Twofer Weekend: Birthday Dinner!

Lucky you guys. I'm totally feeling generous this week and am going to update AGAIN. YAP.

Ok, I turned 24 recently, and though the vegan restaurant community out here in Minneapolis is pretty good, there has been a lack of fancy vegan-friendly restaurants (mainly because they're all closing). We used to have Cafe Agri, which was so quaint and swanky and Cafe Brenda, which closed after numerous years in business. It was so nice to have them around, though I am thankful for the remaining swanky restaurants that have vegan options (for example: Senor Wong's and the restaurant I'm about to review, etc.). OK!

French Meadow Bakery Cafe is a fantastic place to celebrate your birthday dinner. They have a good amount of vegan selections, great drinks and the occasional vegan dessert (usually the vegan turtle cake is present in the bakery case and it is fucking amazing). The menu you order from is on the wall for breakfast and lunch, and for dinner they have a "specials" menu that rotates every day and their regular menu.

So, again, we went here for my birthday and it was amazing! I had the squash gnocchi and Manfriend had the this delicious Thai tempeh sandwich.

Gnocchi is pictured on the left. The flavors of this dish were so intense! The bitterness of the greens and the chewy, sweet gnocchi were absolutely delectable! Perfect combination. It had this buttery aftertaste that was so satisfying, I ate it all. I also love huge chunks of mushrooms so this dish was right up my alley. Manfriend's Thai tempeh sandwich was surrounded by a salad of mixed greens with a vinaigrette dressing. The tempeh was spicy! Holy balls was it spicy. Very tasty though.

Also! They bring a basket of bread out before you get your meal and some of the bread is vegan, some is not. It's a good thing to know before you up and eat bacon because one of the slices apparently had some in it!

I definitely recommend this place. It's nestled in the heart of Uptown Minneapolis on Lyndale Ave and nearly EVERYTHING I have had here I would get again, hands down.

French Meadow Bakery Cafe

2610 Lyndale Ave S

Minneapolis, MN

MN Vegan