoli, grape tomatoes, and collard greens) tossed over rice noodles made up our delicious main. Sides of spinach salad with fresh chunks of avocado and our favorite Chinese-style mushroom buns made this quite the full meal.

The Goods: Considering our propensity for travel in Southeast Asia, it should come as no surprise that we'd want to recreate the flavors found in the cuisine there. Since we don't actually have all day to simmer spicy sauces to perfection, Lisa decided to take a little help from World Foods' line of ready-made stir-fry sauces. Today we tried the Thai Basil Chilli and Vietnamese Five Spice varities. While we would have rather actually been in Thailand or Vietnam, these flavors definitely added some kick to our stateside lunch.