Keeping with the 80/20 rule (80% plant based/20% everything else) diet guideline that I recently established for myself, I took the dive and went to a vegetarian/vegan restaurant for the first time on Friday. If there’s one thing I learned from others is, it’s that one’s first experience at a vegetarian restaurant can really make it or break it for you. If the place sucks, well, that sets a negative precedent for me to continue on my current path, and if it’s good, well, then there is much promise on working towards that goal on further reducing meat consumption.

Living in a big city does have its benefits. Vegetarian options are plenty and easy to access. For my first comprehensive meatless dining experience, I went to The Chicago Diner. I’ve heard that this is the place to go to if I want to experience great vegetarian or vegan food. After a 25 minute wait, I was led from the back patio waiting area, through the kitchen, and into the loud and croweded dining room at around 9:30pm.  I thought to myself, wow, this place must be good.

I expected to see tofu loving hipsters and treehuggers, nope, all I saw was people of all types enjoying conversation and great food.  Now that I had that misconception out of the way, it was time to dive into the food.

The “Buffalo Wings” – Crispy and spicy and had the texture of meat.  I could eat this stuff everyday.

The Chipotle Firehouse Wrap – My friend ordered this, the “chicken” was pretty good, had a slight chewy texture to it though.

Radical Reuben – This sandwich blew me away.  It was fantastic.  I think if I was blind-folded and given this.  I would have thought it was the most tender corned beef I have ever had.  I don’t think it will be a problem to continue reducing animal meat intake.