Sunflower Vegetarian, Vienna, VA #3

It is the year of the Sunflower! I commend Sunflower Vegetarian restaurant for stepping up its game. It is my third visit to these restaurants this year and I continue to be impressed. Watch out Vegetable Garden, there's a new Asian almost-vegan restaurant in town!

On this particular Saturday, I met a couple friends for lunch at the Vienna location. It's a super casual place that is perfect for catching up with old friends. We started with the Spicy Organic Spinach Wonton in Red Sauce. Even though they were in a brown sauce, we absolutely loved these flavorful, fresh, and soft spinach wontons. This started the meal off right!

Before our meals, we were served a simple salad with an Asian dressing. It was simple and tasty.

For my entree, I ordered the Golden Nugget. Over a bed of steamed napa cabbage, bean thread noodles, and carrots were marinated yuba (bean curd) wrapped with shredded shiitake mushrooms, bamboo shoots, spiced dry tofu, and soy protein in a sweet brown sauce. Steamed broccoli garnished the plate. This dish was really good, but a little sweet for my palate.

My one friend had the Eggplant Medley -- lots of eggplant served with carrots, water chestnuts, tomatoes, mushrooms, and baby corn. The sauce was excellent.

I can say the same for my other friend's dish -- the Zen of Greens. Kale, watercress, snow peas, broccoli, and baby bok choy in a delicious light ginger and veggie-oyster sauce.

We were all so pleased with our meals that we decided to try dessert as well. This is where it went south. We ordered the Chocolate Cake with mousse and glaze. It tasted like a dry sponge. When the server asked whether we liked it, my friend told him that she didn't and he excused it with the fact that it was vegan! How dare he? Go to Sticky Fingers and you will see that you can absolutely make vegan chocolate cake that tastes great! In fact, she has her own book -- buy it!

I won't end this on a bad note though. These meals were $6.95 with salad included and were excellent. There is nothing bad to say about that. The service was attentive as well. The changes they have made have been for the better and I look forward to continuing to patronize this establishment. Sunflowers everywhere!

Previous reviews
February 27, 2015
June 24, 2015

Sunflower Vegetarian
2531 Chain Bridge Road
Vienna, VA 22181
(703) 319-3888