Out to Lunch @ COOTIE BROWN'S

I had to leave my lunchbox at home today because there were plans at work for a small group of us to all go out to lunch today and try out this new Thai place that recently opened. Well, I was all excited about it and we all went there only to discover that they are closed on Tuesday! Huh? So, we all jumped back into our cars and hopped over to Cootie Brown's. It's one of my most favorite restaurants because they actually have some delicious vegetarian, and even vegan, choices. It's a locally owned restaurant (actually there are two of them) and it features really off-the-wall decor, outdoor dining and a super delicious menu. In a way, I was glad we ended up going there because it is one of my favorite places to eat. I guess we'll have to save the Thai place for another week.

I ended up ordering something that I had not eaten there before. I ordered the grilled vegetable sandwich. It comes with cheese and basil pesto mayo on it by default, but leaving those two things off makes it vegan. I moved some of the bread out of the way in the picture so you can see all of the vegetables on there. There were big slices of zucchini, squash, roasted red peppers and fresh spinach. It all gets coated with olive oil and garlic and then grilled on a real grill. You can taste the smoke! I expected it to be good, but it was better than good. It was DELICIOUS! It is definitely my new favorite thing to eat there.

The sandwich came with their spiral cut fries on the side. They are vegan because they are just potatoes and they fry them in vegetable oil in their own fryer dedicated to just making these fries so that they don't get any unwanted flavors sneaking in there. If I had wanted to be really good, I could have replaced the fries with a salad for a small additional charge (and their salads are very good), but I felt like being a little bit bad for lunch today.

So eating vegan at Cootie Brown's is both easy and delicious. I definitely recommend it if you ever find yourself in Tennessee in Kingsport or Johnson City. I must admit though, I missed my lunchbox today because I have already gotten used to packing it and enjoying those lunches every day. Oh well, it'll be back with me tomorrow and we'll pick up right where we left off. Thanks for peeking in today and have a GREAT evening! See you Wednesday.