Lomita

2439 Pacific Coast Highway
Lomita, CA 90717

My religion requires me to refrain from eating meat at restaurants that are not specifically certified as conforming to its dietary laws. What this means in practice is that I'm limited to vegetarian foods at virtually every restaurant I eat at. Often, when I go to Chinese restaurants, I have to watch as my friends order sweet and sour chicken or pork fried rice, while I'm stuck eating the one tofu item on the menu. The other night all this changed when I tried out the House of Vege in Lomita. As usual, I saw shrimp, pork, chicken, and other items on the menu. Instinctively, I scanned the menu, looking for the "Vegetables" section. But then I remembered that everything on the menu is vegetarian!

That's right: items marked "chicken," "pork," "shrimp," etc. are actually made with wheat gluten or other vegetarian alternatives. There is absolutely no meat or fish served at House of Vege!! Ok, you're likely saying, the food probably tasted terrible. Absolutely not! What I ended up getting was one of the best tasting dinners I've ever had in my life.

Even those of you who shy away from "health food" because you're scared of getting some icky, bland-tasting tofu-seaweed concoction have nothing to fear. As my own father said, "If vegetarian food tasted like this everywhere, I'd have no problem giving up meat." This from a man who eats meat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner!

House of Vege is located just a few miles north/west of the 110 (Harbor) Freeway, on the right side of the road.