Alex Estrada of Silver Snakes “Top 5 Vegan spots on the road to SXSW”

As not to bore you too much, we’ve decided to give you a short break from staff content and provide some cool stuff from a special guest.

Alex Estrada of Silver Snakes has worked his ass off for the last few months leading up to his band’s SouthWest tour just so he would have some extra cash to blow on some good food.

Alex is a vegan chap, so finding some good vegan food on the road is something he has become quite good at. He kept track of the places he ate along the way and told us about. Here are his findings:

Phoenix is one of my favorite cities for Vegan food. We always stay with my friend Elisa when we are in town and this time around, we decided to visit her at work to grab some food before our show at The Nile. She is also a vegan, so she helped me sort through the menu to find something that I could eat. I took her advice and ordered the Roasted vegetable panini w/ guacamole.

This sandwich was awesome! The bread was delicious and the veggies were perfectly cooked. My favorite part was the salad dressing, which I’m told was a combination of balsamic vinegar and dijon mustard. The other dudes in the band really enjoyed their food and beer as well. Go visit Elisa and tell her that Silver Snakes sent you.

We arrived at the venue at around 7pm after a nice 8 hour drive. We met with the dudes from Sweet Weapons (check them out!) and were stoked to find out that there was a vegan place near by with awesome thai food. We hopped in the van and arrived at “Thai Vegan” a few minutes later. I was expecting it to be like all the other boring vegan thai places we have back in LA but I was dead wrong! I ordered the “cashew nut tofu” dinner special and the band split a few other dishes. This place had great service and the food was amazing! We will definitely be eating there next time we play at The Gasworks!

The drive to San Antonio was a long one and I was positive that I would be eating subway as soon as we got to town. The last time I tried to find vegan food in Texas was in 2008 and i didn’t have much luck then. In fact, there is a picture of me standing in front of a mural that read “REAL MEN EAT MEAT.” Anyway, I did a search on my phone with the Happy Cow app and was surprised to find a local vegan spot called “Green.” We had just left a BBQ restaurant where the 2 meat eaters in the band got their fix (I got a pickle). We arrived at Green and our eyes lit up as soon as we opened the menu. Mike ordered a BBQ sandwich and I partied with some country fried steak, herbed mashed potatoes and a kale salad w/ pecan caesar dressing. I can’t wait to go back! The food was incredible, The staff was friendly and we received our orders in under 15 minutes!

Breakfast is such a wonderful thing but as a Vegan it is often hard to come by. It would be so simple for restaurants to add a tofu scramble or an alternative pancake recipe to their menu and that is exactly what Kerby Lane had done. From the outside it looked like just another homestyle chain restaurant but when we walked in and sat at the counter I was hit with a serious reality check… I was in Austin, TX! The city is widely regarded for being Vegan friendly and the meal that followed definitely reaffirmed that. I ordered the “Vegan breakfast platter” with a side of their homemade “Vegan queso”. The platter included a delicious tofu scramble, homemade “sausage” and the Vegan pancake of the day which happened to be Chai! Everything was cooked to perfection. I highly recommend a trip to Kerby Lane!

Day 5 – Bouldin Creek Cafe, Austin TX

I had seen several friends post about an awesome Vegan Benedict in Austin but I had no idea that I would soon be experiencing the breakfast of a lifetime. We arrived at Bouldin Creek and I was immediately reminded of my favorite vegan restaurants in the NorthWest. Tattoo’d servers, 20 somethings on MacBooks and one hell of a menu. We sat in a big corner booth next to the band Former Thieves and Chris from No Sleep records. We ordered several “Renedicts” which is Bouldin’s take on the classic Egg’s benedict. Our food arrived and we waited for our buddy Adam Vass to dine with us. After about 10 minutes of waiting we just started to dig in (Sorry, Vass!). The flavor was on another level. This breakfast will forever haunt my dreams. We ended up going back 2 more times and I recommend you do the same if you ever happen to be in Austin, TX.

Time to put on my running shoes.