I came here with a couple of vegan friends. I personally am not vegan, but they take me to a lot of good vegan places, and I eat vegan food quite a bit more than the average person, I'd say, particularly when cooking at home. So I feel I have a decent grasp? Maybe? I mean, I like tofu, so I'm not one of those people who bashes vegan food. I guess I'm trying to establish that I'm not a judgmental food jerk.
They recommended the Stranger Wings pizza, so I trusted them. They said it wasn't spicy (one of them doesn't like spicy food, so I trusted him EVEN MORE). UM! I was deceived. It's definitely spicy. Although, to be fair, they said it usually wasn't as spicy as mine was that day, so I forgive them. So, just be wary if you're worried about spice. I usually can take a mild amount of spice, but this amount made me sweat. It wasn't very cute. The three of us did swap each other for pieces of each others' pizzas, so it wasn't a complete fail for me.
One of my friends got the Southern Belle. It was decent, the only downside was that the crust in the center of this pizza was pretty soggy and droopy. When I got the the outer crust though it was much better. I liked the cashew mozzarella. It comes with san marzano tomatoes, cashew mozzarella, BBQ shreds, pineapple, red onion, corn, and cilantro. Wasn't a big fan of the BBQ shreds, but only because I didn't like the BBQ sauce. But I think that may be a taste preference. I really liked the ranch he got with it to dip it in.
My other friend got the Ode to Philly. This was my favorite, and I'd probably order this if I came here again. It included 'cheddar' cream, cashew mozzarella, steak curls, roasted vegetables, and Fresno chilies. Really good, I'd highly recommend this one.
I think the main thing I liked about this place was that the "dairy" was very good. Usually vegan cheese really is not something I enjoy at all, unless it's chao cheese. They have a really good thing going here in the "cheese" department.
The reason it's docked a star is because it is expensive for what it is. I paid $14 for a super thin crust personal pizza (aka, not much product), a light drizzle of some bleu "cheese" sauce, and like... eight cauliflower florets in some too-spicy-for-me buffalo sauce. Oh, and some scallions cut diagonally. I'm not really understanding why Stranger Wings is $1 more than the Southern Belle and Ode to Philly when there's wayyyy more stuff on both of those than on Stranger Wings. I don't get it. It's okay though. I'd just rather go to MOD pizza, which has vegan options (obviously much more limited than here, which is unfortunate) and gluten free crust options, and it would be much cheaper. (But if you're not concerned about price and you want a more unique vegan pizza that had thought put into it, I'd probably recommend Virtuous Pie over MOD.)
I think if I had been alone and based it off the Stranger Wings I'd give this place a two and probably not give it another chance, but since I did try my friends' pizzas and actually enjoyed one of them quite a bit I would return with my vegan friends and be happy with it, and I'd recommend giving it a try if you're vegan or simply want to try a new vegan restaurant. Probably won't come back on my own though. Although I'd like to try their charcoal ice cream thing? It looked very intriguing.
The other thing is that their sitting situation is weird and dumb. They actually have a pretty big space in there that could fit quite a lot of people, but instead there's a communal table with like I don't know, 16 seats? I'm one of the many people who think communal tables are awkward and weird. And then they have a couple of bar stool areas, and an outdoor area. Which, okay... I don't wanna sit outside in the PNW a good four months out of the year. My friends (who come here regularly) said that they almost always have to wait for a place to sit here, so we were lucky that it wasn't busy when we came in.
Oh, another positive was the service was friendly, and not stuck up and Portlandy. It did take a very long time to get our pizzas though and it wasn't very busy at all. There was a point when we were the only customers in there, actually. read more