Starting in January, Cafe Hey! started offering a "Not Just for Omnivore's Brunch" on the last Sunday of every month. My first reaction to this news? Hell yes! Sign me up! As a vegetarian who occasionally eats eggs, eating out for breakfast isn't really much of a challenge. But I know my good friend over at Vegan Pandamonium has told me on several occasions that one of the few things she misses since becoming vegan is being able to go out for breakfast. Well thank you Tampa, for continually trying to become more like Portland. One step at a time.So our vegan breakfast options on the first
brunch were: vegan donuts, sausage gravy over biscuits, and 2 types of tofu scramble: one standard, and one tex mex-ish with vegan chorizo. Among my party of three, we all decided we needed to try a vegan donut. There was only one flavor, which I took to be a lemon poppy seed flavor. The donuts were baked, not fried, but had an awesome fluffy texture on the inside. My criticism was: I wish it had some kind of glaze and had been served warm. But I ate the whole thing, casting my criticism aside. I ordered the biscuits and gravy, as this is something I never ate as an omni, but now love as a vegetarian. And I loved the biscuits and gravy at Cafe Hey. Again, only a few small things: I thought the scallion garnish was a little heavy, I ended up scraping most of it off. And my plate came out pretty much room temperature. And the other plates at the table showed up cold. I had bites of the tofu scramble, which were good, but nothing too exciting. Side note: why do restaurants that make tofu scramble not know about nutritional yeast?That being said, this was their first brunch and they were slammed, I mean, crazy busy. The ran out of all the vegan options in 2 hours! I would definitely go back and probably order the same thing. And it's my understanding that they added vegan cinnamon buns and biscuits with strawberry compote to the menu. Even with the criticisms I had, I ate every last bite of my breakfast, it was crazy delicious. So yes, I will be back again. And again. And again. And if you're ever in Tampa on the last Sunday of the month, you should head to Cafe Hey! too.
*Update* So I went back for brunch on 3/25 and it was even better than the first time. All of the food came out perfectly hot. I ordered the biscuits and gravy again, and they toned down the scallion garnish. They also had vegan cinnamon roles and revamped the donuts. Amazing. Definitely check out Cafe Hey.
