V-SPOT FOOD VEGAN RESTAURANT

I’ve been to V-SPOT a few times now and I really, really want to like it. I love supporting 100% vegan places and, on paper, this looked like a great find. But it is overpriced, the food is hit-or-mix, and they are ridiculously inflexible. Here’s the good, bad, and the ugly from my last visit (Mother’s Day weekend brunch): The good: my dish (a vegan take on eggs benedict) was excellent, and my mother’s Tex-Mex style scrambled tofu was also quite good. The ambiance was great; we sat outside and it was a lovely day to soak in the sunshine, enjoy the breeze, and take in some people-watching on the bustling Main Street. The bad: my daughter ordered the brunch-special crepe for her entree…. At $24, we expected a nice big crepe, with plenty of decadent toppings and nice sides like fresh cut fruits, compote, etc. What she got was a tiny crepe with vegan whipped cream and a drizzle of chocolate sauce. Our local crepe place has ONE vegan and gluten free option and it’s still better than this overpriced dud. My wife’s ban-mih was so bland and flavorless that it should’ve called a ban-mid or a ban-meh. (To add insult to injury, Sprig and Vine — located two minutes away — serves the best vegan ban-mih I’ve ever eaten.) Bottom-line: for food that is this overpriced, it is unacceptable that half of the dishes we ordered were mediocre. The ugly: the brunch price was advertised as included one glass of champagne (“two of you ask nicely” said the menu) per person. Nobody in my family drinks alcohol, so we politely asked if they could replace the champagne with literally any other drink so that we could also have the experience of a fun MD brunch beverage. Literally anything— juice, sparkling cider, even seltzer. They refused saying “we don’t allow for substitutions”. When I tried explaining the situation, they again just reiterated (like a robot): we can’t do substitutions. They “helpfully” pointed us towards their iced coffee offerings and mocktail menu and told us we could order something from there (gee thanks for pointing out that I could order something on your menu); we got coffees while my mom ordered a $12 mocktail. It was Mother’s Day— they could have easily said, “since you are not having the champagne, we’ll just comp HER drink…” That could have been a thoughtful gesture and showed some human understanding. Nope. They could have brought us out some apple juice, or heck even some bubbly mineral water, in the champagne glasses. Nope. A comped slice of cake for dessert? Nope. Nothing. No offer to do anything and no flexibility. By the end of the meal, I was so annoyed that I decided — on principle — to have the champagnes that were supposed to be included in our brunch sent to other patrons so that we could at least have the satisfaction of someone enjoying them. I spied a table of two older couples who didn’t seem to have ordered the brunch special, and asked our server to deliver our champagnes to them with our compliments. Guess what? No dice. She said that they couldn’t do that either, citing some policy about not sending alcohol to other people’s tables. And then, the kicker— she says to me: “Don’t worry, sir. I can assure you that we won’t let the champagne go to waste.” Ohhhhh, I’m so happy to find out that the champagne I PAID FOR as part of my meal will be dutifully used (resold) to other patrons of the restaurant. Whew, what a relief! (I was actually tempted to ask her to bring the champagne to our table and then have her watch me as I poured each glass down into the flowerbed near our table… But even I couldn’t muster up that much pettiness.) The verdict: we probably won’t return. There are better vegan places nearby. I could forgive the overpricing were it not for the inflexibility and lack of awareness around customer service.

Everything was so good! Vegan and gluten free options were wonderful and the service was fantastic!

I wanna start off by saying that this is a very beautiful restaurant. Very nice outdoor seating in a very nice location with high expectations for us. Unfortunately, this was not delivered as far as the food and service. We started with a Caesar salad and from the specialty menu we also had the Truffle Brie En Croute. When the Caesar salad came out right away, I could tell this was not gonna be very good very little dressing on top too many hearts not enough green whatsoever. I ordered a side of dressing immediately and was charged for it. Very surprised at that. I guess it is what it is. We ate very little of the Caesar salad. And took it home the server decided to take the rest of the side dressing away from us, and did not put it in the bag . The truffle brie had a very good flavor while the cheese was tasty, it did not have the consistency of cashew cheese that I’m used to wear it actually oozes out and buttery and delicious the gluten-free sliced baguettes on the side were hard as a rock as were the croutons on the salad, I understand gluten-free does have less moisture, that will be taken into account. These seemed like they were cut way ahead of schedule and in the midst of eating our appetizers the Entrees immediately came out, not even halfway through our appetizers We asked the server who is very nice if she could at least cover them or bring them back to the kitchen which she did and then they came out a few minutes later again, 3/4 of the way through our appetizers, I Felt like we were being rushed we arrived there around 6:30, the last seating is not until eight from what I understand. so we let them sit on the table and asked her to cover them. We put the remainder of our appetizers aside because we didn’t want the entrées to get cold, no luck there they were lukewarm, the server said that she will pack up the appetizers for us to take home and again she did not put in the side dressing that they charge me two dollars for. We share everything as we do reviews of many restaurants throughout the tri-state area. She had ordered the beef stroganoff, which was pretty much flavorless. There is nothing wow about this. The portion sizes are fantastic this particular dish is not really aesthetically pleasing half the battle is what the entrée looks like. The other half is the flavor This was a fail other than the portion size, the Kung pow shrimp while it looked nice its and was spicy, yet there was no depth in the flavor whatsoever other than Pepper flakes, the shrimp texture was nice and mimicked shrimp very well, but they were flavorless again no sweet, no soy, no ginger, no vinegar other than red pepper flakes, the rice was watery and had zero flavor whatsoever. The desserts were the highlight of the evening And they were very good. For such a beautiful restaurant, I think they should take another look at their preparation. We almost had the feeling that everyone wanted to get out of there. I understand it’s a Sunday night 6:30 PM and there were very few people in here that should not matter what so ever. Update on this review we did get a an immediate response for our experience. They’re going through a transition. Which I can understand and we will be back for another go, a simple suggestion for a Caesar salad. The many great ones that I have had always had a nice balance of green leaves and the hearts since the hearts are much denser towards the stem and hold more water they should be pulled apart and rationed back into the salad and already dressed and ready to eat Is always a better option, gluten-free croutons can be a tough one because they’re so little moisture the best that I’ve had have been pan tossed in olive oil with a touch of vegan butter and garlic. I will give it an almost grilled grilled cheese consistency ,They can be done ahead of time, but they have to be covered immediately with plastic to hold in the moisture. Just some thoughts..