For Dallas Vegans, V-Eats Is Worth The Wait

The cuisine at Trinity Groves’ vibrant new vegan restaurant is more creative and ambitious than most, the focal points of its plates made in-house. Call it Vegan 2.0: creamy-centered tofu crisps, shaggy-crusted, with citrus-chile dipping sauce; mac and cheese bolstered from a savory base of puréed vegetables; flavor-bearing touches like house-smoked artichoke hearts. The kitchen is determined to approximate meat. The Salisbury steak is made with seitan, nicely seasoned and accompanied by a proper steak knife, mushroom-enriched white-wine gravy, and crispy onion rings—the star on a recent evening. Tortilla-crusted fried “chicken” is actually marinated and roasted breadfruit; it makes nice work of the dense, starchy, nourishing staple. The kitchen is interested in flavor as much as trompe l’oeil effects or feats of texture (spirulina and fermented quinoa and rice make the vegan blue cheese as convincing a show as you could hope for from an impostor). It doesn’t always work: poorly executed muddles of side vegetables shouldn’t be an over-reach. But V-Eats’ inventive and technically savvy fare is a good addition to the vegan palate—an adventure for the vegan and meat-eating alike and a mote in the eye of steak-city Dallas.